The Voluntourism Paradox

This article is part of our collaboration with International Policy Review at IE University. Photo Credits: Bambuguesthouse.

Abstract

Voluntourism has slowly grown into a billion-dollar global industry, capturing the attention of individuals from the Global North. Its popularity is due to its ability to combine leisure with altruistic based work in communities with limited resources. Initially framed in terms of poverty alleviation, forming a direct link with the first Sustainable Development Goal (No Poverty), voluntourism has now come under scrutiny for creating dependency, oversimplifying multidimensional social problems, and negating local capacity. This paper aims to analyse this same paradox. Although marketed as a vehicle to alleviate global poverty, voluntourism often reproduces neocolonial practices that fail to recognize structural inequalities. As illustrated by Yi Wang’s research in Mathare, Kenya, it sidelines local voices and histories and prioritizes volunteers’ experiences rather than the needs of the community. This paper argues that voluntourism can still provide sustained and meaningful solutions for individuals and their community, only by stressing the importance of promoting long-term, community-led development, engaging only qualified volunteers, and allowing for ethical practices that encourage local and long-term capacity-building. Changes to marketing practices and evaluation processes must aim to move away from exploitative narratives on poverty, to contribute towards sustainable community poverty reduction.

Keywords: Volunteer tourism, SDG 11, Poverty Alleviation, Neocolonialism, Dependency, Local Agency, Structural Inequality, Ethical Voluntourism, Capacity-Building, Commodification of Poverty, Sustainable Development.

1. Introduction

Volunteer tourism, referred to as voluntourism, has shifted over the last two decades from a niche phenomenon to a billion-dollar industry. Today, this perceived altruistic form of tourism draws millions of participants each year from the Global North, who combine leisure and charity in an effort to address significant economic issues in under-resourced communities. Voluntourism is frequently marketed as a means of promoting global citizenship, cross-cultural exchange, and—above all—the alleviation of poverty. This model seems to be well aligned with the first Sustainable Development Goal of “No Poverty,” which calls for the “eradication of extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030,”Voluntourism used to be celebrated as a tool for development, making it an accessible opportunity for all to take part in the global effort of diminishing the pervasive consequences of poverty and to contribute to the agenda of reaching SDG 1. Nevertheless, as the industry has grown, so has the critical scrutiny of the model. The disjuncture between the intended impact of the model and its actual outcomes has become a concern that must be addressed. This paper will explore the compelling paradox of voluntourism, which presents itself as a valuable manner to achieve SDG 1, but frequently operates in ways that contradict its very core principles.

2. The Evolution of Voluntourism

Over the past 20 years, volunteer tourism involvement and research have increased dramatically; it has gained significant traction as a global trend in the popular press and scholarly literature. Its origins can be traced back to a predominantly European and British phenomenon beginning as an offshoot of the Grand Tour. It then spread to a number of countries such as Australia and the United States, and now has even grown to include African and Asian participants. According to a study conducted by the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education, the volunteer tourism industry has grown significantly since 1990, “estimating that 1.6 million people worldwide participate in volunteer tourism projects annually and that volunteer tourists spend between £832 [million] and £1.3 [billion] per year.” A number of volunteer tourism organizations have grown to a remarkable size. For instance, Earthwatch has contributed US$67 million and 11 million hours to scientific fieldwork, involving over 90,000 volunteers in 1,350 projects across 120 countries between 1971 and 2008.

Early research on volunteer tourism brought it to light positively and presented its negative impacts very minimally. Volunteers were portrayed as individuals who sought altruistic experiences distinct from mass tourism. The connection between the Sustainable Development Goal of no poverty and voluntourism was initially framed as a positive one, with voluntourism perceived as a means to alleviate poverty by contributing to community development, education, and environmental projects. These efforts were seen as providing immediate assistance to underprivileged communities, aligning with SDG 1’s objective of reducing poverty. Early criticism of voluntourism originated in the early 21st century by authors such as Paul Brown and later expanded to include a variety of writers such as Guttentag, Sin, Palacios, and Conran. These new perspectives shed a critical light on voluntourism where criticism on its perpetuation of dependency grew. Critics argue that volunteers may benefit more from the experience than the host communities. Later research highlighted the risks of oversimplifying complex social issues and the failure to address the root causes of poverty. The historical evolution of voluntourism and its explorations have shown that the established dynamics demonstrate a complex trajectory that sometimes undermines sustainable poverty reduction. This shift in scholarly focus highlights the growing recognition of the need to critically evaluate voluntourism’s long-term impact on poverty and sustainable development.

