Hands across the water

Sinclair Wetlands co-ordinator Glen Riley (left) with a group of voluntourists giving a fortnight...
Sinclair Wetlands co-ordinator Glen Riley (left) with a group of voluntourists giving a fortnight's help at the nationally significant wetlands south of Dunedin. Photo by Bruce Munro.
Overseas volunteers (from left) Robby Boys (24), of Virginia, Lauren Welser (21), of Iowa, Lee...
Overseas volunteers (from left) Robby Boys (24), of Virginia, Lauren Welser (21), of Iowa, Lee Dickinson (19), of North Carolina, and Jessica Welser (20), of Iowa, are part of a group building a walking track at Penguin Place, Otago Peninsula. Photo...
International Student Volunteers' New Zealand programme director Shona Hore. Photo supplied.
International Student Volunteers' New Zealand programme director Shona Hore. Photo supplied.
Voluntourists (from left) Jiaxin Zhang, of Xunan, China, Mary Lapuz, of Windsor, Canada, and...
Voluntourists (from left) Jiaxin Zhang, of Xunan, China, Mary Lapuz, of Windsor, Canada, and Austin Wrem, of Idaho, United States, plant New Zealand native trees on a bank at the Sinclair Wetlands, south of Dunedin. Photo by Bruce Munro.

Voluntourism, a new phenomenon, is set to reshape global travel. Bruce Munro asks why people are paying good money to deliberately ruin their overseas trips by including voluntary work in their holiday itineraries.

Mary Lapuz stands and stretches, dusting the dirt from her hands as her eyes sweep the scene.

The antipodean wetlands that appear to fill the broad space between here and the distant Taieri Plain hills are like nothing the urban Canadian-raised Filipino woman has experienced in her 19 years.

''I'm here to learn and grow, to discover my limits,'' Miss Lapuz says.

''This scenery is very different from back home. Windsor is a city, so we don't have this much ... ,'' she pauses, searching for a word that fits this unfamiliar context, ''... land.''

''It's overwhelming,'' she confesses.

''It's beautiful though.''

Scattered along the 200m dirt embankment on which the neuropsychology student stands are nine fellow workers and the fruit of their morning's labour: dozens of secondhand tyres, each encircling a newly planted native flax, grass or shrub.

The group, most aged 20 and all bar two from the United States, have been in the country less than a week.

Each has paid about NZ$5700, on top of international airfares, for a four-week holiday in New Zealand.

Half the time will be spent here at the Sinclair Wetlands, in winter, unpaid, building walking tracks, dealing to pests and planting native flora.

Are they mad?

If they are, it is a contagious madness.

Voluntourism - doing voluntary work while travelling - is gaining ground, garnering plenty of fans (and some critics).

This is not the same as the traditional stint of volunteering overseas.

It is not a year in one town in the Solomon Islands using your skills as a teacher, doctor or builder.

It is not a pre-university gap year doing community work in Vanuatu or Malawi.

Rather, it is a few weeks chasing a crammed itinerary that includes Machu Picchu, Ipanema and the Galapagos Islands as well as teaching English at an orphanage in Bolivia.

Or, in the case of those coming to Aotearoa, bungy jumping, Milford Sound and Hobbiton plus restoring habitat for the world's rarest penguin on Otago Peninsula.

The volunteer travel industry is thriving.

There are multiple international organisations dedicated to facilitating the voluntourism experience.

Last year, the World Youth Student and Educational (WYSE) Travel Confederation global conference in Dublin ran a seminar just for tourism operators working in this field.

To cater to demand here in New Zealand, responses include STA Travel publishing a booklet for prospective voluntourists and World Travellers travel agents doing their own voluntourism in order to give clients firsthand advice.

Dunedin is experiencing a mini-tsunami of in-bound voluntourism.

During the three months to mid-August, more than 60 voluntourists are putting in a combined 4500 hours' voluntary work at the Sinclair Wetlands and Otago Peninsula's Penguin Place.

The 315ha wetlands, owned by Te Rununga o Ngai Tahu, is the largest and most important privately owned wetlands in New Zealand.

Penguin Place is a family-run farm, tourism business and conservation project that is home to endangered hoiho (yellow-eyed) penguins.

US-based organisation International Student Volunteers (ISV) is bringing the young northern-hemisphere willing workers through in groups of about 10.

Each group does a fortnight's conservation work followed, in most cases, by a two-week adventure tour of both islands.

Co-ordinating the voluntourists' efforts in Dunedin is Glen Riley, who works part-time at both the wetlands and Penguin Place.

Before shifting to Dunedin, Mr Riley worked as an ISV project leader in the North Island for three years.

