Tourism Volunteering Research Articles

The value of volunteers in tourism and events: A leadership perspective

ABSTRACT This article is part of a three-year research project on volunteerism and the value for organisations employing volunteers, volunteers themselves and finally the tourists who meet the volunteers in various settings. Employing a mixed methods approach, we conducted a mutual research collaboration between the Danish Destination Management Office (DMO) VisitAarhus and Dania Academy within the Frascati research frame. The focus of this article is on the leaders of the volunteers and how they facilitate the conditions that enable volunteers to create the aforementioned value. This was done through in-depth semi-structured interviews with volunteer leaders from across Europe. We focus specifically on how leaders perceive the volunteers, how they assess the value that the volunteers create and, finally on what motivates the volunteers. The result of this article is a conceptual model that creates insights into the elements that help foster an identity among the volunteers and thereby increases the value that they produce.

Ageing, volunteering and tourism: An Asian perspective

As global populations age, there is need to deepen understanding about old people as both hosts and tourists. This paper draws on critical gerontology to examine the experiences of elderly volunteers at tourism sites in China. Through exploratory interviews with volunteers, we identify the importance of cultural context for understanding the experiences of old people as volunteers and hosts. We argue that Chinese philosophical traditions, combined with eastern collectivist values, shape old people's experiences of involvement in tourism volunteering. This study illustrates the value of critical gerontology for questioning the role tourism plays in both challenging and reinforcing normative ideas about ageing and being old, and the importance of cultural context for understanding elderly people's experiences of tourism.

The sustainable development goals: the contribution of tourism volunteering

The tourism workforce is diverse and the literature exploring workforce issues, whilst limited, largely focuses on remunerated workers. There is recognition that volunteering has a significant role to play in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); however, there is limited literature exploring the role of volunteering relative to the SDGs’ architecture. With reference to the tourism workforce, there is also a noticeable lack of studies exploring how tourism volunteering contributes to realisation of the SDGs. In a first, using the lens of critical tourism, this conceptual paper seeks to holistically explore how tourism volunteering can contribute to SDG realisation from the perspectives of host volunteering and (guest) volunteer tourism. This study maps the potential of both forms relative to the volunteering activities that United Nations Volunteers (UNV) has identified as means by which volunteers can support the SDGs. The findings revealed common areas through which host volunteering and volunteer tourism contribute but taken on the whole, volunteer tourism has the greater potential to contribute to the SDGs as a development agenda. Informed by these findings, we develop six propositions to advance recognition and research relating to the contribution of tourism volunteering to the SDGs.

«Туристическое волонтёрство» и «волонтёрский туризм»: современное состояние и перспективы развития

The article is devoted to the problem of the current state and prospects of development of volunteering in tourism and voluntourism. The correlation between the concepts "volunteering", "volunteering in tourism" and "voluntourism" is disclosed; the short historical information about development of volunteering and voluntourism is given; the examples of classic tourism volunteer movement (participation of volunteers in the Olympic games in China, programs of World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, projects like Hampton Save-A-Landmark, Turtle Teams, Conservation Volunteers, Appalachian Trail Conference, Tourist guide in HF Holidays, Help Exchange, United Nations Volunteers, Move Nepal and others) and tours as part of the voluntourism (international environmental expedition to Costa Rica, lake Baikal, mount Everest, the Inca Trail, programs of The China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda, Inti Wara Yassi, Earthwatch Institute) are described. The fundamental difference between these two different in form and principles of the organization types of the volunteer movement is also formulated. The article describes the present-day state and prospects of development of tourism volunteering in Russia, and among others accentuates activities of Centers for Volunteers Training, Regional centers of the tourism development, Association of volunteer centers, Volunteer tourism center of Moscow. The article presents current tourism programs and projects, which implemented in Russia such as events (sports), museums ("The Hermitage Friends Club", shares the State Darwin Museum, Polytechnical Museum, State Museum of стр. 20 из 206 Gulag History), archeological (projects of Eastern Bosporus archaeological expedition of the RAS and the fund "Archaeology"), environmental ("Great Baikal Trail" and others). At the end the list of recommendations for the development and support of travel volunteering and voluntourism on the territory of the Russian Federation is made.

Developing the Dimensions of Tourism Volunteering

Volunteers within tourism settings are of growing interest. Research to date has been fragmented either focusing on individuals volunteering in their community (i.e., hosts) or tourists volunteering at a destination (i.e., guests). In this paper, the tourism and leisure literature on volunteering is synthesized and the host and guest streams of volunteering critiqued according to four defining dimensions: setting, time commitment, level of obligation, and remuneration. These dimensions are refined using interview data to propose a model of tourism volunteering where host and guest volunteering are related rather than distinct. A simple host-guest dichotomy misses the shared and distinct complexities of tourism volunteering.

Researching volunteers in Tourism: Going beyond

Volunteers make contributions across the breadth of tourism, both as volunteer tourists and as volunteers supporting tourism within their local community, such as through visitor attractions and events. While tourism volunteering as a research field is growing, these two groups of volunteers have largely been considered separately with little crossover of research or researchers. This paper proposes a model of tourism volunteer engagements as a means of conceptualising types of tourism volunteering, settings, and time contributions more holistically and inclusively. Using this model as a framework, we set out the current state of research on tourism volunteering, demonstrating that, to date, researchers have concentrated on key types of tourism volunteering and settings, and within these, focused on dominant time contributions, roles, and perspectives, and prevailing methods and approaches. By identifying gaps in extant research we call for more critical research and challenge researchers to ‘go beyond’ and create a wider‐ranging and more inclusive research agenda. By taking up the challenge to ‘go beyond’ we argue that this nascent research field can mature and indeed develop a wider‐ranging and more inclusive research agenda that embraces both the diversity and commonalities of tourism volunteering.

Volunteering in Tourism: Additional Thinking

This article provides a conceptual discussion regarding the phenomenon in which volunteer activity and tourism are intertwined. First, it is suggested that the phenomenon of volunteering in tourism could be grasped as an expression of the so called “other” postmodern tourism. Second, it is argued that the notion of volunteering in tourism needs to be expanded beyond volunteering guests and include hosts who volunteer in the local tourism industry. Third, it is proposed that in addition to the notion of volunteer tourism as leverage for self-development, volunteers in tourism may also enhance their self-image and utilize their volunteer activity for self-presentation purposes. Fourth, it is argued that nature and results of the host-guest encounter may vary according to the different settings in which the phenomenon of volunteering in tourism occurs.