The evils of Voluntourism

See this recent article in the Guardian about Voluntourism: 

"Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do"

The PEPY group in Cambodia turned me on to this.

The article references a report by the Human Science Research Council

Report

In recent decades, the tourism industry has thrived, grown and diversified to encompass a wide array of travel activities, with alternative volunteer tourism leading the way. Well-to-do tourists enrol for several weeks at a time to build schools, clean and restore river banks, ring birds and other useful activities in mostly poor but exotic settings. AIDS orphan tourism has become a niche market, contributing to the growth of the tourism industry. AIDS orphans ‘have economic valence' and ‘orphanhood is a globally circulated commodity', as some researchers have phrased it.

I am a supporter of "fun tourism". An old concept that our productive society seems to have forgotten.


Eco-tourism, "guilt-trips", mission trips, study tours, and "AIDS orphan tourism" don't match up to a nice work-free vacation to a new exotic land.