From TikToks of influencers working in Cambodian orphanages to your friends building schools in Tanzania on Instagram, it feels like you can’t browse social media these days without coming across content about volunteering abroad. So-called “voluntourism” has become among the most popular methods of travelling, with the global voluntourism market valued at 3.2 billion USD in 2024 and forecast to more than double by 2033. But what actually is this phenomenon, and why are so many younger travellers drawn to it? Voluntourism, essentially, combines voluntary work with the more traditional aspects of tourism. It allows people to volunteer for short periods of time, while providing an opportunity to explore a new country and be immersed in a different culture. It serves as a chance for young people to undergo a unique travel experience, acting as a catalyst for personal growth and boosting career prospects through adaptability, teamwork and intercultural skills, which would be much harder to achieve on a more standard holiday or backpacking trip.
While highly rewarding for the volunteer, it has received extensive criticism for usually failing to satisfy its portrayal as a mutually beneficial exchange, leaving communities with little lasting impact. Although many travellers are drawn into voluntourism due to a genuine desire to make a difference, the programmes are often run by for-profit companies. These specific organisations treat the volunteer as a customer, charging them thousands of pounds to access their programmes. While marketed as assisting host communities, the funds from programmes are often poorly distributed, and only a fraction actually reaches the communities. One study of 60 programmes found that, on average, only 18% of funds raised actually reached the communities. International Volunteering HQ, for instance, charges over £2,500 for a four-week conservation programme in Botswana, claiming the fees are “directly invested into the local community”. However, the same amount could be used to pay a local wildlife biologist for over two and a half months. This raises the question — is the money actually going where they say it is?
Perhaps voluntourism’s strongest criticism is that it displaces local workers. One of its appeals is that it usually requires no background experience or training, meaning anyone can participate. For local communities, however, this is an issue as volunteers replace local labour and disrupt the economy. Furthermore, the temporary, unskilled nature of the volunteer work may actually obstruct development due to inadequate results, acting more as a burden than support. Why should unskilled, untrained UK students build a community hall in South-East Asia when local workers could do the job more effectively, and aid local economic growth? The answer lies in the uncomfortable truth that these projects are designed less for community benefit than for the volunteer’s experience. If voluntourism was genuinely about supporting communities and boosting development, it wouldn’t rely on imported volunteers in the first place.
While many criticisms of voluntourism discuss physical and material harm, the ‘white savior complex’ is a more abstract source of controversy. We’ve all seen pictures online showing western do-gooders posing with children in low-income communities, which have been, usually unconsensually, uploaded to social media with the aim of appearing charitable to their followers. This spectacle perfectly encapsulates the “white savior complex”, which refers to the self-righteous perspective many travellers possess when volunteering abroad. It’s about the condescending, even paternalistic, attitude volunteers have towards the locals, believing they are heroic for offering their ‘aid’. These attitudes towards global inequality reinforce harmful neo-colonial narratives surrounding Western intervention in the Global South, portraying communities as dependent on outside help rather than capable of driving their own development.
But what should we be doing instead? While it may be flawed, that doesn’t mean helping responsibly is impossible. For example, researching organisations is an easy way for volunteers to avoid their fees and efforts supporting a company that exploits communities rather than supporting them. Information such as whether an organisation is non-profit or for-profit, how transparent they are with their spending, how long they’ve been working with the community, and if they provide long-term solutions instead of quick fixes are important details that volunteers often look out for when doing background checks.
Another way of volunteering abroad responsibly is by participating in specialised skill-based programmes. Some organisations allow you to contribute to projects by using your knowledge about a particular subject. Whether it’s working as a nurse in a medical clinic or using your degree in Business Management to help run an NGO, skills-based programmes serve as an excellent way of making a difference while minimising the risk of replacing local workers. It offers expertise instead of inexperience, filling gaps with skills that communities don’t already have. Moreover, volunteers can train locals and share their knowledge, leaving behind benefits that last long after they’ve gone.
The part no one wants to hear is that the most ethical form of voluntourism might be not doing it at all. Good intentions, unfortunately, aren’t enough, and spending thousands flying across the world to help often causes more harm than good. Meanwhile, there are countless ways of making a difference in your own community: food banks need warehouse workers, parks need litter pickers, and the elderly need help with shopping and appointments. If you wouldn’t take on roles like these in your own community, then why assume similar ‘projects’ are more meaningful abroad? After all, real change starts at home.
