ABSTRACT
This form of tourism is burgeoning. Place ‘volunteer tourism’ in the Google search field and over 300,000 hits greet you.2 Advertisements for the myriad of volunteer tourism opportunities are selling the promised experience as ‘travel with a purpose’. By participating, the volunteer tourist can ‘come and make a difference’ and ‘contribute in a meaningful way’. Yet, what does this mean? To ‘make a difference’ implies an opportunity to improve the lives of the communities in which the volunteer is working: in essence, to engage with development and poverty alleviation. These are huge claims for a tourism product. So how do we know that volunteer tourism is making a difference? Are these claims in fact nothing more than catchy slogans? Currently, due to a lack of research and the availability of empirical evidence into the impacts of volunteer tourism, it is difficult to assess whether any difference is being made. This chapter argues for a need to explore the impact of volunteer tourism and its relationship with development to assess the claim: volunteer tourism – making a difference. This chapter will begin by examining the concept of volunteer tourism and its complexity in today’s globalised world. Attention will then be given to appraising current development theory, and considering whether volunteer tourism has a place in development.
