Developing the Dimensions of Tourism Volunteering

Abstract

Volunteers within tourism settings are of growing interest. Research to date has been fragmented either focusing on individuals volunteering in their community (i.e., hosts) or tourists volunteering at a destination (i.e., guests). In this paper, the tourism and leisure literature on volunteering is synthesized and the host and guest streams of volunteering critiqued according to four defining dimensions: setting, time commitment, level of obligation, and remuneration. These dimensions are refined using interview data to propose a model of tourism volunteering where host and guest volunteering are related rather than distinct. A simple host-guest dichotomy misses the shared and distinct complexities of tourism volunteering.

Keywords:

• host volunteering
• serious leisure
• volunteerism
• volunteer tourism