"We are not tourists. We fit in this community": Relationship between volunteer tourists and residents in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica a case study

• Main Author: Lee, Hanjung
• Other Authors: Campbell, Michael (Kinesiology and Recreation Management)
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Volunteer tourism; Emotional solidarity; Inter-cultural relationships
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1993/23600

Volunteer tourism has been regarded to provide an authentic and mutually beneficial relationship between volunteer tourists and residents based on volunteering. By exploring volunteer tourists' emotional solidarity with residents, the researcher aims to uncover the social relations between volunteer tourists and residents in practice. This exploratory study was conducted in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica during November 2012 to January 2013. Based on the two months of ethnographic field research, this research suggests that volunteer tourism may not be superior to so-called “mass tourism” in terms of building harmonious relationships between volunteer tourists and resident. In this study, volunteer tourists’ feelings of closeness were merely feelings which boosted the identity of volunteer tourists from “tourists” to “volunteers”. This article contributes to the growing body of literature on volunteer tourism by exploring the volunteer tourism experience from the perspectives of international volunteers.