Volunteer Tourism: Harming rather than helping?

With a new cohort of 18 and 19 year olds about to embark on their gap years, the intensification of promotions by volunteer tourism organisations begins. With promises that prospective volunteers will have the opportunity to ‘change the world’ while ‘improving your CV’. In 2010 it was estimated that there was over 3000 volunteer tourism projects located in at least 150 countries and this number is increasing. Certainly, as belts are tightening, it is seen as a beneficial experience to future job prospects for the middle class. It is also viewed as a good thing- particularly considering that volunteering is, on the face of it, a superb, altruistic act. Indeed, if the alternative involves the invasion of small rural communities in South East Asia by a group of teenagers free from their parents for the first time then it seems even more beneficial by comparison. However, while most would agree that doing something is better than nothing to help those less economically well off, how true is this when volunteer tourism is in fact having certain negative impacts on the host community it is trying to help?

Short term volunteer tourism projects, certainly in comparison to longer term ones, are increasingly designed with the convenience and motivation of volunteer tourists in mind in contrast to focusing on the main reason for the project: the host communities. As such, the short term projects become an increasingly strange blend, often forgetting that they are first and foremost about the volunteering, instead falling into the trap of being tourist trips with some volunteering thrown in almost as if it were another part of the itinerary. There are numerous examples of this and it is more often than not the profit making volunteer tourism organisations (who are frequently little more than travel agencies) who advertise these trips. This leads to the commercialisation and commodification of volunteering, a quintessential neoliberal tendency which treats the altruistic act of volunteering as a commodity to be bought and sold. The market is guiding the act and can result in instances such as the Cambodian orphanage business which UNICEF recently cited as an increasing danger. Cambodia has seen, since 2005, an increase in the number of orphanages by a staggering 75% which correlates almost perfectly with the growth in tourism to the same country. This is a prime example of volunteering appropriating the cause of volunteering and leading to a point where well intentioned volunteers are actually promoting corruption and potentially contributing to long term psychological damage being done to children forced to form an endless series of new relationships with strangers. It is therefore vital for the needs of the host community to be considered above the profit margins of companies and individuals.

Following on from this idea of volunteering and poverty as a commodity there lies a danger that volunteer tourism (like much of the development discourse) suffers because it teaches volunteers that development is easy and something that can be done from the outside rather than as something that requires local leadership. This idea of development as something that William Easterly discusses in his seminal work The White Man’s Burden, where he asserts that the role of the west should be to help support ‘searchers’ from within the community who have an understanding of the actual needs as opposed to top down planning or off the shelf solutions. This ties in with another real danger that the discourse surrounding development as a top down civilizing process, such as those reflected during the peak of the British empire when it was received wisdom that “many of our colonies… can never be developed without Imperial assistance” is reflected in the way that volunteer tourism projects are administered. Teaching young people that this kind of top down approach is a way to push development shows we have not moved beyond this way of thinking which will become self-perpetuating as these young people become development policy makers themselves. Indeed, volunteer tourism should be as much about what the host community can teach the volunteers as about what the volunteers can teach the community.

While the concept of volunteering to help those less fortunate than your self is to be commended, these are just some of the examples of where it is not all plain sailing. The intention does not always create good outcomes. Instead, we must consider the problems associated with short term volunteer projects in conjunction with its successes. The literature and advertising is all pointed at the volunteer and broadly proves that, in an increasingly competitive job market, having some kind of experience such as volunteering is of benefit. However, more should be done to ensure that the host communities themselves benefit from such projects and we should remember that good intentions are not enough.