University Tourism and Travel Essay: Volunteer Tourism Analysis

This essay delves into the concepts of volunteer tourism and cross-cultural understanding, focusing on how volunteer experiences can be managed to foster positive interactions. It examines the role of volunteer tourism in facilitating cross-cultural activities and understanding, drawing from a journal article by Rachel Leigh Wilson to explore effective program management. The essay highlights the reciprocal benefits of volunteer tourism, emphasizing its ability to promote self-awareness and manage cultural stereotypes. It further explores the significance of cross-cultural understanding within volunteer tourism, discussing its importance in addressing socio-economic, cultural, and environmental issues. The essay also introduces relevant theories, including Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions and Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, to provide a framework for understanding and managing cross-cultural communication within the context of volunteer tourism. The essay also includes the practical implications of voluntourism, discussing its impact on sustainable development and local economies, including insights into the benefits for both volunteers and host communities. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of adapting to new cultures, building trust and loyalty, and appreciating the diversity of cultural values and beliefs in the travel and tourism industry.

Running head: TOURISM AND TRAVEL
Tourism and travel
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Volunteer tourism............................................................................................................................3
Cross cultural understanding in volunteer tourism..........................................................................5
Various theories and concepts.........................................................................................................7
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The topic revolves around the concepts of volunteer tourism and cross-cultural
understanding through the management of volunteer experiences. The concept of volunteer
tourism has become popular nowadays, and the individuals within the travel and tourism industry
have allowed the individuals to combine the travel and tourism activities with the voluntary
work. The volunteer tourism is an effective reciprocal form of tourism that has facilitated the
development of cross-cultural activities and enabled understanding among the participants
effectively and easily. The journal article presented by Rachel Leigh Wilson has been studied
thoroughly for gaining relevant ideas and knowledge regarding proper management of volunteer
tourism programs which can reduce the chances of cross-cultural understanding and manage
reinforcement of cultural stereotypes with ease and effectiveness1. By conducting an
Appreciative Inquiry into various volunteer programs, it will be easy to explore new ideas and
concepts and furthermore determine the impact of volunteer tourism on the cultural
understanding within the organisation. The findings further can help in ensuring that the cross-
cultural understanding development will be perceived as a major objective of the volunteer
tourism rather than sending the volunteers outside the country. Following this journal article will
also be essential for understanding the vital role played by volunteer tourism in facilitating the
accomplishment of goals and objectives through the proactive management and volunteer
tourism programmes too.
Volunteer tourism
1 D Blackman & A Benson, "The Role of the Psychological Contract in Managing Research Volunteer Tourism", in
Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, vol. 27, 2010, 221-235.

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According to the journal article presented by Rachel Leigh Wilson, volunteer tourism is
an important kind of travel and tourism concept, and it is not a part of the mass tourism and
travel. The main purpose of the volunteer tourism is to develop a relationship between the
traveller or volunteer and the respective host countries where both of them can be mutually
benefited. This new and innovative tourism experience can create a sense of self-awareness and
manage cross cultural understanding in a detailed manner to understand the individuals who have
participated in the volunteer tourism programs in Singapore2. Volunteer tourism is an essential
aspect of tourism that not only fosters the development of cross-cultural understanding but also
allows the volunteer to gain better self-awareness skills and furthermore determine the level of
motivation, expectations, knowledge and other tourism aspects.
The voluntourism concept combines both the tourism and volunteering aspects, which is
considered as an effective international travel and tourism aspect that can contribute to the
sustainable development by adapting to the new culture and country3. The voluntourism also
makes ways for efficiently managing volunteering work and furthermore allow the volunteers to
participate in the tourism and volunteer works at the same time with ease and effectiveness.
While working overseas, the majority of volunteers have managed to live p with the local host
families for gaining an understanding of the cross-cultural concepts, manage tourism, and travel
in an effective manner. The host family would welcome the volunteers to their home and provide
them with opportunities to become a part of the community by sharing their everyday lives and
2 K Kirillova, X Lehto & L Cai, "Volunteer Tourism and Intercultural Sensitivity: The Role of Interaction with Host
Communities", in Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, vol. 32, 2015, 382-400.
3 D Blackman & A Benson, "The Role of the Psychological Contract in Managing Research Volunteer Tourism", in
Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, vol. 27, 2010, 221-235.

