Skilled Professionals Apply Their Expertise Through Volunteer Tourism
It’s not too difficult to identify volunteer opportunities for individuals with specific skills around the world, but what about corporate groups? Doctors Without Borders is great if you’re doctor, but what about all you accountants and graphic designers? Is it possible to find compelling volunteering projects for skilled corporate people?
We think so!
Xola works frequently in parts of the world where adventure travelers are volunteering on community projects. Now we’re also turning our attention to how corporate travel groups might lend their professional expertise to projects.
Although these projects are not easy to find and the outreach and matchmaking can take some time, there are great rewards when appropriate projects are identified. In many countries there are enough people to dig ditches and paint schools – what’s often really lacking is professional expertise. When we bring this kind of volunteering to organizations the effects can be thrilling.
For most companies, the project management aspect of placing a group of skilled volunteers can be outsourced (to Xola! ☺). And if you’re taking it on yourself? Here’s a basic checklist of the things you should ask your corporate group to determine whether a potential project might be suitable for your team.
First, get to know your team:
– What cause or issue area is your company/group most aligned with?
– What are the main skill-sets your company as a whole offers?
– What are some of the services that you may be able to provide at no cost to a community or agency in need of those services?
– What products can your company donate and contribute to the project?
– Are there vendors or partners that your company has that could contribute product?
– What financial contributions could be allocated to the project?
– What skills can the individual volunteers contribute?
o Second Language / Translation Skills?
o Training or Teaching Skills
– Is there an area that the volunteer would feel comfortable training or educating a group of people on? For example, Computer training, How to…, Making a…
– Special areas of study/expertise? Culture, arts, sciences, history, technology
– Trade Skills? Artist, musician, wood work, welding, painting, stucco, other
Once these questions have been carefully defined, draft a one-page resume on your corporate group of volunteers and what the volunteer group is offering. This document will help recipient agencies decide if this is something they have a need for and are able to accommodate.
Also remember that group volunteer projects can sometimes be disruptive to the day-to-day operations of a non-profit trying to facilitate a service to the community. Corporate volunteer project managers can remove additional labor and potential disruptions from the project and make sure the volunteers are fulfilling a true community need.
I think we’re on the edge of something big in this industry – it’s somewhat uncharted territory but offers great promise for good. Now’s the time for us to figure out new ways we can support each other and share skills, resources, knowledge and expertise. Have you or your company participated in any skill-based volunteering? Let us know how it went and your thoughts!
– Elise Rollinson
Filed Under Meeting Planning, Travel and Volunteering | Leave a Comment
Saving Culture Through Tourism
In some cases, tourism signals an end to local culture. In other cases, it offers one of the few compelling reasons to retain it. Sadly, in the case Kashgar, an historic Silk Road City in western China, tourism’s being developed in a way that spells disaster for one very historic cultural place. A recent article in the New York Times exposes Chinese plans to raze Kashgar’s Old City in Xinjiang, China.
As part of a 2005 Adventure Travel Trade Association delegation to Xinjiang, we were shocked at what we learned about tourism development in this part of the world.
Once this historic city is torn down officials plan for to widen alleys into avenues and create reproductions of ancient Islamic architecture “to preserve the Uighur culture.” Why create reproductions when you have the real thing?!
In the adventure community we’ve been trying, through the 10 Principles of Adventure Market Competitiveness, to communicate the values of sustainable development – the values driving adventurers’ spending – in the hopes of discouraging this kind of cultural destruction.
Articles like this just remind me why its important that we not give up on initiatives like these. Want to learn more, or get involved? Comment here or send an email to info@adventuretravel.biz or info@xolaconsulting.com.
Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues | Leave a Comment
Mountain Film Festival 2009 Highlights Adventure Travel’s True Spirit
I was lucky to spend last weekend at the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado as the guest of National Geographic ADVENTURE magazine, one of the event’s sponsors.
This was my first time to the Mountain Film Festival and I expected to see such films like the snow-boarding thriller “That’s It, That’s All” and “Solo,” which documents Australian Andrew McAuley’s ill-fated kayak trip across the Tasman Sea, but was happy to see the many issue-oriented documentaries. A couple favorites:
Without a doubt one of the highlights of the weekend was being in the audience for the world premier of Ken Burns’ new epic: National Parks: America’s Best Idea, which will air in six parts on PBS this fall. After Episode One, Ken took the stage with Bill McKibbon to discuss the ongoing saga between people and nature. Burns’ films explore many issues relative to the national park system in the United States, but I was especially caught by the tense interplay between tourism and the preservation of wild spaces that of course exists to this day.