3. Misaligned Narratives: Volunteer Motivations v. Local Realities

While voluntourist activities are rapidly expanding, they don’t always take into account the local needs of the communities they claim to serve. As a result, there has been a rising emphasis on trying to improve the viability of the industry by aiming to attract prospective voluntourists and fostering sustainable practices in local communities.

Yi Wang, in her paper titled “Chinese Narrative in International Development and Volunteer Tourism: A Case Study of a Chinese Organisation’s Practice in Mathare, Kenya,” explores the unique perspective of Chinese volunteer tourism in Kenya, where she focuses on the narratives from both Chinese volunteers and the local Kenyan communities. Her study offers the perspectives of a few Chinese volunteer travelers who have made use of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in their view of the effectiveness of voluntourism. They explain that Chinese organization’s official and informal education initiatives seek to satisfy wants in the top two layers of the hierarchy (self-actualization and self-esteem). They emphasized that this did not imply that higher-level local requirements could be disregarded, but that just because they lack access to enough food, are ill, or cannot afford education does not mean that their needs in other areas can be ignored. However, the Mathare people’s perception drifts away from this drastically as “they saw themselves as passively trapped in poverty.” Their view of the situation aligns more accurately to Taylor’s theory when drawing on Maslow’s Hierarchy. Even though individuals may contribute positively to the solution of problems like garbage and water, self-actualization and empowerment are contingent upon basic human necessities that are constrained by poverty. The Mathare people felt that higher-level management and higher-level regulations were necessary to address the issue completely. This investigation illustrates how volunteer projects that neglect immediate local needs fail to produce sustainable solutions. The local community’s perception of being “trapped in poverty” reflects frustration with the temporary nature of volunteer efforts, which do not address the structural challenges required for long-term poverty alleviation.

4. Structural Inefficiencies and the Limit of Volunteer Labour

Even when the primordial needs of recipient countries are addressed, inefficiencies persist. Through the lens of voluntourism, poverty is portrayed as an issue that can be solved by Western volunteers through short-term interventions. The issue with this portrayal is that it reduces poverty to a simple emotional appeal. This makes it so the complexity of the issue is trivialized, and disregards the long-term structural changes that must take place in order to move closer to poverty alleviation. For instance, the cost of sending an unqualified volunteer from the United States for a week ($2,000) could rather be used to fund the salary of a local skilled teacher. The industry’s structural shortcomings may have detrimental effects on the host communities. The main issue is that volunteers are often not eligible for the positions they are assigned. Many analyses of volunteer tourism explain that it would be far more effective for foreigners to simply donate money instead of their time because using volunteer labor instead of local labor can result in subpar and unsatisfactory work as volunteers often lack the skills needed to work in trades like teaching children or building houses. Even the financial donations made by volunteer tourists may not have a discernible positive impact on host communities because they are typically used by NGOs for administrative and training needs. “We, a group of highly educated private boarding school students were so bad at the most basic construction work that each night the men had to take down the structurally unsound bricks we had laid and rebuild the structure,” writes Pippa Biddle of the Huffington Post in her personal account of a volunteer tourism school trip to Tanzania. This is a typical occurrence in an industry that prioritizes the tourist experience over having a significant influence on the local population.

This example highlights a crucial issue with voluntourism: the emphasis on volunteer experiences at the expense of real, lasting benefits for local communities. The goals of SDG 1, which include the eradication of poverty through local capacity-building and promoting sustainable economic empowerment, are directly undermined by such practices. Instead of focusing on short-term, emotionally motivated interventions, sustainable poverty reduction necessitates long-term, community-led programs that give structural development top priority. Because these structural flaws have not been addressed, volunteer tourism has devolved into a band-aid solution that does not make a significant contribution to sustainable development and poverty reduction, and has in many cases even caused more harm than good.

