A Community Perspective on Volunteer Tourism and Development in South Africa
A Community Perspective on Volunteer Tourism and Development in South Africa

Author: Erika Denise Nelson

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13:

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Since 1994, South Africa has become a major destination for volunteer tourism, an international phenomenon combining post-modern paradigms of civic engagement and alternative travel. Organizers claim that such service establishes reciprocity in traveler-host relations, transcends the impersonal nature of mass tourism, and contributes to sustainable development. This thesis draws from interviews and participatory methods at three case studies to evaluate these assertions from the community perspective. Results reveal that counter to popular assumptions, NGOs, providers and volunteers often fail to address local needs, contribute to poverty alleviation, or empower host communities. Unprepared travelers can inadvertently undermine local control in a way that perpetuates existing power structures. While the combination of travel and service has the potential to be transformational for both volunteers and South African communities, an elemental change in approach and priorities is needed before the goal of a new era of solidarity, service and post-development can be realized.

Volunteer Tourism in the Global South
Volunteer Tourism in the Global South

Author: Wanda Vrasti

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 0415694027

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This work explores the increasingly popular phenomenon of volunteer tourism in the Global South, paying particular attention to the governmental rationalities and socio-economic conditions that valorise it as a noble and necessary cultural practice. Combining theoretical research with primary data gathered during volunteering programs in Guatemala and Ghana, the author argues that although volunteer tourism may not trigger social change, provide meaningful encounters with difference, or offer professional expertise, as the brochure discourse and the scholarly literature on tourism and hospitality often promises, the formula remains a useful strategy for producing the subjects and social relations neoliberalism requires. Vrasti suggests that the value of volunteer tourism should not to be assessed in terms of the goods and services it delivers to the global poor, but in terms of how well the practice disseminates entrepreneurial styles of feeling and action. Analysing the key effects of volunteer tourism, it is demonstrated that far from being a selfless and history-less rescue act, volunteer tourism is in fact a strategy of power that extends economic rationality, particularly its emphasis on entrepreneurship and competition, to the realm of political subjectivity. Volunteer Tourism in the Global South provides a unique and innovative analysis of the relationship between the political and personal dimensions of volunteer tourism and will be of great interest to scholars and students of international relations, cultural geography, tourism, and development studies.

Volunteer Tourism
Volunteer Tourism

Author: Stephen Wearing

Publisher: CABI

Published: 2001-01-01

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9780851997650

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Volunteer tourism describes a field of tourism, in which travelers visit a destination and take part in projects in the local community. Projects are commonly nature-based, people-based or involve restoration of buildings and artifacts (e.g. restoration of a Buddhist temple inMongolia).

Ours to Explore
Ours to Explore

Author: Pippa Biddle

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2021-06

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1640124772

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In a 2014 essay that went viral, Pippa Biddle revealed the inequities and absurdities baked into voluntourism--the pairing of short-term, unskilled volunteer work with tourism. In the years since, Biddle has devoted herself to understanding the origins, intentions, and outcomes of a multibillion-dollar industry built on the premise of doing good, and she tracks that investigation in Ours to Explore. The flaws of voluntourism have included xenophobia, racism, paternalism, and a "West knows best" mentality. From exploitative orphanages that keep children in squalid conditions to attract donors to undertrained medical volunteers practicing their skills on patients in developing regions and to those looking for an inspiring selfie, Biddle reveals the hidden costs of the voluntourism complex. Along the way, readers meet inspiring activists and passionate community members, as well as thoughtful former voluntourists who still work to make a difference--just differently. Ours to Explore offers a plan for how the service-based travel industry can break the cycle of exploitation and suggests strategies for travelers who want to improve the places they visit for the long haul.

Journeys of Discovery in Volunteer Tourism
Journeys of Discovery in Volunteer Tourism

Author: Kevin D. Lyons

Publisher: CABI

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1845933818

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Offers an insight into how volunteer tourism is growing and developing. This title includes case studies from researchers in the field which explore the experiences of the volunteer tourist and the relationships between volunteers and host communities and commercial, non-commercial and government entities involved in volunteer tourism.

Southern African Perspectives on Sustainable Tourism Management
Southern African Perspectives on Sustainable Tourism Management

Author: Jarkko Saarinen

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-05-31

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 303099435X

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This edited collection focuses on tourism development, sustainability and local change in southern Africa. The book offers a range of both conceptual and applied perspectives that address various changes in southern African tourism and community development relations. The key drivers of change that include climate change and globalization form the context for the diverse and interesting set of case studies from the region. The main conceptual grounds of the book cover sustainability, sustainable development goals (SDGs), responsibility, vulnerability, adaptation, resilience, governance, local development and inclusive growth. In this book sustainability is seen as one of the most important issues currently facing the tourism sector, affecting all types and scales of tourism operations and environments in the region. Tourism is an increasingly important economy in the southern African region and the industry is creating changes for communities and environment while also facing major challenges caused by global trends and changes. The book offers a case study driven approach to sustainability needs of tourism development in local community contexts. The case study chapters are linked through the book’s focus on sustainable tourism and local community development. Through emphasizing the need to understand both global change and local contexts in sustainable tourism development, this book is a valuable resource for all those working in the field.