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Filed Under Adventure People, Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues | Leave a Comment
Meeting Planners Look to Volunteering
This is the first post from Elise Rollinson, Xola’s new Director of Corporate Volunteer Programs
Last week I attended an educational conference for members of San Diego Meeting Professionals International. It was great to talk with attendees and observe such interest from corporate groups to bring community service projects and volunteerism into their meetings and incentive programs. It’s clear to me that the increased focus on Corporate Social Responsibility combined with the many new outlets for group volunteering, puts meeting planners in a position to truly get creative, offering innovative programs while making a positive contribution in the destinations they visit.
Remarkably, even during a time when the tourism industry is seeing cutbacks in corporate travel and meetings, we see an increase in volunteer interest and giving programs. Why? I think because the benefits to communities and companies have become undeniable.
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Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues, Meeting Planning, Travel and Volunteering | Leave a Comment
An Alternative to Mass Tourism: The Adventure Opportunity the Wall Street Journal Didn’t Mention
Headlines like this make me cringe: “To see some of the most spectacular spots on earth before the tourist buses arrive, visit the sites being considered for World Heritage designation.”
Why? Because it assumes that the only way to bring tourism to a region is to bring it with loads of buses and inconsiderate people who destroy the place.
In the Wall Street Journal’s May 15, 2009 Weekend Journal the cover story is by Stan Sesser, who highlights a number of sites around the world that may become World Heritage Sites in 2009. This designation can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how destinations manage their resources, and Sesser quotes an official at the World Heritage Organization who rightly observes that the program “has been turned into simply a branding scheme.”
Sadly, what often happens in destinations is that once they earn this designation, they become overwhelmed by visitors who stress a resource – be it natural or cultural – beyond its capacity.
In the adventure tourism industry, we find ourselves more frequently drawn into these debates as we support developing countries and emerging destinations in creating products to attract adventure travelers, who, in demanding more than the thrills of extreme sports, are causing destinations to take another look at how they might better develop cultural and nature resources.
Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues, Product Development | Leave a Comment
Social Investing and the Adventure Tourism Opportunity
You might hear “adventure tourism,” and think of mountain climbing, whitewater rafting, or trekking. When we hear “adventure tourism,” we think of all that, too, but we also see tremendous opportunity for rural economic and environmental development. We think that for social investors, the adventure tourism niche is worth a look.
Here we’ll describe why adventure tourism businesses offer an opportunity for social investors and provide some suggestions on how to move investing in the sector forward.
Filed Under Adventure Tourism and Social/Environmental Issues, Rural Communities | 1 Comment
Adventure Travel Companies in Geotourism Competition
I was recently invited to the group of “official commentators,” for the “Geotourism Challenge 2009″, sponsored by Changemakers.net and National Geographic. Kathy Dragon, another representative from the world of adventure travel, is also among the group of commentators.
Scanning the entries I was thrilled to see familiar faces from our adventure community – PEPY and SEE Turtles for example, as well as numerous other adventure operators mixing adventure with projects to address social and conservation issues. I think it’s terrific that the adventure community is being recognized and incorporated with mission-focused businesses, and that the “adventure” brand is expanding. At Xola we recently put a new page up on our website: Adventure Travel Saves the World to build further awareness for concept with our government and tour operator clients.
To learn more about Ashoka and their other initiatives in the area of social innovation, including additional competitions such as Champions of Quality Education in Africa; Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities; and Desinging for Better Health visit Changemakers.net website.
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Out of the Wilderness
We decided to run this article just so we could disagree with it…see our comments at the end!
People are shunning the great outdoors. Blame conservationists, not video games
Jul 10th 2008 | YOSEMITE VILLAGE
From The Economist print edition
ON JULY 4th, normally the busiest public holiday of the year, tourists were put off by high petrol prices and more than 300 wildfires raging across California. On Memorial Day, traditionally the beginning of the summer season, it was cold. In 1999 there was a grisly murder. In 1997 the Merced river flooded, inundating a hotel and wiping out hundreds of campsites. There are always excuses for the absence of people in Yosemite National Park.
The number of visitors to California’s most spectacular valley has dropped for nine out of the past 13 years, and seems to be heading down again this year. Even in 2007—a relatively busy year—attendance was 11% below the mid-1990s peak. In America as a whole the number of visitors to national parks and historic sites peaked in 1987. Visitors are staying for less time and camping less often, especially in the wilderness. And rangers are hearing less American-accented English. Were it not for British and German tourists enjoying the weak dollar, the parks would be desolate.
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Filed Under Industry Research, Product Development | 1 Comment
Off the Radar
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