5. The Persistence of Neocolonial Power Structures

The destinations of voluntourism encompass countries with low levels of human development alongside widespread poverty, inequality and resource scarcity. As a result, most volunteers generally come from the Global north, and have what Corti et al. call “a high purchasing power,” that only emphasizes their influence. Such influence, if implemented in an efficient manner could help elevate the countries in question. However, it still installs a certain power imbalance that not only makes the host communities dependent, but that also fosters the role of tourism as a “redistributor of wealth” and as a promoter of “inclusive values” in an under-developed environment. One could argue that this is connected to the so-called “white savior complex” that was mainly implemented during imperial approaches to development. This phenomenon triggered the creation and the segregation of the “Third World,” as it was mapped and produced in order to seek alignment with Western modernity and economy. One could even say that these forms of “colonial humanitarianism” are still entrenched in today’s society, taking the form of international voluntourism. Therefore, colonialist ambition has not really ended, it has just developed in a more subtle way, in alignment with neocolonialist dynamics.

Referring back to Yi Wang’s Case study, her interviews demonstrated that volunteer tourists believed that locals had “mindset problems” and so they presumed it best for them to control key decision-making processes in Mathare. Locals had no say on key aspects of the voluntourism system in Mathare such as time scales, selection criteria, asThe destinations of voluntourism encompass countries with low levels of human development alongside widespread poverty, inequality and resource scarcity. As a result, most volunteers generally come from the Global north, and have what Corti et al. call “a high purchasing power,” that only emphasizes their influence. Such influence, if implemented in an efficient manner could help elevate the countries in question. However, it still installs a certain power imbalance that not only makes the host communities dependent, but that also fosters the role of tourism as a “redistributor of wealth” and as a promoter of “inclusive values” in an under-developed environment. One could argue that this is connected to the so-called “white savior complex” that was mainly implemented during imperial approaches to development. This phenomenon triggered the creation and the segregation of the “Third World,” as it was mapped and produced in order to seek alignment with Western modernity and economy. One could even say that these forms of “colonial humanitarianism” are still entrenched in today’s society, taking the form of international voluntourism. Therefore, colonialist ambition has not really ended, it has just developed in a more subtle way, in alignment with neocolonialist dynamics.

According to an anonymous representative of a Kenyan school that engages in volunteer tourism, “many volunteer organizations are only interested in volumes.” Nonprofits must select appealing locations and use marketing strategies to draw in these crowds of people—commercial endeavors that seem odd for groups using volunteer tourism to bring about change. According to a research by James Keese of Cal Poly State University, a key factor in selecting operating areas for volunteer tourism is the location’s appeal to tourists, as volunteer tourism is “largely consumer dependent,” so in order to succeed in drawing clients, NGOs “must be good place image marketers.” Since NGOs place more of a focus on tourism than volunteering, the commercial structure of this sector is not conducive to having a constructive impact in poor nations. This further exacerbates the commodification of poverty which reinforces a one-sided narrative that portrays the Global South as helpless and in need of Western intervention, when in reality, voluntourism can be described, Brondo’s words, as the “spectacle of saving.” While the structural issues causing poverty remain unaddressed, volunteers feel a sense of heroism and reduce complex socio-economic struggles to simplistic and emotional appeals.

Since it keeps host communities from attaining self-sufficiency and sustainable economic growth, this lack of sincere engagement with structural inequalities has long-term effects on local development. Efforts to develop institutional resilience and local capacity are undermined by voluntourism given that it perpetuates cycles of reliance on foreign aid rather than promoting long-term solutions. Voluntourism deters investment in local labor markets and expertise by putting the volunteer’s experience ahead of the needs of the community. Simpson contends that communities cannot develop their skills sustainably if they depend on untrained foreign volunteers rather than employing and educating local professionals. In a similar vein, Guttentag draws attention to the fact that a large number of volunteer projects are temporary, leaving host communities with incomplete projects and no way to continue them after the volunteers leave. Instead of promoting self-sufficient economic and social growth, host communities may eventually internalize dependency and expect ongoing outside assistance. Ultimately, the core principles of SDG 1, which promote long-term, community-led projects to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable economic empowerment, are in conflict with this model. Until the emphasis is shifted from short-term interventions to capacity-building, self-sufficiency, and local agency, voluntourism will remain a neocolonial tool that perpetuates inequality instead of alleviating it.

6. Reforming Voluntourism for Sustainable Impact

In order to implement voluntourism in a way that maximizes its benefits while minimising its disadvantages, it is important to establish clear ethical guidelines that ensure meaningful community involvement while prioritising long-term sustainability. This can be initiated by encouraging volunteer-tourists to focus on creating positive social impacts within the host communities while fostering an understanding of cross-cultural dynamics. In fact, these objectives should be their primary program goals. Additionally, it’s also important to foster long-term relationships with host communities. Well-coordinated sending programs that prioritize continuity—where volunteers return to the same communities they once helped—can contribute to deeper and more positive impacts. One of the other many ways to implement sustainable voluntourism is to train the volunteers in a way that deepens their knowledge and understanding of the local culture and communities they aim to support. By doing so, it naturally fosters stronger bonds that encourage long-lasting partnerships with local communities, ensuring mutual benefit.

