Voluntourism, as discussed in a previous blog, To Go Or Not To Go, provides a unique impact and scope compared to traditional donations. The second part of the series seeks to uncover the road of donations as compared to voluntourism in terms of reaching the destination, community impact, and the values of overhead. The analysis …
Category: Tourism
Sep 20
To Go or Not To Go: Voluntourism
With the advent of global media and an increasingly connected world, the average citizen is drastically more informed and aware than yesteryear’s counterpart. This media saturation combined with man’s natural tendency to travel has produced a budding practice coined voluntourism, where socially conscious travelers are able to incorporate humanistic ambitions with new and exciting experiences …
Aug 19
Responsible Tourism in Madagascar
I’m sure most of you have heard of the island of Madagascar, particularly since the release of the Madagascar animated films, and know that the country is home to numerous animal species that cannot be found anywhere else on earth. 10,000 of the islands 12,000 plant species, for example, are endemic, as are half of the …
Apr 22
Myanmar in the Balance
Regular readers of this blog will know that Myanmar has long been one of my favorite topics. I’ve written many times, often quite hopefully, about what the future may hold for this isolated country as it begins to open up economically and socially. New president Thein Sein has made serious moves towards reforming the military-ruled country, …
Mar 25
Tourism in Cuba?
I’ve written a lot about the opening up of Myanmar and Bhutan and their possibilities for sustainable tourism, so today I thought I would look at another isolated country: Cuba. Travel between the United States and Cuba has been forbidden since February 8th, 1969, just a few months after the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. …
Dec 18
Doomsday Tourism
With the End of the World fast approaching, I thought it would be interesting to look at the impact fears of Earth’s imminent destruction are having on tourism. It may seem like an odd line of inquiry, but in fact many people have flocked to areas believed to be, for various reasons, the only place(s) …
Aug 06
Abortion-Included Tours
“Water always finds its way” I’ve written a little bit about health-related tourism in the past, specifically Penang, Malaysia’s efforts to use high-quality–yet very affordable–hospitals and doctors to encourage tourists to visit the state and undergo medical procedures, but, as you probably guessed from the title, this post is a little different. The Turkish government is …
May 17
The Pitfalls of Voluntourism
When I started writing for the Not Enough Good Blog exactly a year ago a quick Google search of the term “voluntourism” (a combination of volunteering and tourism) returned very few hits, but now voluntourism is becoming something of a buzzword. In fact, it’s so popular now that last month Groupon offered a voluntourism trip …
Apr 26
Tourism in the Korean DMZ
I find North Korea to be a fascinating case study; I’ve read books about peoples experiences there (for class and outside of class), watched documentaries, and followed news coverage on the country for years. So when I saw an article about tourism in the DMZ I knew I had to write about it! Kim Il-Sung, …
Apr 05
Myanmar and the Politics of Tourism
Several months ago I wrote a post on the future of tourism in Myanmar (better known as Burma), which many groups were hoping to capitalize on in the coming years. Myanmar has been largely untouched by tourists thanks to a combination of government restrictions and sanctions imposed by countries like the US, and now that …