of identity and an endless need to follow the latest dictates of big business and tourist markets. Local destination communities are consumed under the guise of a legitimate altruistic activity rather than leading to awareness and appreciation of culture, nature and discovery of the travel—self link. This commodified version of volunteer tourism therefore does not legitimize the rights of the host community as an entity with its own history and sense of place, but rather provides another source of consumption that will actually endanger the very communities and environments the volunteer tourist seeks to protect. Further, the volunteer tourists themselves are com-plicit in this consumption and commodifying process and are then the economic ‘units’ targeted by the industry.
The Growth in Volunteer Tourism
Volunteer tourism is a rapidly growing phenomenon (Bakker & Lamoureux, 2008; Tourism Research and Marketing, 2008). A survey of over 300 volunteer tourism agencies worldwide indicated the market has grown to a total of 1.6 million volunteer tourists a year, with a value of £832 million-1.3 billion (US$1.7–2.6 billion) (Tourism Research and Marketing, 2008). However, accurately estimating volunteer tourism activity is difficult due to the diversity in volunteer and travel activities. According to Tourism Research and Marketing (2008: 5), volunteer tourism involves a combination of travel and voluntary (unpaid) work. At present, the majority of agencies providing volunteer tourism products are not-for-profit; however, there has been a steady increase in the number of commercial ventures now entering the market. Their activities (volunteer tourism agencies) have a considerable impact on the countries served, not only in terms of the fees paid directly to them by participants, but also because the volunteer travellers spend much larger sums of money funding their total travel plans — an average of over US$3000 a trip in 2007 (Tourism Research and Marketing, 2008: 5).
Other findings from the Tourism Research and Marketing (2008) report into volunteer tourism include:
• Volunteer tourists are more likely to be women than men.
• Seventy per cent of volunteer tourists are aged between 20 and 25.
• Motivations for volunteer travel include a mixture of volunteering, exploring other cultures, and working and studying abroad.
• Many volunteer tourists source their own placements once they arrive at their destination.
• Ninety per cent of volunteer tourists travel to Latin America, Africa or Asia.
Volunteer tourism encompasses a range of types including international gap-year travel, international volunteer development work, environmental project volunteering and travel that includes both tourism and volunteering. International gap-year travel has emerged as a significant player in global youth tourism in recent years. A ‘gap-year’ is defined as a nominal period during which a person delays further education or employment in order to travel (Millington, 2005). Although this interlude may be experienced at any point across the lifespan, it is within the period of late adolescence and early adulthood that the gap-year experience has become most popular. In Australia, the gap-year concept has only recently developed traction. Products designed for what has been evocatively branded by one major commercial travel service provider as the ‘Big Year Out’ are beginning to feature in commercial travel service providers’ promotional materials targeting young Australians.
In the UK, the international ‘gap travel’ sector is much more mature, having grown to become a significant element of outbound tourism, which is supported by an industry of commercial and NGO provider organizations (Simpson, 2004). In 2005, the gap-year in the UK was valued at £5 billion per annum with predictions that it will rise to £20 billion by 2015 (Ward, 2007).
Gap-year travel describes a wide array of activities. Some of these are considered hedonistic (Simpson, 2004), such as the popular and sometimes infamous budget coach-touring through Europe. Other forms of gap-year travel such as longer-term independent travel have also been criticized as a form of dropping out and escape (West, 2005). In recent years, there has been growing interest among young people in gap-year volunteer tourism. Gap-year volunteer tourists are those who use their gap-year to volunteer on a wide range of projects, particularly in the area of community development.
Volunteer Tourism and Pro-poor Tourism
The worldwide interest and growth in volunteer tourism over the last 20 years has also proved to be fertile ground for the phenomenon of PPT (Hall, 2007; Meyer, 2007; Goodwin, 2008; Harrison, 2008; Suntikul et al., 2009; Theer-apappisit, 2009). While conceptually volunteer tourism and PPT are often seen as discrete elements of the tourism sector, in practice each overlap and interact in various ways.
Sustainable tourism researchers and practitioners often argue that tourism, if conducted sustainably, has the potential to reduce poverty in developing countries (Suntikul et al., 2009). However, it has only been since the early 1990s that a specific response to this goal has taken shape in the form of PPT. The principle of PPT is the following:
Tourism that generates net profits for the poor … (it) is not a specific product or sector of tourism, but an approach to the industry … PPT strategies aim to unlock opportunities for the poor — whether for economic gain, other livelihood benefits, or participation in decision making.
(Ashley et al., 2000: 2)
In many ways, PPT overlaps with ecotourism and sustainable tourism more generally in its approach to provide sustainable development for local communities so that they might achieve a higher standard of living. The difference between PPT and other forms of tourism such as volunteer and ecotourism is that PPT focuses on countries in the less developed South. ‘Poverty is the core focus, rather than one element of (mainly environmental) sustainability’ (Ashley et al., 2001: viii).
The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has become committed to exploring ways in which tourism can contribute to the well-being of poor communities and their environment. ‘The World Tourism Organization is convinced that the power of tourism — one of the most dynamic economic activities of our time — can be more effectively harnessed to address problems of poverty more directly’ (UNWTO, 2012: 1). Using tourism as a tool to reduce poverty makes sense given that international tourism makes important contributions to the economies of developing countries, particularly to foreign exchange earnings, employment and Gross Domestic Product (Roe & Urquhart, 2001: 3). The focus of PPT is generally economic benefits. Therefore, strategies attempt to achieve outcomes with this goal and include expanding business and employment opportunities for the poor, enhancing collective benefits, capacity building, training and empowerment (Roe & Urquhart, 2001: 5–6).
An important aspect of the success of PPT projects is volunteers, generally from developed countries. An exemplary organization that provides opportunities for volunteering and development in disadvantaged communities is Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), which is an international development charity that works through volunteers. The majority of volunteers are skilled professionals with an average age of 41. Volunteers work on a range of projects with the aim of imparting their knowledge and skills to locals. Placements are typically 2 years, with some projects in communities being up to 12 months long (Voluntary Service Overseas, 2012).
Book Outline
Chapter 2 examines alternative tourism experiences and how tourists themselves construct them, then contextualizes the
