prostitution and environmental protection, there is little evidence of local communities having the education, knowledge or resources to have any effect in protecting their country as a tourist/leisure site, either for themselves or for more responsible visiting tourists.
Tour operators from developed nations could be said to view tourism as an arena where individuals have certain autonomy over their lives, free from the disciplines of work and the responsibilities of home. However, as Clarke and Critcher (1985: 16) classify it in politico-economic terms: the choice of what appears to the consumer as a multiplicity of tourism experiences is fundamentally only competing brands of leisure goods.
It must be asked as to whether it is possible for alternative tourism experiences legitimately to incorporate an ethos that diverges from the forms of tourism discussed above. If demonstrable alternatives to market driven tourism ideologies are identifiable, there may in fact then be a considerable range of scope for the provision of forms of tourism experience with significantly divergent outcomes. These may take the form of alternative infrastructure and pricing mechanisms, increased community involvement or lower forms of impact. It is within this context that this book desires to place volunteer tourism.
To a large extent, individual preconceptions of travel destinations are based on information found in a variety of media utilized in the marketing of destinations — such as television, films, DVDs, print advertising in newspapers and magazines, brochures and the Internet. Many organizations that fit within the volunteer tourism context, however, rely on interactions with people actively involved with the programmes. Therefore, in both instances, socially constructed and culturally determined perceptions of ‘difference’ appropriate to specific social arenas are shared through the internalization of the representational forms. As Urry states:
Thus, what is portrayed as seemingly natural is in fact in the process of historical and contemporary construction through a complex system of mass media and social interaction. When this process becomes dominated by operators focussed on selling by volume, as in the case of mass tourism, there can be a distancing of the tourist from the reality of the visit, particularly visits to developing countries on which they have little information.
(Urry, 2002)
Of course, where large numbers of tourists are involved, more indirect communication of information is achieved through various forms of mass media. In the case of mass tourism, a code of ethics for tourists could possibly be sent to the intending tourist to ensure a better awareness of the issues surrounding their travel destination (e.g. Weiler & Johnson, 1991: 125; Wearing et al.,
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