Philanthropic tourism and ethics in charitable organizations: a case study in Central Kenya

ABSTRACT

The not-for-profit sector works within a market environment, in which charities compete with one another for donations. Despite their humanitarian aims, the sector suffers from both financial and sexual misconduct. Some researchers have called for the creation of professional bodies with self-governing accreditation schemes to monitor and signal ethical behaviour and provide charities with a competitive advantage. An ethnographic case study of a charitable field project in Kenya is analyzed within the frameworks of motivation theory and core values theory. Multiple ethical violations were found and reported on by visitors. As an alternative to accreditation which can be expensive and can divert donations away from worthy programme activities, this paper argues for the use of philanthropic tourism, i.e. a visitor programme. Combined with a well-structured code of conduct, such programmes can provide the small to medium-sized charity with a cost effective, revenue enhancing way of signalling and enforcing ethical behaviour in the not-for-profit organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Philanthropic tourism
• charities
• ethics
• NGO
• not-for-profits
• Africa
• Kenya

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Gary Lacey is a Kenyan born adjunct lecturer with the Graduate Tourism Program at Monash University and a teaching associate with the Department of Tourism and Hospitality at La Trobe University. His main research interests are in poverty alleviation and local empowerment, especially within sub-Saharan Africa.

Betty Weiler is a geographer and professor at the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Southern Cross University and has a wide range of research interests, including interpretation, planning, tourism education, tour guiding and voluntourism.

Victoria Peel is the postgraduate (masters’ programme) coordinator for the faculty of Arts and an historian with the National Centre for Australian studies at Monash University. She has diverse research interests, including guidebooks, regional development, sustainable tourism, cultural tourism and backpacking.

Notes

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