Ecotourism1 is essential in the understanding of both volunteer tourism and alternative tourism. Ecotourism is one specific element that influences the form of some volunteer experiences, particularly in relation to international tourists from developed countries that are visiting developing countries. It is not suggested, however, that all experiences had by volunteer tourists fall within what may be considered ecotourism, particularly as the definitions of ecotourism are far from conclusive.
International volunteering traditionally consists of individuals volunteering away from their home countries for periods from 3 months to 2 years with agencies that provide assistance to primarily developing countries. In keeping with the UN definition of volunteering (UN Volunteers Report, 2001), international volunteering consists of activities that are not undertaken for financial reward, are undertaken on behalf of an individual’s own free will, and should benefit someone other than the volunteer (although they recognize the benefits to the volunteer as well). International volunteer tourism has altered and expanded the definition to include shorter periods and more extensive travel.
Stebbins first coined the phrase ‘serious leisure’ in 1992 and suggests serious leisure is the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist or volunteer activity that is sufficiently substantial and interesting for the participant to find a career there in the acquisition and expression of its specific skills and knowledge (1992: 264). The ideas that surround serious leisure enable an analysis of international volunteering, framing this form of travel beyond the mere hedonistic to contain elements of altruism and self-development.
Stebbins (1992), in his consideration of serious leisure, lists ‘career volunteering’ as an example, in that it ‘is a recurrent, skill and knowledge-based activity in which people can have a career in a special social world’ (1992: 264). Stebbins’ analysis of leisure is such that if it is to become an important part of peoples’ lives allowing them to find ‘personal fulfilment, identity enhancement, and self-expression’ (1992: 253), then potentially leisure takes a more serious form in people’s lives, and the way they respond to it.
If it is possible to identify how alternative tourism organizations relate to the larger tourism industry itself — and specifically here, how analysis of enterprises such as volunteer tourism can provide an understanding of the components that make up an alternative tourism experience — then the potential exists to provide experiences that go beyond the defined boundaries of mass tourism (MacCannell, 1976, 1992; Rojek, 1993; Urry, 2002). These experiences have the potential to change the focus of tourism for both visitor and host community (Kutay, 1990: 38). In other words, volunteer tourism could offer a new mechanism for the tourism industry in creating approaches to address development and sustainability issues.
It is hoped that in exploring the specificity of a particular tourist experience in depth, it may be possible to provide an understanding of not only the significant divergences and convergences that exist between mass tourism and alternative tourism, but also the subtle nuances that subtend these tourist experiences. Therefore, it is not simply a matter of differentiating, in a binary fashion, between a general category of tourism and the derivation of niche elements within it. As MacCannell (1992: 1) notes: ‘[T]ourism is not just an aggregate of merely commercial activities; it is also an ideological framing of history, nature and tradition; a framing that has the power to reshape culture and nature to its own needs’.
In differentiating the volunteer tourism experience from both mass or mainstream tourism and from the conceptualization of ‘alternative tourism’ as identified in the literature, it is argued here that the conceptual basis underlying the analysis of tourism2 must be expanded in order to encompass the notion of experience as demonstrated in the social science literature (Wearing & Wearing, 1996). A focus on the tourist experience more effectively illustrates the conceptual, theoretical and practical differences and similarities between mass tourism and alternative forms of tourism, thus moving towards an understanding and elaboration of the potential benefits of alternative tourism experiences such as volunteer tourism (Wearing et al., 2005).
MacCannell (1976: 23–29) accords to the tourism experience a considerable degree of complexity in his analysis of it as a subclass of cultural experience, thus opening it to the intellectual and ideological debates of sociology. It is, therefore, essential in the examination of tourism experiences to analyse their social construction in order to understand their complexities and relationship to culture. MacCannell (1976: 23) suggests that tourism experiences are culturally constructed, having two basic components, which must be combined in order for the experience itself to occur. The first he terms a ‘model’ (an embodied ideal); the second an ‘influence’ (the changed, created, intensified belief or feeling that is based on the model). In this way the volunteer tourism experience needs a ‘model’ to explain the experiences it provides the participants, and where the tourist and community are the ‘influence’. The ‘medium’ (MacCannell, 1976: 24) corresponds to the agency that connects a model and its influence, in this case the face-to-face interaction that occurs at the destination site. The outside interest groups that exist in the community and tourism industry he calls a ‘production’. Thus, the tourist experience is a cultural production that is shaped by significant power groups who have a stake in the experience.
The tourist as an entity is seen by MacCannell (1976) as enjoying a privileged Western middle-class leisure activity. This is very obvious amongst volunteer tourists; they generally come from the middle or upper middle class (Simpson, 2004; Devereux, 2008). This is not a criticism but rather an acknowledgement of the need for income levels well above the poverty line in order to be able to consider volunteering in this manner. Therefore, to explore fully some of the structural differences between mass tourism and volunteer tourism, there is a need for models that enable the inclusion of commonalities as well as differences that influence and contribute to the understanding of tourist experiences.
Modernisation simultaneously separates these things from people and places that made them, breaks up the solidarity of the groups in which they originally figured as cultural elements, and brings the poor liberated from traditional attachments into the modern world where, as tourists, they may attempt to discover or reconstruct a cultural heritage or a social identity.
(MacCannell, 1976: 13)
Initially, it would seem that the investigation of the alternative tourism experience needs to move into a sphere of theory that allows the face-to-face interaction of everyday life to be followed (Goffman, 1974; MacCannell, 1976; Atkinson & Housley, 2003). This book does not attempt to diminish the relevance of macro-social influences on the tourist experience, but seeks to expand the relevance of the micro-social elements that contribute to make up the tourist experience. As MacCannell (1976: 10) suggests: ‘[A]ll tourists desire this deeper involvement with society and culture to some degree; it is a basic component of their motivation to travel’.
MacCannell (1992: 3) suggests that critical theory has prepared us for the absence of the subject, for an empty meeting ground including an empty signifier. He suggests deconstruction gives us access to the realm of absolute possibility in theory, in the imagination and where it exists, in life. However, he maintains that an allied sociology of interaction or dialogue is still necessary to gain access to the realm of contingency and determinism, and especially resistance to, and struggles against, determinism.
An understanding of this involvement can only come through a better explanation of the relational elements that the tourist experiences within and with the destination site. Goffman (1974) for example, structurally analysed social establishments in what he termed ‘front’ and ‘back’ regions. The front is the designated meeting place of hosts, guests, customers and service persons, and the ‘back’ is the place where members of the community retire between performances to relax and to prepare. MacCannell (1976: 94) suggests that being one of the ‘locals’ is being able to experience this ‘back’ region. But if tourists enter this back region, is the experience similar for all involved? This region may offer the ability to work beyond