Ethical organizations should learn to work in a way that aligns with local health systems and government policies in order to complement existing infrastructure, not compete against them. Furthermore, assuring long-lasting partnerships also entails defining clear and appropriate volunteer roles for qualified people. These roles should focus on support rather than direct medical intervention, unless they are specifically qualified and invited to do so by local communities. Moreover, in order to fight the increasing commercialization of voluntourism on social media that promote a “romantic views of poverty,” it is important to avoid poverty-related marketing. In fact, operators should learn to avoid using marketing strategies that present local communities as passive recipients of aid, while exaggerating poverty for emotional appeal. Instead, marketing should only focus on presenting a dignified representation of the local community while highlighting its strengths. Implementing all these different policies will ensure long-lasting sustainable voluntourism.

7. Policy Recommendations

There are extensive global tourism frameworks, such as the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), as well as the Media and Information Literacy Guidelines by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), that aim to foster more sustainable tourism practices. Nevertheless, although voluntourism is encompassed by broader tourism guidelines, it presents unique ethical and structural challenges that are not fully addressed by existing policies and lack binding legal enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance and accountability.

The Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (GCET), adopted in 1999 by the UNWTO and later recognized by the United Nations General Assembly presents ten articles that encompass the economic, social, cultural, and environmental dimensions of tourism. These serve to guide key stakeholders, such as governments and the travel industry, in practicing and promoting tourism in a sustainable and ethical manner. The GCET addresses several areas that form a strong foundation for responsible tourism practices, however, certain articles are particularly relevant to voluntourism.

The article “Tourism’s Contribution to Mutual Understanding and Respect Between Peoples and Societies,” for instance, encourages tolerance and respect for cultural differences, calls on visitors and local communities to interact respectfully, and highlights the importance of educating tourism workers. In a comparable way, the article “Tourism as a Beneficial Activity for Host Countries and Communities” advocates for fair distribution of tourism’s benefits to nearby communities and encourages community involvement in planning and development. Furthermore, “Tourism as a Factor of Sustainable Development” emphasises the significance of preserving the environment and encouraging sustainable economic growth in order to meet the needs of both the current and future generations, which links directly to responsible voluntourism.

Overall, these provisions are valuable to sustainable and ethically conscious global tourism, and many of the principles align with the objectives of responsible voluntourism. The GCET lays a strong foundation as it encourages community participation and equitable benefit-sharing, which therefore addresses the key concerns in voluntourism regarding community agency. Its strength lies in its creation of an overall global ethical baseline that brings together governments, private sector actors, and communities. However, its ethical direction remains broad as it does not directly address the operational and structural challenges that are specific to voluntourism.

As previously addressed, a prominent issue with voluntourism is that unqualified individuals often engage in sensitive tasks, and the GCET lacks specificity in qualification criteria for volunteers engaging in development work. Furthermore, the GCET advocates for community participation but does not mandate local leadership in key areas of project implementation, which, as highlighted in Yi Wang’s research in Mathare, Kenya, marginalizes local voices. Ultimately, the GCET remains of voluntary nature and includes no binding legal obligations or sanctions. Therefore, vulnerable communities lack the power to hold organizations accountable and hinders the effectiveness of addressing poverty issues.

It is recommended that the GCET be expanded to include a dedicated voluntourism annex as well as a new policy framework to try and address these gaps. Such a framework, should include specific characteristics such as mandatory qualification standards for potential volunteers, but also binding enforcement measures to hold voluntourism organisations accountable for their actions. Implementing such targeted reforms, is essential for voluntourism to not continue operating in an ethical grey zone that undermines its potential to contribute meaningfully to sustainable development as well as the achievement of SDG 1.

Another problematic aspect of voluntourism that must be addressed is its exploitative marketing practices which frequently use emotional appeals and clichéd depictions of poverty. The UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Guidelines, published in 2023, does address this issue to a certain extent. The guidelines encourage governments and institutions to implement certain standards but remain limited to simple recommendations, making them a form of soft law. The most relevant recommendation is that they promote intercultural understanding and the ethical use and creation of content. Implementing this in voluntourism marketing avoids white savior narratives and poverty commodification.