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customs. The volunteers can also celebrate their birthdays, some occasions with the host families
as well while returning from their visit to the country4.
From the journal article, it could be understood that people could not value what they
actually did not understand and thus it would be necessary to gain an understanding of the local
components and how those could contribute to the value addition within the travel and tourism
industry. The skills that have been gained while sharing knowledge and information could help
in managing the environment with travellers and tourists and furthermore understand how the
tourism might create an impact on the development of cross-cultural understanding5.
The volunteer tourism has largely contributed to the sustainable volunteer project and
even the implementation of long term development by utilizing the skills, time, resource and
energy effectively. This would also provide enough opportunities to managing enhanced learning
and allow individuals to gain proper education and furthermore provide support to an entire
family as well. The participation in voluntourism can help in contributing to a large extent to the
local economy. The volunteers take advantages to go to various locations and do sightseeing and
make island tours. There are many countries including Singapore rely heavily on the income
generated from travel and tourism and the journal article, it is clearly understood that the
volunteers support local businesses6. The voluntourism supports the local staffs, which can also
provide lots of employment opportunities to the local people and allow them to pursue further
training and development sessions to improve their skills, knowledge and expertise level.
4 A Brumbaugh, "The Impact of Diversity Seeking and Volunteer Orientation on Desire for Alternative Spring Break
Programs", in Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, vol. 27, 2010, 474-490.
5 E Burrai, X Font & J Cochrane, "Destination Stakeholders' Perceptions of Volunteer Tourism: An Equity Theory
Approach", in International Journal of Tourism Research, vol. 17, 2014, 451-459.
6 M Chang & J Jetten, "Understanding Cultural Identification", in Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, vol. 46, 2015,
1291-1295.

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Cross cultural understanding in volunteer tourism
There are differences between the volunteer tourism industry and other tourism forms,
and thus it is the responsibility of the volunteers to interact with the local and social communities
and contribute to the understanding of the culture that is being volunteered by individuals. The
Cross-cultural understanding can help to gain proper understandings of the local culture where
all the volunteers are present and gain awareness of the socio-economic, cultural, environmental
and local issues which can create a positive or negative impact on the local community. The
cross-cultural understanding also helps in making people learn, acknowledge, identify, analyse
and interpret situations and conditions for preventing the issues related to a misunderstanding
created due to the cultural differences7. The volunteers must create an open-minded approach to
breaking down the components of previous stereotypes and manage the power assumptions
through a cross-cultural understanding with ease and effectiveness. According to the journal
article, the business organisations within the travel and tourism industry can also foster the
development of good relationships between the host countries and volunteers through a better
understanding of knowledge before travel. This would also include critical reflections made on
behalf of the motivations of volunteers, understanding of expectations and provide reflections
based on the travel and tourism experiences as well8. The volunteers of travel and tourism must
also try to prevent misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the contribution made by the host
communities to the experiences, skills and knowledge of volunteers. The cross-cultural
understanding can also disseminate or disperse the various stereotypes and assumptions of power
7 K Kirillova, X Lehto & L Cai, "Volunteer Tourism and Intercultural Sensitivity: The Role of Interaction with Host
Communities", in Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, vol. 32, 2015, 382-400.
8 J Nadeau & D Lord, "Justice motivation and place image influences on volunteer tourism: perceptions, responses,
and deliberations", in Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, , 2017, 1-14.

