Alternative

tourism like volunteer,

slum and refugee tourism are
examples of neo colonialism.

True or False?

Anne Pel
122769

Introduction
Is alternative tourism like volunteer, slum and refugee tourism an example of neo
colonialism? Neo colonialism is the geopolitical practice of using cultural imperialism,
capitalism, and business globalization to influence a country (Mowfurth & Munt, 2008). Neo
colonialism in alternative tourism is often disguised as some form of development aid, and
mainly takes place in underdeveloped countries (Pastran, 2014).
Alternative tourism has gained vast popularity and is said to be beneficial for both host
communities and tourists (Callanan & Thomas, 2005). It can be defined as forms of tourism
that are made to be friendly to the environment and to respect social and cultural values of
communities, and which allow both guests and hosts to enjoy positive and valuable
interaction and collective experiences (Wearing & Neil, 2000). However, in recent years
numerous parallels between tourism and neo colonialism have been drawn by both
academics and tourism organizations worldwide (Mowforth & Munt, 2008). Alternative
tourism emphasizes a powerful neocolonial idea that even inexperienced and untrained
westerners can bring growth to developing countries (Pastran, 2014).
Power
Alternative tourism is preached for its low impact, but is it really? (Wearing, 2001) How
tourism develops is linked to the different powers at play in a destination, this is also the
case in alternative tourism. These powers can often be seen as big, rich, western
organizations that influence tourism and its impacts from outside the destination. Even
though organizations often do take local tourism as a concern; this is not their main priority.
Their main focus are making economic advantages and attracting more tourists to a
destination, it is not on making the country a better place to live for its locals (Hall & Tucker,
2004). Any practice of alternative tourism is stated to be about helping, which makes it on
the one hand humanitarian, nevertheless it also mimics patterns of western dominance and
inequality, which causes many to believe that this is indeed a form of neo-colonialism
(Palacios, 2010).
Aiding or causing harm?
The effect that alternative tourism has on a communities has been a discussion point for
years, are these locals passive victims of tourism or partners of the tourism industry? Wall
(1997) and McIntosh & Zahra (2007) argue that in the end tourism in any way must be
culturally suitable to be socially sustainable. One of the major issues about alternative
tourism is the lack of knowledge about biases and power relations among locals and
volunteers, making it culturally unsuitable (McBride & Daftary, 2007). These tourists that
supposedly go to help do not get any training whatsoever about what is expected of them
when it comes to socializing with the locals and more importantly respecting their culture.
Programs also do not do handovers when a new group of tourists come to help, which

opens up the question, are these tourists helping or causing harm to communities
(Fulbrook, 2008)?
An example of the negative impact alternative tourism makes can be seen in the case of
volunteer tourism in Cambodia. Each year hundreds of inexperienced tourists from wealthy
countries come to Cambodia to aid the orphans. They either come to teach English, help in
construction or just to entertain the children. Consequently there is a low demand for actual
professors and constructions workers that live locally. However, the more serious issue and
negative impact is that they are creating a demand for more orphans (McGehee, 2012).
Orphanage business has become a profitable and easy business for Cambodians. The
demand for accessible vulnerable children keeps rising, and more children are trafficked.
SISHA, a non-profit organization battles against child trafficking, and corrupt orphanages
that use children to collect donations from volunteer tourism, mentions that at least 90% of
the orphanages have very poor living conditions and physically abuse children. In 2012
SISHA managed to close their first orphanage, Childrens Umbrella Centre Organization
(CUCO), an orphanage that managed to violate almost all rules when it comes to child safety
laws (Huffman, 2012). There is unrest in Cambodian villages, these good willed westerners
are collecting money and helping a poor country develops while at the same time help
needy children. However, in doing so they keep children away from their families, tearing
apart communities and fueling a corrupt and criminal industry, which then prevents the
country from developing (Punaks & Feit, 2014). Lastly, Ruhfus (2012) remarks how despite
the good intentions the misplaced goodwill of volunteers and foreign donors could be
damaging a generation of Cambodian children, instead of helping them.
Cross cultural understanding
Loss of culture can take many forms. It has been mentioned before that tourists
participating in alternative tourism in most cases are not properly briefed before visiting an
underdeveloped destination. This causes not only a lack of knowledge but also affects the
culture of local communities and often offends its residents (Lyons & Wearing, 2008). The
most frequent disrespected custom being denigrated due to not enough training is about
clothing and revealing too much skin. In many cultures it is the social norm to politely cover
yourself up, locals expect visitors to their community to respect their culture and beliefs.
Being disrespectful to these local customs can cause ill will and could make locals stray from
their beliefs and customs (Smith, 2009). Another way culture is lost is when crafts become
merchandise. The more tourists visit a destination, even if it is for alternative tourism, the
more local people realize that money can be made by selling their crafts to tourists.
However, after a while crafts that once had cultural and spiritual significance now are just
goods. The end result is that designs are changed to meet the demands of tourists and the
crafts lose all cultural value (Hannam & Offeh, 2012). The last way ill will can be caused is by
the way tourists interact with locals. Many pictures of locals are taken without subtlety or

