Lessons I Learned

I wrote a guest blog post for Canada’s adventure couple, Dave and Deb about voluntourism, why I work, in part, in this field, and some ideas for how we can improve what we do.

For those who don’t have time to read the whole post, here are the five key areas I would consider when choosing  philanthropic travel provider:

1. Is the travel company transparent about how much of your tour fee is going to the programs you are supporting?  Is there marketing consistent with the itinerary they are offering?  (As with the above, I don’t think length of time nor percentage of funding going to a project is a determinant of if the project is good or not. A tour company can be very responsible if none of your funding is going to support projects, if that is clear from the start, as long as the program is design responsibly.)

2. What interaction with children is included in your itinerary?  Is the interaction described like a visit to the zoo?  Are there child protection policies in place?  If it was YOUR child, would you be ok with the type of itinerary an interaction being offered?

3. How does the travel company choose the programs they support?  Ask questions about how your time and any additional support offered by the company itself is designed and what monitoring they do on the impact of these programs.  How is the community or NGO partner involved in designing the programs?

4. Are you giving things away (school supplies, food, wells, etc) on your tour?  How are the recipients chosen?  Is the program designed to help empower people to be able to improve their own lives, or a small bandaid to a larger problem?  If the item is something that will need repair in the future, how is that being dealt with?  Is there community ownership built into the project plan?

5. What about the REST of the trip?  There is so much focus on volunteer interactions and donations as a key to improving the impact of tourism, but perhaps the best way we can improve the impact of tourism is in the “everything else” category.  How does the travel operator choose their hotel partners/travel operators and how do they work to both support the local economy and improve the overall impact of their tours?

Hopefully thinking about these things will make us all better prepared to pick the best partners for our future travel. To read the complete checklist please, visit Voluntourism101 website.