Voluntary Tourism Activities Volunteer tourism is experienced through exploring a different approach in the tourism industry.

By taking volunteer tourism and investigating the more significant impacts it can have on the individual and on their lifestyle. In the context of volunteer tourism activities, I have classified them into 5 major groups of volunteer tourism. Each group of these tourists have their specialty and uniqueness in performing their tasks. The groups are traditional volunteering, Internship or Gap year volunteering, Voluntourism, and online volunteering1. Each group has their own way of participating in the tour. Mostly, all volunteer tourists have a set of responsibilities that they should accomplish by the end of the travel period. It can be considered that they are merely classified as an unpaid travelling volunteer. For all the groups mentioned above, they plays a different role than the others. Firstly, the group of traditional volunteering is like we have to join any local Non-Governmental Organizations and work on one of their projects be it directly with beneficiaries or in office or a fundraiser. These projects can be as short as a few hours or as long as one year or longer. You may wish to spend your birthday at the local orphanage and that would be a one-day volunteering. But you may choose to teach them and thus visiting them regularly by making it a long-term association. Secondly, Internship or Gap Year Volunteering is specialized for student all over the world. Nowadays, there are more and more students who turns to join in the volunteering with NGOs as their preferred internship and gap-year option. Working in the development sector provides valuable career experience and skills useful in placements. Since in this case you will be working there are also many volunteer management agencies that can place you with reliable NGOs but

http://www.volunteerweekly.org/types-of-volunteering-activities

they may charge a fee for this service. Thirdly, Voluntourism is a form of volunteerism in tourism where it is open to all people from anywhere from the world without any age barrier. Volun-Tourism or volunteer travel is a great way of combining tourism and volunteering. It provides the unique opportunity to see a place as an insider, live with locals and get access to many behind-the-scene activities in an area. Lastly, is Online Volunteering The world-wide-web has made geographical boundary nonexistent in many aspects. Online volunteering makes it possible to volunteer for different organizations in different countries from your home or office and at your convenience. Projects may involve helping with social media, website or designing some material, mentoring youth, proof-reading articles, and translations. In general, all these groups under volunteer tourism are playing the role to help the local communities by uplifting their standards in education, technology advancement and many more. The main objective of each volunteer tourist is to perform any services that can benefit the people in need. According to (Wanda Vrasti, 2012, Volunteer Tourism in the Global South: Giving Back in Neoliberal Times Google eBook) the extract below,

San Anders could be regarded as failed volunteer tourism destination. Volunteers found their work to be menial and pointless and San Anders not poor enough to require foreign assistance. 2
We can make an assumption that not all places are poor and need volunteer tourists. Therefore, the activities to be carried out at these places are lesser which results in fewer tourists volunteering to serve at these places. It is clear that, volunteer tourism mainly emphasized on their activities solely and not luxury and pleasure.
(Wanda Vrasti, Volunteer Tourism in the Global South: Giving Back in Neoliberal Times Google eBook, 2012)
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Mode of travel and Shelter Mostly all the volunteer tourists will be attached to some organizations that they are going to participate in with. Many of them will go on the contract of apprentices, where they will be only supported with accommodation and food and beverages. Almost all projects do not allocate any incentives for the volunteer tourists. This is because they choose to gain experience by participating in the organizations projects which will be carried out at a certain place for some period of time. As a reward they will be getting a certificate of appreciation and the valuable experience gained throughout the project. The volunteer tourists will be travelling by many means from sky to land and sea across all boundaries. Some rural places requires them to even walk for some miles. In the context of the volunteer tourists shelter, they will be provided by the organization that they are attached to and it will be exactly the same as how the local community lives. Mostly, it will not have all the facilities but will fulfill the basic need of a person. There are also many sorts of shelters for the volunteer tourists for example like a campsite, a house, chalet and etc. All this experience will build a strong motivation to the volunteer tourists to accomplish their mission.