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distributed between the developing and developed nations by gaining a thorough understanding
of the experiences and skills based on cross-cultural understanding9.
Volunteer travel and tourism have been rising among the Singapore based travellers and
tourists nowadays. According to various surveys, it was seen that many of the travellers preferred
the charitable work in Singapore as well as working aboard. Voluntourism has also managed to
conduct a proper research on the organisation, which has been considered while travelling with.
The vast amount of Experience, sustainability, financial roles and responsibilities are the
important components for running programs and benefit the population positively10.
Various theories and concepts
Hofstede Cultural Dimensions theory
One of the major theories of cross-cultural understanding through volunteering
experience could be the Hofstede Cultural dimensions theory. This kind of effective theory acts
as a framework for managing cross-cultural communication and determine the impacts created
by the culture within the society based on the values of members, values related to the
behaviours and structure associated with the factor analysis too11. The Hofstede cultural
dimension theory utilizes the factor analysis for evaluating the outcomes by a survey of
employee values and work on the four dimensions of culture including the individualism,
9 J Park, D Kim & C Zhang, "Understanding Cross-National Differences in Risk Through a Localized Cultural
Perspective", in Cross-Cultural Research, vol. 50, 2015, 34-62.
10 E Raymond & C Hall, "The Development of Cross-Cultural (Mis)Understanding Through Volunteer Tourism", in
Journal of Sustainable Tourism, vol. 16, 2008, 530-543.
11 B Ritchie & R Maitland, "Special Issue,Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing", in Journal of Travel & Tourism
Marketing, vol. 22, 2007, 1-5.

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collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power index and masculinity and femininity. Another
additional cultural dimension could be the indulgence versus self-restraint12.
The Hofstede theory has created a major research for carrying out the cross-cultural
activities in an effective way as well as ensures successful international communication and
business with ease and effectiveness. It is preferred by many authors of the journal because it is a
preferred resource in the cross-cultural fields and enables studying the values, beliefs and other
important concepts of cross culture and social beliefs creating an impact on the volunteer
tourism13.
Based on the journal article presented by Frederick, Leon and Arpana Gupta, to manage
voluntourism in an effective and easy way, it is important to address issues regarding race,
ethnicity, religion, values and styles of international communication. The demographics continue
to change from time to time within a diversity, and thus it is essential to open doors for volunteer
tourism and enable the tourists and travellers from various parts of the world to travel in global
countries and contribute largely to the growth and sustainable development by adapting to the
new culture of the country14. This would not only make them aware of the values and beliefs of
the new place but would help them to explore the new concepts of cross-cultural communication
and interact with people of that place by maintaining peace and harmony.
The Hofstede cultural dimension theory considered the four major dimensions and
analysed the cultures, which are different for the various countries. The power distance index
allows the less knowledgeable workers to accept that services have been provided to them
12 J Jones, "Volunteer tourism in the global South", in Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, vol. 14, 2014, 170-
172.
13 M Strzelecka, G Nisbett & K Woosnam, "The hedonic nature of conservation volunteer travel", in Tourism
Management, vol. 63, 2017, 417-425.
14 K Tam, "Understanding Intergenerational Cultural Transmission Through the Role of Perceived Norms", in Journal
of Cross-Cultural Psychology, vol. 46, 2015, 1260-1266.

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unequally. Here the volunteers are the workers who have believed that power distribution is done
with discrimination and are not provided equally. The Uncertainty avoidance is another
dimension of the Hofstede theory where the volunteers may face issues and even subject to some
kind of harm due to certain situations. This can create beliefs among them and allow them to
prevent such situations to the utmost level possible15.
The Individualism vs collectivism dimension of the theory enables the volunteers to look
after themselves as well as their families who are immediate. This is the degree to which the
individuals within the society have been integrated into the groups while the collectivism
represents the relationships built through tightly integrated relationships for gaining proper
loyalty and support in case of any emergencies. Here the volunteers working within the travel
and tourism industry have considered the travellers and tourists as their immediate families to
create trust and loyalty and allow them to purchase the tourism services by adapting to the new
culture of the place where they want to travel to. Within the masculine societies, female
individuals are more emphatic and competitive, though less emphatic than the male individuals.
Thus there is a certain gap between male and females16. Here the volunteers of tourism consider
the male and female members equally, and they are made aware of the various cross-cultural
dimensions before travel and purchase of tourism services.
Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity
Another effective cross-cultural theory or model is the Bennett's Developmental Model of
Intercultural Sensitivity, which includes the six stages including the denial, defense,
minimisation, acceptance, adaptation and integration. During the first stage, i.e., the denial stage,
15 K Tomazos, "Dr. Volunteer and Mr. Tourist: Lifting the Guilt off Volunteer Tourism", in Journal of Tourism &
Hospitality, vol. 05, 2016.
16 G Hofstede, "Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context", in Online Readings in Psychology and
Culture, vol. 2, 2011.

