Trends in Tourism and Free Snacks!
Hi all, sorry for the podcasting silence; we were moving thesniffer to a new host. All good now. Thanks for your patience!
In this trendwatching podcast, Cathi Bond talks about ‘voluntourism’, which combines a holiday with time spent volunteering. (Via ChaCha). Cathi think it’s a chance to do some good in the world, instead of bloating out on a beach, but something about it makes Nora uncomfortable. Nora also mentions Games with a Purpose and Kiva.
Meanwhile, Nora talks about the concept of the ‘free cafe’ or sampling station in Japan. Rice cracker maker, Harimaya Honten is trying out a cafe where you can sample their food and simple drinks for free, with no pressure to buy. According to CScout, it’s aimed at reintroducing younger Japanese consumers to older, more traditional foods. What would you like to reintroduce in Canada?
Tags: food, marketing, travel, volunteering
July 22nd, 2010 at 2:01 am
I am of two minds about both ecotourism and those who travel actively to support sustainability causes. I believe that tourism can be an economic good. I believe that history teaches that almost every successfully-spread idea requires people who travel to spread its news. Yet given the new communications technology, I wonder if it’s all a bit off the mark to travel so much in these pursuits. Why not take a good but less expensive more local vacation and increase direct giving to the right folks on the ground?
Speaking of sustainability, my rough impression is that much of traditional Japanese cuisine is healthy and sustainable. Prosperity, it seems, brings more fuel-consuming, less healthy food tastes. I hope this Japanese effort flourishes.
July 25th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Sustainability is the key to doing meaningful volunteer work abroad. Last summer, I had the good fortune to travel to South Africa and Kenya with Education Beyond Borders, a small Canadian non-profit organization that works to provide high-quality professional development opportunities to teachers in Africa. The focus wasn’t on the rich white people swooping in to tell the poor black people how to educate their children, though. The whole point was to build sustainable professional development models for these teachers. It’s a four year process, through which the teachers themselves learn to train one another, and we really promoted the creation of professional learning communities, spaces (both online and offline) that encourage teachers to work together to address the challenges they’re facing.
From my perspective, I was able to travel to Africa, sure. But the bigger benefit was the ability to connect to real people working in real schools with real challenges. Those kinds of opportunities just aren’t on the itineraries of the tour groups going on safari.
July 27th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Hi John,
Thanks for this. I do think it’s possible to do peer to peer volunteering abroad, and your case sounds like a great example of doing just that. I guess my discomfort comes from what seems like a tendency sometimes to come swanning in, confident that you know best….a sort of developed world arrogance about it. Maybe, though, there are a lot more examples of the kind of experience you describe than I’m giving voluntourism credit for.
July 27th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Don’t sell yourself too short
There are PLENTY of examples of first world tourists doing exactly that. Without a clear plan for sustained, systemic change, though, most of the efforts do more harm than good. I know in our case, we had to face some very skeptical Africans who had been burned by well-meaning North Americans before.
One of the things that illustrated this was that we were told not to give anything of value to the people we were working with, or to the children we saw. We were working with an organization that does teacher training and professional development. But if we show up with a lot of donated laptops, or give away digital cameras and the like, then the expectation is that we’ll always come bearing gifts. There were many cases, in Kenya especially, where the locals assumed that we were rich benefactors looking to give away money and expensive gifts to assuage our first world guilt. Apparently, we were paying for the sins of the mzungu (white people) who came before us.
Whenever two cultures interact, they have an effect on one another. It’s just not always clear that the effect is the intended one, or even a positive one.
Thanks for talking about this.
July 28th, 2010 at 1:49 am
Hi folks,
Just thought I’d join in the discussion. My niece (16) is currently in Peru doing this kind of thing and you should check out their blog. I think this is a fantastic way for kids to see how the rest of the world lives, and broaden their experiences and maybe even become humanitarians. I know that my niece is thinking of becoming a nurse so she can work in the developing world. Personally I believe that we learn from doing and if you have the opportunity to do it, it’s still a lot better than swanning around Rome.
Not that everyone shouldn’t swan now and again. Just not all the time.
http://www.lifeworks-international.com/blogs/allblogs.php?id=441