Voluntary Tourism

Activities

Volunteer tourism is experienced through exploring a different approach in the

tourism industry. By taking volunteer tourism and investigating the more significant

impacts it can have on the individual and on their lifestyle. In the context of

volunteer tourism activities, I have classified them into 5 major groups of volunteer

tourism. Each group of these tourists have their specialty and uniqueness in

performing their tasks. The groups are traditional volunteering, Internship or Gap

year volunteering, Voluntourism, and online volunteering1.

Each group has their own way of participating in the tour. Mostly, all volunteer

tourists have a set of responsibilities that they should accomplish by the end of the

travel period. It can be considered that they are merely classified as an unpaid

travelling volunteer. For all the groups mentioned above, they plays a different role

than the others. Firstly, the group of traditional volunteering is like we have to join

any local Non-Governmental Organizations and work on one of their projects be it

directly with beneficiaries or in office or a fundraiser. These projects can be as short

as a few hours or as long as one year or longer. You may wish to spend your

birthday at the local orphanage and that would be a one-day volunteering. But you

may choose to teach them and thus visiting them regularly by making it a long-term

association.

Secondly, Internship or Gap Year Volunteering is specialized for student all over the

world. Nowadays, there are more and more students who turns to join in the

volunteering with NGO’s as their preferred internship and gap-year option. Working

1 http://www.volunteerweekly.org/types-of-volunteering-activities

in the development sector provides valuable career experience and skills useful in

placements. Since in this case you will be working there are also many volunteer

management agencies that can place you with reliable NGOs but they may charge a

fee for this service. Thirdly, Voluntourism is a form of volunteerism in tourism where

it is open to all people from anywhere from the world without any age barrier.

Volun-Tourism or volunteer travel is a great way of combining tourism and

volunteering. It provides the unique opportunity to see a place as an insider, live

with locals and get access to many behind-the-scene activities in an area.

Lastly, is Online Volunteering The world-wide-web has made geographical boundary

non-existent in many aspects. Online volunteering makes it possible to volunteer for

different organizations in different countries from your home or office and at your

convenience. Projects may involve helping with social media, website or designing

some material, mentoring youth, proof-reading articles, and translations.

In general, all these groups under volunteer tourism are playing the role to help the

local communities by uplifting their standards in education, technology

advancement and many more. The main objective of each volunteer tourist is to

perform any services that can benefit the people in need. According to (Wanda

Vrasti, 2012, Volunteer Tourism in the Global South: Giving Back in Neoliberal Times

Google eBook) the extract below,

“San Anders could be regarded as failed volunteer tourism destination.

Volunteers found their work to be menial and pointless and San Anders not ‘poor

enough’ to require foreign assistance”. 2

2 (Wanda Vrasti, Volunteer Tourism in the Global South: Giving Back in Neoliberal Times Google eBook, 2012)

We can make an assumption that not all places are poor and need volunteer

tourists. Therefore, the activities to be carried out at these places are lesser which

results in fewer tourists volunteering to serve at these places. It is clear that,

volunteer tourism mainly emphasized on their activities solely and not luxury and

pleasure.

Mode of travel and Shelter

Mostly all the volunteer tourists will be attached to some organizations that they are

going to participate in with. Many of them will go on the contract of apprentices,

where they will be only supported with accommodation and food and beverages.

Almost all projects do not allocate any incentives for the volunteer tourists. This is

because they choose to gain experience by participating in the organizations

projects which will be carried out at a certain place for some period of time. As a

reward they will be getting a certificate of appreciation and the valuable experience

gained throughout the project. The volunteer tourists will be travelling by many

means from sky to land and sea across all boundaries. Some rural places requires

them to even walk for some miles.

In the context of the volunteer tourist’s shelter, they will be provided by the

organization that they are attached to and it will be exactly the same as how the

local community lives. Mostly, it will not have all the facilities but will fulfill the basic

need of a person. There are also many sorts of shelters for the volunteer tourists for

example like a campsite, a house, chalet and etc. All this experience will build a

strong motivation to the volunteer tourists to accomplish their mission.