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the tourists refuse to establish communication with people from different cultures and do not
focus on the cultural aspects of that country. The volunteers have the roles and responsibilities to
make them understand the cultural differences and ensure that they can enjoy their travel
peacefully17.
The defense stage allows the individuals to take into consideration the cultures that are
inferior to their own culture and this results in creating criticism. The volunteers of tourism and
travel must make them understand to respect every culture and consider the values and beliefs of
that different culture as well. The minimisation phase allows for reducing the criticism and make
individuals respect every culture and believe that these cultures share common values, which can
further help in preventing the cultural differences too18.
The acceptance stage is needed to be maintained for making the volunteers of tourism to
understand the cultural differences and even allow them to learn those properly. This would
further help them to adopt the new culture of that place and get accustomed with the behaviours
and attitudes of people with ease and effectiveness. The integration stage is accomplished by
making the individuals achieve long term goals and objectives and manage changes in their
behaviours and styles during communication with individuals belonging from a different
culture.19
Conclusion
17 W Etri, "Reaching a Central Place of Understanding Intercultural Sensitivity in ELT - Dynamic Frames for
Intercultural Sensitivity", in SSRN Electronic Journal, , 2016.
18 K Kirillova, X Lehto & L Cai, "Volunteer Tourism and Intercultural Sensitivity: The Role of Interaction with Host
Communities", in Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, vol. 32, 2015, 382-400.
19 N Hasanova, "Voluntourism", in The Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing, vol. 31, 2017, E3-E5.

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Based on the journal article, few authors such as Hammersley explored the concepts of
cross-cultural understanding by creating a systematic method of self-reflection and knowledge
about the community, host countries and culture that would be adopted by the volunteers. This
would contribute to the successful accomplishment of voluntourism and furthermore facilitate
greater knowledge and understanding prior to the travel and tourism activities managed by the
volunteers. While managing the voluntourism activities, it is necessary for the volunteers to
understand the different culture and create enough scopes and opportunities for sustaining within
the business environment with ease. The different theories and models related to cross cultural
activities had also been illustrated here along with the other aspects of volunteer tourism for
deriving a good conclusion in the end.
References
Blackman, D, & A Benson, "The Role of the Psychological Contract in Managing Research
Volunteer Tourism.". in Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 27, 2010, 221-235.

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TOURISM AND TRAVEL
Brumbaugh, A, "The Impact of Diversity Seeking and Volunteer Orientation on Desire for
Alternative Spring Break Programs.". in Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 27, 2010, 474-
490.
Burrai, E, X Font, & J Cochrane, "Destination Stakeholders' Perceptions of Volunteer Tourism:
An Equity Theory Approach.". in International Journal of Tourism Research, 17, 2014, 451-459.
Chang, M, & J Jetten, "Understanding Cultural Identification.". in Journal of Cross-Cultural
Psychology, 46, 2015, 1291-1295.
Etri, W, "Reaching a Central Place of Understanding Intercultural Sensitivity in ELT - Dynamic
Frames for Intercultural Sensitivity.". in SSRN Electronic Journal, , 2016.
Hasanova, N, "Voluntourism.". in The Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing, 31, 2017, E3-
E5.
Hernandez, F, & B Kose, "The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity.". in Education
and Urban Society, 44, 2011, 512-530.
Hofstede, G, "Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context.". in Online Readings
in Psychology and Culture, 2, 2011.
Jones, J, "Volunteer tourism in the global South.". in Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change,
14, 2014, 170-172.
Kirillova, K, X Lehto, & L Cai, "Volunteer Tourism and Intercultural Sensitivity: The Role of
Interaction with Host Communities.". in Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 32, 2015, 382-
400.