Volunteer Tourism: Still Some Way to Go

During the summer of 2015, in collaboration with my father’s association, my father and I collected money in order to set-up a tree plantation next to asset of dormitories for young girls that the organization had built a few years earlier in Benin. Together with the organization, we first asked the local community what they were in need of. The community asked for a tree plantation due to the need for strong construction wood and fruit. Therefore, a local arboriculturist was hired to make a plan, a piece of land was purchased from the government, the trees were bought, and the local arborists started planting and taking care of the trees together with the girls from the dormitories and some locals who had a stake in the project.

It was thus their project. We stayed for three weeks and these were very intense; I experienced another way of living, another culture, different places than what I am used to, etc., but we also spend a lot of time traveling and seeing places.

Constructing Personality

Volunteer tourists often cite personal development as their motivation, broadening perspectives, becoming more multicultural, wanting to help those in need, etc. These motivations are quite egocentric and this reduces to a certain extent the effect cultural exchange could have on each other. It is the opposite of what volunteer tourism promotes. Wearing (2001) explains that often the most important effect of volunteer tourism is the development of one’s self, of becoming aware of oneself, of becoming a person who has seen and experienced a lot,

but whatever the tourist learns has to be learned in a short time on the spot (Wearing, 2001). Therefore, interactions are often quite superficial. The fact that tourists are also on a “holiday” means that they will spend some time traveling to see nature, , and attractions. This limits deep and meaningful cultural exchange. The positive effect of identity development is mainly for the tourists and less for the community.

Tourism is not only about traveling, seeing new places and meeting new cultures. Tourism can also destruct places, monuments, natures, and cultures.

Evidence of the superficiality of volunteer tourism is, as explained by Ver Beek (2006), that often tourists do not engage much with sustainability and humanitarian behavior after they come back home (Ver Beek, 2006). When an experience is so deeply revealing, there is the expectation for a certain change in behavior and patterns, but this is often not noticeable in volunteer tourists. 

The reason I personally took my trip to Benin in 2015 was mainly because during my tourism bachelor, I was faced with the less romanticized reality of tourism. Tourism is not only about traveling, seeing new places and meeting new cultures. Tourism can also destruct places, monuments, natures, and cultures. Guilt was the main reason why I wanted to set up the project.

At the same time, since my father has built schools in small villages in Africa and South America, I was also aware of the image others would have of me. I wanted to differentiate myself from others. In addition, I wanted to visit new places, meet new cultures and understand tourism outside of Europe. It was thus to construct an identity which would be appreciated by others and myself. 

The activities, of course, come from good intentions. When deciding to go on a volunteering trip, tourists do not necessarily think they are imposing “the western way of doing” on the host community. However, to a certain extent, this is what happens. Westerners decide what the project will be, how it will be developed and who will take care of it. It is the imposition of western culture, values, and norms on a completely different culture.

In her thesis, Garrison (2015) explains how volunteers are often not trained, prepared and experienced enough to be able to sustainably (in the environmental, economic or cultural sense) achieve what they are coming to do. “Experts” and those leading the tourists might also lack some knowledge as they might be very competent in the western culture, but lack knowledge about the culture they are going to.

The author adds that these types of experiences often impose western values on the communities, the western mindset is then not only reflected in the understanding of the culture and the people, but also in the acts. This leads to disempowerment of the community and to a certain extent, the loss of identity through the imposition of another (Garrison, 2015).

During our stay, we also saw projects that had been done by big organizations that sell volunteer tourism and which had been completely abandoned. There was a vegetable garden which had been set up a few years ago which had now gone ruin. The school teacher of the village explained that the organization came with students, asked where they could start a garden and started with the help of some locals to build it. They brought their own western specialists with them, who ironically explained to the locals how to operate, and they also decided to plant vegetables which had a good reputation in Europe.

When the tourists left to go back home, the vegetables did not grow well and the locals did not take care of the garden. The teacher explained this was because locals already had gardens with vegetables which they actually were able to use. 

Rich and Poor, Powerful and Powerless 

These types of trips, in which two or more different cultures interact with each other, help the reinforcement of already existing gaps between people and cultures. The most important gaps that can be seen are those between rich and poor, between intellectual and worker, and between powerful and powerless. As Vellas and Becherel (1995) explain, during the contact that occurs when the host community encounters the guests, the differences in lifestyle and in culture clash. As the aim of volunteer tourists is to interact as it is part of the experience, the gaps cannot be managed as easily as when there is a large distance between stakeholders (Vellas and Becheral, 1995).

Discourse is very important in how it shapes the relationship between the host and the guests. Volunteer tourists are acknowledged as ones who go to help the ones in need, as ones who can afford this compared to those who can’t, as those who know how it should be done compared to those who don’t (McKenna, 2016).

During my trip to Benin, the difference between rich and poor was very important during the interactions I had. As the host community already had an idea of me as being rich, they kept referring to it by saying: “Yes, but you are rich, you live in Europe.” I am not necessarily a poor person, but I am not rich either. The remark was therefore offending in a sense, but understandable. I found myself also thinking how the “king” of the village was an old poor man living in a small house with his whole family while he had such an important title. So, as they thought that people from Europe are all rich as they “own” a house, a car, advanced technology, etc., I thought they were poor as they did not have their own bedrooms, a car or a computer. to understand, we all needed to be open-minded to be able to understand how each situation could be compared. Our cultures and lifestyles being so different, there was an important need to mutually explain what these were in order to be able to reduce the gaps between the expectations. 

Volunteer tourism

At the beginning of this paper, I said that there are quite a few positive effects of volunteer tourism on society, the environment, and culture. No tourists participate in such trips with the intention to hurt in any way the place and community they are going to. It is because of how tourism is shaped (in a consumer world), that consequences such as cultural imposition, lack of knowledge about the place to be visited, reinforcement of already existing gaps, and cultural exchange that is less pronounced than expected by locals and tourists still happen.

After numerous studies on the topic, some adaptations have already been made to volunteering programs. It would therefore be interesting to be able to develop them further in a more sustainable way. Solutions at the moment are still quite vague, such as a full volunteering year in order to really grasp the cultural exchange idea, but also community-based projects which allow the local community to set-up projects and manage them. There is still some research to be done. The goal of the example provided throughout the paper is mainly to apply what has been found by researchers to a more concrete situation I have personal experience with.

Although as tourists we plan to do volunteer tourism “the right way”, we can easily be unaware of some of the effects we have on others and their community. It is therefore important for all tourists to be aware of this and to think carefully before booking a volunteering trip. 

References 

Benson, A. M. (2011). Volunteer Tourism: Theory Framework to Practical Applications. London [etc.]: Routledge, 2011. 

Garrison, Haley A., "A Critical Analysis of Volunteer Tourism and the Implications for Developing Communities" (2015). Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects. Paper 558.
http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses/558

McKenna, E. F. (n.d). The Discourse of Deference and Its Impact on Tourist-Host Power Relations. Journal of Travel Research, 55(5), 555-565.

Second UNWTO/UNESCO World Conference on Tourism and Culture: Fostering Sustainable Development. (2017). Www2.unwto.org. Retrieved 29 October 2017, from http://www2.unwto.org/event/second-unwtounesco-world-conference-tourism…

Vellas, F., & Becherel, L. (1995). International Tourism: An Economic Perspective. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Ver Beek, K. (2006). The Impact of Short-Term Missions: A Case Study of House Construction in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch. Missiology: An International Review, 34(4), 477-495. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009182960603400406

Wearing, S. (2001). Volunteer Tourism: Experiences that make a Difference. Wallingford [etc.]: CABI Publishing, 2001.