Research Volunteer Tourism

Volunteer tourism is one of the major growth areas in contemporary tourism, where tourists for various reasons seek alternative goodwill experiences and activities. An emerging segment of this is Research Volunteer Tourism. Research Volunteer Tourism is where; volunteers either engage in research themselves or assist others with their research projects. The use of volunteers is one of the key mechanisms for research volunteer organizations to meet their goals and therefore, they play an important role. Volunteers can usually be accommodated within the portfolio of projects and the recruitment of volunteers onto projects can enable the unlocking of money, annually, from private individuals which provides invaluable funding. In addition, weeks and months of individuals’ time is donated to participate in projects and in furthering the sustainability agenda. Yet the extent to which the organizations engage with volunteers varies considerably as does the expectation of volunteers in this role.

This book focuses on the experiences and perspectives of research volunteer tourists to fully explore whether perceptions of what constitutes the concept of volunteering is the same as the organization, and whether they perceive themselves in a volunteering role. Issues such as payment for experience and what the payment contributes towards are thoroughly explored for the first time. This book therefore moves beyond the topics of volunteer motivation providing further understanding and knowledge of volunteer perspectives across different aspects of the volunteering experiences.

Written by a leading academic in this field, this timely book will be of interest to tourism students and academics internationally.