Voluntourism: The Human Side of Sustainable Tourism

While voluntourism is not new, it appears to be at a product life-cycle stage where it can transition from a marginal offering to a mainstream travel market alternative, whether as the “main event” or to be incorporated in small doses in trips with other objectives (corporate meetings, family vacations, etc.). Hopefully this article will stimulate research directed at better quantifying voluntourism demand from the mainstream travel market, rather than as a subset of the adventure travel or cotourism markets. If the article serves to inspire someone to execute “One Million Hours for Haiti”, that would be even more satisfying.

While voluntourism is not new, it appears to be at a product life-cycle stage where it can transition from a marginal offering to a mainstream travel market alternative, whether as the “main event” or to be incorporated in small doses in trips with other objectives (corporate meetings, family vacations, etc.). Hopefully this article will stimulate research directed at better quantifying voluntourism demand from the mainstream travel market, rather than as a subset of the adventure travel or cotourism markets. If the article serves to inspire someone to execute “One Million Hours for Haiti”, that would be even more satisfying.