The sustainable development goals: the contribution of tourism volunteering

Abstract

The tourism workforce is diverse and the literature exploring workforce issues, whilst limited, largely focuses on remunerated workers. There is recognition that volunteering has a significant role to play in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); however, there is limited literature exploring the role of volunteering relative to the SDGs’ architecture. With reference to the tourism workforce, there is also a noticeable lack of studies exploring how tourism volunteering contributes to realisation of the SDGs. In a first, using the lens of critical tourism, this conceptual paper seeks to holistically explore how tourism volunteering can contribute to SDG realisation from the perspectives of host volunteering and (guest) volunteer tourism. This study maps the potential of both forms relative to the volunteering activities that United Nations Volunteers (UNV) has identified as means by which volunteers can support the SDGs. The findings revealed common areas through which host volunteering and volunteer tourism contribute but taken on the whole, volunteer tourism has the greater potential to contribute to the SDGs as a development agenda. Informed by these findings, we develop six propositions to advance recognition and research relating to the contribution of tourism volunteering to the SDGs.

Keywords:

• Host volunteering
• volunteer tourism
• sustainable development goals
• tourism workforce
• sustainable tourism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leonie Lockstone-Binney

Leonie Lockstone-Binney is Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management at Griffith University, Australia. Leonie’s main area of research expertise since 2000 relates to volunteering, with a particular focus on event and tourism settings. Consolidating on her reputation in the field, Leonie has published her work in several top-tier journals and continues to collaborate on projects with leading researchers from Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Faith Ong

Faith Ong is a Lecturer in the Tourism discipline at The University of Queensland’s School of Business. Her research interests lie in the role of tourism, hospitality and events as tools of social change. In particular, she focuses on inclusivity for marginalised communities in events and tourism. She has published in the areas of volunteer tourism, volunteerism, critical events, leadership and sustainability. Faith is currently undertaking research on inclusivity at events relating to marginalised communities, exploring the signals of inclusion and exclusion at occasions that are meant to bring communities together. Furthermore, she continues to work in areas related to volunteering and sustainability.