permission, and afterwards tourists just move on without purchasing any of their crafts
(Brennan & Savage, 2012).
Conversely, alternative tourism has been seen and proven to be a sustainable development
for local communities not only economically, but also socio-culturally. One of the main
characteristics of all alternative tourism is to preserve authenticity and cultural assets. The
intensive guest-host interactions, exposure to local cultures and cross-cultural experience
are said to be major benefits from volunteer tourist expectation (Wearing, 2001). A case
study in Mexico shows that host communities are encouraged to develop recognition of
their culture and their pride (Holmes & Smith, 2009). However the support for alternative
tourism is only there from younger generations. The older the residents get the less likely he
or she is to agree with the positive socio-cultural impact of alternative tourism (McGehee &
Andereck, 2009). McIntosh and Zahra (2008) conducted a study on volunteer tourism in
New Zealand. The findings are very interesting and show that voluntourists were seen as
positive role models. Maori members explained that the tourists helped the children
develop their pride and culture identity in their Maori culture. What we can conclude from
this is that cross-cultural understanding in alternative tourism is more often nonexistent
than that it is.
Economic control
Neo colonial control has everything to do with money. Extensive economic involvement
from rich western countries in the form of financial aid has been given to developing
countries for years. In return for these funds and investments, countries were forced to
obey to strict regulations. In the case of alternative tourism and economic control there are
numerous opinions. Wearing (2001) argues that profits from volunteer tourism are always
directed towards the local community rather than outside companies. The ANAI Sea Turtle
Conservation Project is a good example of this; they host numerous volunteer tourists every
year. The project is located in Gandoca, Costa Rica and at the startup of this project all locals
were made aware of the economic benefits for them, it was emphasized that all benefits
would be retained locally. Research shows that the volunteers there spend less money than
regular tourists, but locals accept and even promote this because of the work the volunteers
do, and the money they do spent is spent on accommodation and facilities that are locally
owned (Gray & Campbell, 2007). However, is this case an example of neo colonialism due to
alternative tourism or not? In the end all these decisions of bringing in new tourists are
owned and controlled by outside companies and owners with a high leakage.
Alternative tourism also mainly comes in packaged tours, and the only involvement of local
people comes through the use of natural resources. This inequality only profits on the
excuse that if these operators did not come, there would be no money introduced to the
community at all. Thus it would be said that alternative tourism brings with it more
problems than solutions. It is even put forward as a way of solving problems that they
created in the first place, by bringing an inappropriate economic growth to underdeveloped

destinations with no experience in how to handle any type of tourism (Wearing &
McDonald, 2002). Another often-occurring problem with this sudden burst of money
coming into the destination is that they become dependent and start relying on alternative
tourists to provide economic support for their community (Lyons & Wearing, 2008).
Conclusion
People choose alternative tourism because they have the intention to do good. They want
to help people in underdeveloped countries and at the same time be a tourist and
experience a new destination and culture. From the information gathered in this essay we
can read that these good intentions often do not do any good at the destination. It does
have some positive outcomes, these however dont compare to the negative ones. The fact
that untrained people try to do work that you need proper schooling for, is maybe the most
important factor for these outcomes to become negative. In the end an environment of
despondency and dependency is created, and this could easily be transferred to the next
generation, thereby continuing the problem (Weaver, 2012).
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