Iscontour 2022 Tourism Research Perspectives
Iscontour 2022 Tourism Research Perspectives

Author: Christian Maurer

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2022-05-16

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 3756261573

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The International Student Conference in Tourism Research (ISCONTOUR) offers students a unique platform to present their research and establish a mutual knowledge transfer forum for attendees from academia, industry, government and other organisations. The annual conference, which is jointly organized by the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems and the Management Center Innsbruck, takes place alternatively at the locations Krems and Innsbruck. The conference research chairs are Prof. (FH) Mag. Christian Maurer (University of Applied Sciences Krems) and Prof. (FH) Mag. Hubert Siller (Management Center Innsbruck). The target audience include international bachelor, master and PhD students, graduates, lecturers and professors from the field of tourism and leisure management as well as businesses and anyone interested in cutting-edge research of the conference topic areas. The proceedings of the 9th International Student Conference in Tourism Research include a wide variety of research topics, ranging from consumer behaviour, tourist experience, information and communication technologies, marketing, destination management, and sustainable tourism management.

Natural Resources, Tourism and Community Livelihoods in Southern Africa
Natural Resources, Tourism and Community Livelihoods in Southern Africa

Author: Moren T. Stone

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-11-19

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1000763714

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This book examines the connections between natural resources, tourism and community livelihood practices in Southern Africa, highlighting the successes and constraints experienced over the last 50 years. Questioning how natural resources, tourism and community livelihoods relations can positively contribute towards development efforts, this book adopts an interdisciplinary approach to understand socio-ecological systems that characterize the dynamics for sustainable development. It explores the history of conservation and natural resource management in Southern Africa and traces the development and growth of nature-based tourism. Boasting a wide range of tourism landscapes, including national parks, wetlands, forests and oceans, the book draws on case studies from a variety of Southern African countries, including Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, and considers the political challenges for implementing policies and practices. Furthermore, it analyses broader issues such as the impact of climate change, human–wildlife co-existence and resulting conflicts, poor access to funding and poverty in local communities. The book argues that the links between conservation and livelihoods can be best understood by considering the different approaches to reconciling the demands of conservation and livelihoods that have evolved over the past decades. Containing contributions from natural and social sciences the book provides guidance for practitioners and policymakers to continue to shape policies and practices that are in line with the key tenets of sustainable development. It will also be of great interest to students and scholars researching Southern Africa, sustainable tourism and conservation.

Perspectives on Volunteering
Perspectives on Volunteering

Author: Jacqueline Butcher

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-08-10

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 3319398997

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​This volume overlooks the distinct expressions and awareness of volunteering in the lived reality of people from different regions of the world. By casting the net widely this book not only expands the geographic reach of experiences, models and case studies but also transcends the conventional focus on formal volunteering. It highlights institutional forms of volunteering specific to developing nations and also describes volunteering that is more loosely institutionalized, informal, and a part of solidarity and collective spirit. As a result this book provides a different look at the values, meaning, acts and expressions of volunteering. The chapters in this book consist of essays and case studies that present recent academic research, thinking and practice on volunteering. Working from the premise that volunteering is universal this collection draws on experiences from Latin America, Africa including Egypt, and Asia. This book focuses on developing countries and countries in transition in order to provide a fresh set of experiences and perspectives on volunteering. While developing countries and countries in transition are in the spotlight for this volume, the developed country experience is not ignored. Rather the essays use it as a critical reference point for comparisons, allowing points of convergence, disconnect and intersection to emerge.

Iscontour 2023 Tourism Research Perspectives
Iscontour 2023 Tourism Research Perspectives

Author: Christian Maurer

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2023-05-10

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 3757870166

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The International Student Conference in Tourism Research (ISCONTOUR) offers students a unique platform to present their research and establish a mutual knowledge transfer forum for attendees from academia, industry, government and other organisations. The annual conference, which is jointly organized by the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems and the Management Center Innsbruck, takes place alternatively at the locations Krems and Innsbruck. The conference research chairs are Prof. (FH) Mag. Christian Maurer (University of Applied Sciences Krems) and Prof. (FH) Mag. Hubert Siller (Management Center Innsbruck). The target audience include international bachelor, master and PhD students, graduates, lecturers and professors from the field of tourism and leisure management as well as businesses and anyone interested in cutting-edge research of the conference topic areas. The proceedings of the 10th International Student Conference in Tourism Research include a wide variety of research topics, ranging from consumer behaviour, tourist experience, information and communication technologies, marketing, destination management, and sustainable tourism management.