Yet, despite all these principles the MIL Guidelines are not enforced like they should be, since they lack specific directives, leaving operators the ability to continue using exploitative imagery without taking any accountability. Such a gap highlights the need of a sector-specific ethical marketing regulations in order to ensure that voluntourism promotes the interest of the host communities, rather than, perpetuating paternalistic narratives. A policy framework dedicated to adopting the MIL Guidelines should require voluntourism organizations to abide by ethical representation standards, not practice emotional manipulation, and accurately represent the strengths and abilities of the local community.

8. Evaluating Effectiveness in Voluntourism

Yet, one question still remains: how can we measure voluntourism to assess its effectiveness? Tracy Daniel Connors highlights this concern in The Volunteer Management Handbook. In fact, it is important to measure the efficiency of voluntourism through a comprehensive evaluation that combines stakeholder analysis, logics models, economic valuations as well as long-term impact assessments. The stakeholder analysis ensures that voluntourism meets the needs of funders, organizations, communities and volunteers. Logic models could help track inputs, outputs, and outcomes that respectively entails resources, activities and short as well as long-term impact. Furthermore, economic valuations evaluate whether volunteer work actually adds financial value or displaces local labor, while ethical and social impact assessment prevent any form of dependency and exploitation, therefore ensuring that voluntourism empower communities. Finally, ongoing monitoring and accountability checks whether projects create sustainable and lasting change rather than temporary solutions.

9. Conclusion

Volunteer tourism has transitioned from a European tradition to a global activity, first celebrated for its altruistic value, but again, we can question its effectiveness in sustainably addressing poverty. Voluntourism may fit SDG 1 on paper, but it depends on the outcomes being more effective than other temporary forms of aid, that arguably promote dependency and create a neo-colonialist framework, with the experience of the volunteer built in rather than the real needs of the community. Short-term, volunteer-run projects, often with untrained volunteers, will not sustainably change a community nor engage with the local labour markets. Moreover, the engagement between wealthy people who volunteer and impoverished communities and neighbourhoods to create poverty as a saleable commodity perpetuates a one-dimensional, paternalistic narrative. Researches like Yi Wang’s study in Mathare, for example illustrate how voluntourism can devalue local agency and local knowledge and therefore disempower a community. For voluntourism to have a meaningful impact, it requires structural changes. Ethical voluntourism, suitable for its place in the development agenda, should center at least three elements: local needs first, long-term partnerships, and use existing infrastructures. Volunteers need to be adequately trained and matched with volunteer roles based on their qualifications. Organizations should also consider utilizing evaluation frameworks, such as those proposed by Tracy Daniel Connors, to evaluate long-term benefits. At the same time, marketing strategies should shift away from exploitative narratives of individuals in poverty to those that emphasize community capabilities and resilience. Without voluntourism moving toward sustainable and meaningful development and away from short-term emotionally-affecting actions, it will always remain a flawed experience. To truly alleviate poverty, long-term and community-led solutions are needed as opposed to any solution that continues to perpetuate cycles of dependence on foreigners rather than self-sufficiency.

Although global frameworks, such as the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism by the United Nations World Tourism Organization and the Media and Information Literacy Guidelines by UNESCO, seek to set out clear guidelines for the ethical practice of sustainable tourism, they continue to be too vague, while not addressing the specific challenges associated with voluntourism. The GCET is a helpful endorsement for community participation and sustainable development. Nonetheless, voluntourism lacks clear directives around things such as volunteer qualification standards, or even a requirement for local leadership in the execution of projects. This lack of possible legal enforcement means voluntourism organizations lack a responsible accountable mechanism. While the MIL Guidelines attempt to create ethical content creation and promote intercultural understanding, there are still no binding enforcements of these policies. These approaches only serve to perpetuate the exploitative model of voluntourism.

To close these regulatory gaps, it is essential that the GCET adopt an annex dedicated to voluntourism, as well as a new policy framework that promotes qualification standards and includes a binding enforcement mechanism. Then, a sectoral ethical marketing regulation is also necessary to create more rigorous legal parameters around disciplinary boundaries regarding how they represent participants and, better yet, prevent them from exploiting children, such as through age-appropriate content to support ethical representation and avoid exploitative practices.

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