Host self-esteem in volunteer tourism

Abstract

This research explores the host experience of volunteer tourism and presents a case study of local community farmers in the San Miguel Escobar Cooperative near Antigua, Guatemala. In this study, we sought to understand the adoption of role identities by cooperative farmers in their interactions with volunteer tourists and how this affects notions of self and self-esteem. Borrowing from prominent identity scholarship through the last few decades, we examined the proposition that, through the volunteer tourism experience, the host is able to build efficacy- and worth-based self-esteem. Twelve photo elicitation interviews were conducted with coffee-farming members of the Cooperative. Our paper describes and analyzes the farmers’ journeys through the various roles they engaged in with the visitors. The hosts’ experiences proved to be a journey that bred feelings of nervousness and fear, but positive views of the self and improved self-esteem emerged in the analysis. The results demonstrate the importance of micro-sociological empirical studies of role identities and self-other relationships in volunteer tourism and contributes towards theory building as well.