The possible negative impacts of volunteer tourism

Abstract Volunteer tourism is an increasingly popular form of travel that is attracting growing research attention. Nevertheless, existing research has focused primarily on the benefits of volunteer tourism, and many studies have simply involved profiling volunteers or investigating their motivations. However, there are numerous possible negative impacts of volunteer tourism that deserve increased attention from both researchers and project managers: a neglect of locals' desires, a hindering of work progress and completion of unsatisfactory work, a disruption of local economies, a reinforcement of conceptualisations of the ‘other’ and rationalisations of poverty, and an instigation of cultural changes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.