The role of global south volunteer NGOS in home-stay arrangements in Ghana: the parallel of Simmel’s mediator hypothesis?

A Systematic Literature Review of Rural Homestays and Sustainability in Tourism

“…ICT is associated with innovation, productivity, internationalization, and development, and this association is proofed in all firms generally and particularly in small and medium enterprises (Giotopoulos et al, 2017). Developments in ICT provide competitive advantage and open new possibilities in rural tourism (Agyeiwaah & Mensah, 2017). Technological development can provide significant solutions for dealing with sustainable challenges of tourism development (UNWTO, 2018).…”

“…Homestay is an attractive sustainable rural tourism product (Acharya & Halpenny, 2013; Walter et al, 2018). Unfortunately, there is no universal definition for a homestay; it is typically defined as a type of accommodation in which visitors stay in the homes of residents (Agyeiwaah, 2019; Agyeiwaah & Mensah, 2017). A homestay is a stay by a tourist, traveler, or student at a house, which is hosted by a local family in a local vicinity (Rizal et al, 2018).…”

A social‐cognitive framework of small accommodation enterprise sustainability practices

“…The overall educational outlook was such that more than half (57.8%) had attained tertiary education with the remaining splitting for three lower educational levels such as secondary (34.6%), primary (3.8%), and no formal education (3.8%). It must be reiterated here that the higher number of tertiary level owner‐managers is not by chance, given the earlier elaborated features of home‐stay enterprises in Ghana where NGO mediators are in charge of guest placement (Agyeiwaah & Mensah, 2017) and as result decide which owner‐manager gets a guest leading to the deliberate choice of educated individuals to facilitate host‐guest communication. While part‐time operation seems to be the norm for many (88%) of the owner‐manager, the majority (73%) has been operating this part‐time home‐stay enterprise for at least half a decade.…”

“…The first relates to what constitutes specialist accommodation as its ambiguity leads to different interpretations, and the second relates to the overwhelming terminologies that are used under the umbrella of specialist accommodation and yet mean different things (Morrison, Pearce, Moscardo, Nadkarni, & O'Leary, 1996). Given the definitional problems that characterize specialist accommodation, for this study, home‐stay is defined as a type of specialist accommodation where guests pay directly or indirectly to stay in the owner's private home that offers usually 1–10 rooms (Agyeiwaah & Mensah, 2017; Morrison et al, 1996). Home‐stay accommodation shares similarities with other types of specialist accommodation such as B&B, guesthouses, boutique accommodation, and farm‐stays where the home is commoditized (Hall & Rusher, 2005; A. J. McIntosh, Lynch, & Sweeney, 2010; A. J. McIntosh & Siggs, 2005).…”

“…Unlike previous studies that were conducted in Europe and Latin America (Font et al, 2016a, 2016b), the current study presents the case of Africa, Ghana where the national government is seeking to promote grassroots tourism participation by encouraging small locally managed types of accommodation such as home‐stay. While home‐stays are locally known as home‐lodges, they are largely mediated by local volunteer NGOs who organize projects and recommend such homes to volunteer tourists (Agyeiwaah & Mensah, 2017). This intricate relationship is very different in other developed countries such as Australia (Hassanli & Ashwell, 2018), and as a result, a qualitative approach is needed to contextualize the findings.…”