Making a positve impact
Yet another set of thoughts on a voluntourism blog:
My comments on this post: http://www.travelanthropist.com/2009/06/how-are-travel-and-voluntee…
I very much agree! As the founder of PEPY Tours (www.pepytours.com) I believe we share the same values as Hands Up Holidays and agree that the hybrid-model of NGO work and tourism adds value to the tourism industry.
I added other thoughts on what I thought “voluntourism”, rather than being the “bad” little brother of volunteering is, in my opinion, a key to improving the tourism industry as a whole. When done right (this is of course a big WHEN), as you point out, voluntourism operators can do so much more than just doing good with the volunteering or philanthropy portions of their trips. They can bring the travel dollars back into the country and the economy by designing the whole tourism experience to be a positive contributing force for change in the area visited. When combined with educating travelers, this can indeed change how the travel as regular “tourists” in the future, no matter where they go.
In my experience, “voluntourism” does not end up taking people who would otherwise become full-time volunteers away from their work. Instead, when done right, it takes people who would be your typical tourists and helps them make their tourism impact more positive.
More of my thoughts here: http://voluntourismgal.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/volunteering-or-voluntourism-who-cares/