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Volunteer tourism is an increasingly popular activity in which individuals combine travel with voluntary work. On the whole, existing literature has provided an optimistic view of volunteer tourism, suggesting that it represents a more reciprocal form of tourism and facilitates the development of cross-cultural understanding among participants. However, more recently, it has been argued that if volunteer tourism programmes (VTPs) are not carefully managed, they may lead to cross-cultural misunderstanding and the reinforcement of cultural stereotypes. Through conducting an Appreciative Inquiry into a number of volunteer programmes, this research sought to explore these ideas further and, in particular, identify the role that volunteer tourism sending organisations can play in order to ensure that cross-cultural understanding develops through volunteer tourism. The findings from this research suggest that the development of cross-cultural understanding should be perceived as a goal of volunteer tourism rather than a natural result of sending volunteers overseas. This paper argues that sending organisations can play an important role in facilitating the achievement of this goal through pro-active management prior, during, and after their VTPs.

This chapter explores the role that sending organizations play in developing and maintaining volunteer tourism programmes (VTPs) that benefit both the volunteer tourists and the host organizations. Two case studies are presented: the Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD) and the International Student Volunteers (ISV), and more specifically the FSD internship programme in La Plata, Argentina and the ISV programme run through Kuaka in New Zealand. These case studies were selected to represent two very different styles of VTP: individual placements and group projects. The key conclusion drawn is that neither placements nor projects should be assumed as automatically benefiting both the volunteer and the hosts. While this research was exploratory, it highlights the need for sending organizations to develop and manage their programmes both deliberately and carefully.

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