Voluntourism

In the past 20 years, there has been a strong call to service that has been answered enthusiastically across the borders of age, gender, and nationality. Coupled with a desire to travel the world, service minded individuals have begun to search for volunteer opportunities that transcend the traditional molds of volunteerism by seeking international volunteer projects. This pursuit has spawned a new segment of the tourism industry that marries service opportunities with classical international travel: voluntourism. While program operators and participants alike tout the unique opportunities of voluntourism, this combination of service and travel presents some potentially troubling complications that center around the identity of the participant as alternately “volunteer” and “customer”. Further challenges arise when considering the cultural implications of voluntourism.

An initial concern with voluntourism is the treatment of the participant as both a customer and a volunteer. These two labels necessitate different treatment of a person in regards to compensation for investment. The volunteer is thought of as someone who is making a social investment in others by donating their time and work efforts and traditionally, this implies that the person is not seeking compensation. However, voluntourism participants have made a monetary investment in addition to the investment of their time and work efforts, and are seen by the voluntourism industry primarily as customers. Often, volunteers pay a high participation fee in addition to travel, food, and lodging costs and expect a return on their investment in the program. This unfortunately can turn an otherwise selfless experience into one motivated by economics. The experiences sought by volunteers, and promised by tour operators, go beyond everyday service projects in order to justify the often exorbitant expense of the program. The idea that one must pay a certain price to help others is quite counterintuitive to the volunteer philosophy. Implied is the idea that those who can afford to pay high prices will come away with more valuable service experiences.

A second critical challenge the voluntourism industry involves the consideration, or lack thereof, of historically sensitive topics, including colonialism and local sovereignty. Aside from basic culture shock that is to be expected when traveling to any foreign country, participants need to be aware of the host country’s political and social history, which may not reflect favorably on the white Western clientele who make up the majority of volunteer travelers. Oftentimes, in an attempt to lure participants to an exotic and lucrative location, voluntourism companies hastily arrange projects that are ignorant to the local political, social and economic climate. This can leave participants in uncomfortable, polarizing situations where good intentions come off as ignorant or patriarchal. Tour operators and participants need to consider that the projects they work on could be viewed as meddling in local affairs or further colonial interference. Responsible tour operators and volunteers should avoid projects that undermine local cultural, political, and economic sovereignty. Furthermore, volunteers could run into trouble if local citizens view the volunteer projects as having a low priority to the community or if volunteers displace able, competent local workers. In addition to being culturally sensitive, an ideal project for both volunteers and the community would be one that is a necessary and high priority for the community, provides skilled labor that is otherwise unavailable, and takes a significant financial burden off of the benefactors.

If the logistical, financial and cultural considerations for the responsible participant seem daunting, it is precisely because they are. Fully trusting an unregulated, perhaps culturally ill-informed industry to supply a socially meaningful experience is at best naïve and at worst financially and socially reckless. The ordinary service minded traveler would do well to keep their volunteering domestic and when they do travel abroad, travel intelligently by supporting local industry and making cultural interaction a priority.