Summary: This book revisits and further develops the topics and themes covered in Volunteer Tourism: Experiences That Make a Difference, written over 10 years ago. Concentrating on the experience of the volunteer tourist and the host community, this new edition builds on the view of volunteer tourism as a positive and sustainable form of tourism to examine a broader spectrum of behaviours and experiences and consider critically where the volunteer tourist experience both compliments and collides with host communities, using multiple case studies. The book has nine chapters and a subject index.

Designed to promote reflection and 'better practices' among the prospective volunteers and organizers of travel-for-service experiences, International Volunteer Tourism provides narratives on short-term international volunteering in Central America written by North American organizers, student participants and Central American partners.

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).

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.

Just a generation ago the notion that holidays should be invested with ethical and political significance would have sounded odd. Today it is part of the lifestyle political landscape. Volunteer tourism is indicative of the growth of lifestyle strategies intended to exhibit care and responsibility towards others less fortunate, strategies aligned closely with developing one’s ethical identity and sense of global responsibility. It sits alongside telethons, pay-per-click, Fair Trade and ethical consumption generally as a way to “make a difference”. Volunteer tourism involves a personal mission to address the political question of development. It draws upon the private virtues of care and responsibility and disavows political narratives beyond this. Critics argue that this leaves the volunteers as unwitting carriers of damaging neoliberal or postcolonial assumptions, whilst advocates see it as offering creative and practical ways to build a new ethical politics. By contrast, this volume analyses volunteer tourism as indicative of a retreat from public politics into the realm of private experience, and as an expression of diminished political and moral agency. This thought provoking book draws on development, political and sociological theory and is essential reading for students, researchers and academics interested in the phenomenon of volunteer tourism and the politics of lifestyle that it represents.

Crossing disciplinary and chronological boundaries, Volunteer Tourism: Popular Humanitarianism in Neoliberal Times is the first full-length treatment of volunteer tourism from a longitudinal ethnographic perspective. Volunteer tourism, one of the fastest growing niche tourism markets in the world, is a type of tourism in which tourists pay to participate in conservation, humanitarian or development oriented projects. Volunteer Tourism is a comprehensive and comparative study of the perspectives of Thai host community members, NGO practitioners and international volunteer tourists. The book thus shines an ethnographic lens onto the complexities and contradictions of the volunteer tourism experience in northern Thailand. Drawing on cross-disciplinary perspectives in geography and anthropology as well as development, tourism and cultural studies, Volunteer Tourism illustrates how a focus on sentimentality in the volunteer tourism encounter obscures the structural inequalities on which the experience is based. Such a focus situates volunteer tourism within the commodification and sentimentalization of development and global justice agendas, which hail the new moral consumer and reframe questions of structural inequality as questions of individual morality. As a result, albeit inadvertently, the practice of volunteer tourism serves the continued expansion of the cultural logics and economic practices of neoliberalism.

Volunteer Tourism is one of the major growth areas in contemporary tourism, where tourists for various reasons seek alternative goodwill experiences and activities. To meet this demand there has been a surge in volunteer programmes offered in range of destinations organized by a variety of charities and tour operators which is predicted to continue to grow in the future. Volunteer Tourism provides an in-depth analysis of the complex issues associated with traditional and contemporary volunteer tourism. Reflecting the growth in this phenomenon, this book provides a cohesive collection of chapters written from a range of international expert scholars and researchers. The theoretically rich, practically applied and empirically grounded contributions are based on current and diverse research in the area. This groundbreaking volume explores topics which have not been addressed in the literature before, such as the impact on host communities, introducing new areas and ideas to the field. The diverse range of themes are identified and addressed, including volunteer tourism and sustainability to, uniquely, the examination of volunteer tourism stakeholders – volunteers themselves, the host-to-guest exchange, and the organizations – and management of volunteers. These themes are examined in a range of international case studies, demonstrating the wide range of issues associated with volunteer tourism. This volume is a timely addition offering an innovative approach to the area. Volunteer Tourism will be of interest to both students and researchers interested in tourism, leisure and development, as well as non-academics, practitioners, NGOs government officials at all levels.

This timely handbook examines the most contemporary, controversial and cutting-edge issues related to the involvement of volunteers in the fields of events, sport and tourism. Split into thematic sections, the primary areas covered include: key disciplinary approaches to understanding volunteerism, international contexts, managing volunteers, the impacts and legacies of volunteering and future trends in these sectors including online and digital volunteering. Commonalities and differences of volunteering in these sectors are drawn out throughout the volume. A diverse range of case studies are examined including the 2007 UEFA Under 21 Championship hosted by Poland, the development of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the Vancouver, London and Pyeong Chang Olympic Games, Belgium’s National Day in 2019, the Puffing Billy railway in Australia, as well as many other examples looking at destination services organizations, museums, grassroots associations, corporate events, community events and visitor attractions. Drawing on the academic and practical expertise of over 50 authors from across the globe, the handbook provides an invaluable resource for all those with an interest in volunteering in these sectors, encouraging dialogue across disciplinary boundaries and areas of study in order to advance volunteering research and practice in the fields of events, sport and tourism.

Sport volunteering is becoming an increasingly popular motive for international travel. Many tourism organisations now advertise sport volunteering projects, with colleges and universities also offering students the opportunity to participate in similar projects abroad. This is the first book to bring together diverse and interdisciplinary insights into the development of the contemporary sport volunteering phenomenon. It addresses conceptual uncertainties and challenges emerging from the growing international sport volunteering market, and offers insight into its future directions, impact and sustainability. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, Part I examines volunteering in the context of international sporting events, while Part II evaluates volunteering initiatives related to sport development. Including case studies from Australia, Cameroon, Namibia, Norway, Russia, the UK, the US and Zambia, this substantial volume provides a truly international perspective on the changing roles of sport volunteering. Showcasing the latest research from across the globe, International Sports Volunteering is a valuable resource for any course on sport studies, sport event management, sport development, sport tourism, sport geography, the sociology of sport or leisure studies.