(Originally published in TOURISM)
While turning the pages of any number of travel magazines these days, one word seems to appear more than any other: “voluntourism”. Whether it's Bill Clinton’s global trek, or Angelina Jolie’s ambassadorship, or the newest addition of the Lonely Planet family (Volunteer: A Traveller’s Guide to Making a Difference Around the World), to say nothing of a multitude of websites, volunteer vacations are in vogue.
More than that, they’re generating significant tourism revenue. A 2005 survey by the Travel Industry Association of America reported nearly one-quarter of travellers were interested in a volunteer or service-based vacation. In 2006, Euromonitor International projected voluntourism would be one of the fastest growing travel segments over the next three to four years.
When the subject is first brought up among Canadians, the reaction is often to associate voluntourism with people from affluent countries (like Canada and the US) travelling to third-world or stressed countries. To be sure, one can read innumerable articles about, as Condé Nast Traveler put it, “the age of virtuous travel,” and Canada hasn’t figured prominently. South America and Africa, on the other hand, have.
“When people think voluntourism” explained Rogier Gruys, product specialist at the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC), “they think exotic. They think 'going to a village, building a well.'” Indeed, it appears that, because Canada is one of the world’s best when it comes to quality of life, we might have to work a little harder to attract the voluntourism market.
Or maybe not, suggests John Vanden Heuvel of WWOOF (which stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms as well as Willing Workers on Organic Farms), the largest volunteer organization in Canada (www.wwoof.ca). Vanden Heuvel says the WWOOF program, which asks travellers to share their organic farming skills in exchange for room and board, is thriving without carrying out any advertising whatsoever. “Our greatest PR by far is word-of-mouth,” says Vanden Heuvel. Service is paramount: “WWOOF is a people-oriented project. We’re not into making it bigger, richer, better. We offer a good service, a quality up-to-date product (including a 52-page booklet detailing the program), and we answer e-mails almost immediately.”
How, then, do we position Canada as a compelling voluntourist destination, given that Canada isn’t a country in need? Vanden Heuvel's answer may seem surprising; he dispels the notion that people's image of our country hinders our competitiveness in the global voluntour market: “We attract a lot of Europeans because of their romantic vision of Canada as a place of wide open spaces and unspoiled wilderness.”
On top of that, Vanden Heuvel states there’s a productive overlap between voluntourism and other contemporary trends, like ecotourism. And Beth Kelly Hatt of New Brunswick’s Aquila Tours Inc. agrees: voluntourism in Canada works, she says, so long as it has a green focus.
With products on offer such as whale-tracking off the shore of BC’s Great Bear Rainforest and monitoring carbon change in the Arctic ecosystem, Canada’s voluntours have thumbprints as green as they come. Available products give volunteers the chance to flex different skill sets: “Research is what people can do in Canada,” says Gruys. And though initially the word “research” might conjure up the thought of long hours spent pouring over university projects or crunching data at work, it can be far more exciting: voluntourism in Canada means all those things for which we’ve been known – land and nature – and all those things by which we want to be – people, adventure and story. From blue whale biopsies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to unearthing Canadian history at a Fortress of Louisbourg archaelogical dig, committed voluntourists can readily pursue their aspirations for a truly rewarding vacation.
While turning the pages of any number of travel magazines these days, one word seems to appear more than any other: “voluntourism”. Whether it's Bill Clinton’s global trek, or Angelina Jolie’s ambassadorship, or the newest addition of the Lonely Planet family (Volunteer: A Traveller’s Guide to Making a Difference Around the World), to say nothing of a multitude of websites, volunteer vacations are in vogue.
More than that, they’re generating significant tourism revenue. A 2005 survey by the Travel Industry Association of America reported nearly one-quarter of travellers were interested in a volunteer or service-based vacation. In 2006, Euromonitor International projected voluntourism would be one of the fastest growing travel segments over the next three to four years.
When the subject is first brought up among Canadians, the reaction is often to associate voluntourism with people from affluent countries (like Canada and the US) travelling to third-world or stressed countries. To be sure, one can read innumerable articles about, as Condé Nast Traveler put it, “the age of virtuous travel,” and Canada hasn’t figured prominently. South America and Africa, on the other hand, have.
“When people think voluntourism” explained Rogier Gruys, product specialist at the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC), “they think exotic. They think 'going to a village, building a well.'” Indeed, it appears that, because Canada is one of the world’s best when it comes to quality of life, we might have to work a little harder to attract the voluntourism market.
Or maybe not, suggests John Vanden Heuvel of WWOOF (which stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms as well as Willing Workers on Organic Farms), the largest volunteer organization in Canada (www.wwoof.ca). Vanden Heuvel says the WWOOF program, which asks travellers to share their organic farming skills in exchange for room and board, is thriving without carrying out any advertising whatsoever. “Our greatest PR by far is word-of-mouth,” says Vanden Heuvel. Service is paramount: “WWOOF is a people-oriented project. We’re not into making it bigger, richer, better. We offer a good service, a quality up-to-date product (including a 52-page booklet detailing the program), and we answer e-mails almost immediately.”
How, then, do we position Canada as a compelling voluntourist destination, given that Canada isn’t a country in need? Vanden Heuvel's answer may seem surprising; he dispels the notion that people's image of our country hinders our competitiveness in the global voluntour market: “We attract a lot of Europeans because of their romantic vision of Canada as a place of wide open spaces and unspoiled wilderness.”
On top of that, Vanden Heuvel states there’s a productive overlap between voluntourism and other contemporary trends, like ecotourism. And Beth Kelly Hatt of New Brunswick’s Aquila Tours Inc. agrees: voluntourism in Canada works, she says, so long as it has a green focus.
With products on offer such as whale-tracking off the shore of BC’s Great Bear Rainforest and monitoring carbon change in the Arctic ecosystem, Canada’s voluntours have thumbprints as green as they come. Available products give volunteers the chance to flex different skill sets: “Research is what people can do in Canada,” says Gruys. And though initially the word “research” might conjure up the thought of long hours spent pouring over university projects or crunching data at work, it can be far more exciting: voluntourism in Canada means all those things for which we’ve been known – land and nature – and all those things by which we want to be – people, adventure and story. From blue whale biopsies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to unearthing Canadian history at a Fortress of Louisbourg archaelogical dig, committed voluntourists can readily pursue their aspirations for a truly rewarding vacation.
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