Tourism and Volunteering
Focus and Themes of Special Interest Group
The aim of this SIG is to foster an environment of collaboration to promote dialogue between academics, educators and students interested in volunteering and tourism and forge links with relevant industry and other stakeholders. The intersection between volunteering and tourism is an important one for the future of the tourism industry. This special interest group will play a central role in considering this intersection not only in terms of the role volunteers play in the supply of tourism but also the growing demand for volunteer experiences as a form of alternative tourism. This group will also consider those forms of voluntary behaviour which may fall outside more narrowly defined categories where volunteering and tourism intersect and will consider how volunteers can straddle and make problematic the supply/demand boundaries of tourism.
Key Outcomes for Members
The members would receive access to a network of government and industry based organisations working in this area and a chance to be part of a network of academics to support them in their research. As part of this group the members would be provided with opportunities to collaborate with a wide range of academics that are geographically dispersed. The members will be provided with access to other academic associations to encourage collaborative research and create grant and publishing opportunities. The group will run an e-mail reporting system which will update members, provide information sharing opportunities and provide a forum within which to receive feedback from peers to improve the quality of their research and educational output.
Proposed Activities 2010/2011
Half-day seminar at UTS
In November 2010, Stephen Wearing and Kevin Lyons will hold a half-day seminar at UTS focussing on Gap year and volunteering. This will be directed at prospective gap year participants and their parents.
2nd Volunteering and Tourism Symposium
We would like to hold 2nd Volunteering and Tourism Symposium directly prior to CAUTHE 2012. We hope to attract enough quality papers at this symposium for a Special Issue of CAUTHE’s Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management. We will be discussing this further at the next SIG meeting at CAUTHE 2011.
Tourism Industry workshop
Kevin Lyons is hoping to host a Tourism Industry workshop at Newcastle focussing on the role of voluntary labour in the tourism industry, with particular focus upon the Hunter Region. This will be explored further at the CAUTHE SIG in Adelaide in 2011. A keynote presenter will be sourced for this workshop. Funds to cover the costs associated with attracting an international authority on this topic will be sought from CAUTHE.
Past Activities
CAUTHE 2010 meeting
SIG meeting chaired by Dr. Karen Smith at CAUTHE Conference in Tasmania in 2010.
1st Volunteering and Tourism Symposium
This Symposium in June 2009 attracted 15 papers and Professor Bob Stebbins was the keynote along with Stephen Wearing.
Special (Double) Issue on Volunteering Tourism
This special issue in the "Annals of Leisure Research" (Vol. 12 Issues 3-4, 2009) included 8 refereed papers, five of which were papers that were developed from the Symposium, and were authored/co-authored by members of the SIG.
Relevant book publications
Managing Volunteers in Tourism: attractions, destinations and events by Kirsten Holmes and Karen Smith (Elsevier Butterworth-Heinmann). This included case studies by SIG members Deborah Edwards, Leonie Lockstone and Tom Baum.
SIG Co-ordinators
Associate Professor Stephen Wearing Stephen.Wearing@uts.edu.au
Dr Kevin Lyons kevin.lyons@newcastle.edu.au