He says voluntourists are motivated by one or more of four desires: to learn, to experience, to help and to offset their carbon footprint.

Austin Wrem (20) says he is here to realise a lifelong dream of visiting New Zealand.

But the Idaho geo-spatial and environmental science student wants to do more than simply visit the country.

''Doing something like this is much more rewarding for me,'' Mr Wrem says, spade in hand.

''Travelling around is great. But doing something like this, at the end of the day we get to look back down this row and see everything we've planted and know that we've helped out with that.''

For Jiaxin Zhang (20), a Chinese national studying statistics in Virginia, US, it is about having a ''special experience'' in a ''mysterious'' country.

Her parents paid for the trip because ''they want me to be independent and experience what I want while I am young'', she says.

Voluntourism is primarily the domain of the youthful, independent traveller.

But not exclusively.

World Travellers chief executive Wendy Van Lieshout, of Auckland, says her agency has had inquiries from couples and even families.

''Including a family recently wanting to do one of these programmes with their teenage kids,'' Ms Van Lieshout says.

''The age limit is 16, so they have to wait one more year before booking.''

Traditional tourism operators are also noticing the trend.

Outrigger Fiji Beach Resort was recently offering hotel guests the opportunity to help paint a local school.

And no matter what the age, the motivation seems the same: the search for a more meaningful experience.

Dunedin writer Gillian Vine (71) is fresh back from Fiji, where she daubed paint on school windowsills and also spent a day in the remote Yasawa Islands helping with a reading recovery programme.

The experiences added to, rather than detracted from, her holiday because ''you get so close to the local people'', Ms Vine said.

''Most of the resorts could be anywhere in the world. Volunteering is one of the best ways to truly see the real Fiji.''

The voluntourists are not the sole beneficiaries, Mr Riley says.

Their contribution this winter to the Sinclair Wetlands and Penguin Place will be significant.

''It will make an enormous difference,'' he says.

''There are nine people right here. That's nine times what I'm capable of doing. In one morning, we can crank out what I could do in a month.''

Not everyone is so enamoured.

As voluntourism has been hitting the headlines more frequently, it has also been copping some flak.

Critics argue that doing a little bit of voluntary work while essentially in a country as a tourist can promote superficial and condescending relationships; that the whole endeavour is more for the fulfilment of the voluntourists than to help those they work among; and, that they would be better to spend the time and money working in their own communities.

Shona Hore has heard it all, more than once, and concedes there is some cause for concern.

Oamaru-raised Ms Hore (38) spent six years working for ISV in South Africa and is now its programme director for New Zealand.

During the past eight years she has witnessed a ''huge'' growth in voluntourism, most of it extremely positive.

People are going to travel anyway.

The fact that more are choosing to do something to help while they travel is good news, she argues.

She admits many voluntourists are primarily seeking the ''feel-good factor'', at least to begin with.

''I'm not going to deny that that is a huge motivation,'' she says.

''But once they arrive, that perspective changes as they realise what sort of impact they can have.''

ISV encourages its participants to continue volunteering when they return home.

Not all organisations have that emphasis, she says.

Ms Hore says some organisations are just cashing in on people willing to pay handsomely for a warm feeling.

In some cases, what they are doing is unsustainable and even destructive.

''In the past eight years, I've seen some exceptional organisations and I've seen some that have made me cringe.''

It is important that prospective voluntourists do their homework so they can make informed choices about who to travel with, Ms Hore says.

She suggests researching on websites such as Go Overseas which reviews overseas study, work and volunteer programmes.

A world in which tourism becomes an important vehicle for the existential impulse to find and define meaning may seem unlikely to some.

But travel agents will ignore the trend at their peril.

In fact, says one industry representative, it may be their saviour.

In an age in which truth is relative, experience is the new bedrock.

Combine that with the emerging generation's realisation that active caring does more to top up the tank of personal happiness than self-centred materialism ever could, and you have a potent mix.

No wonder young people are travelling further, staying longer and keeping in touch more than ever before.

Youth travel is a NZ$324billion a year global market that is predicted to increase by 59% during the coming decade.

And it will not be long before they become the 30-something travel market, with even more disposable income.

Voluntourism looks set to be a big player.

Perhaps some of that flow-on impact is already evident.

Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) is not a voluntourism operator, instead matching skills to needs for assignments lasting three months to two years.

In the past financial year, VSA has had a record number of volunteers: 191 New Zealanders on assignment in the Pacific and Timor-Leste.

Andrew Olsen, who is chief executive of the Travel Agents Association of New Zealand Inc (Taanz), says some association members are already working closely with organisations that specialise in voluntourism.

''In time, we may see more of our agents promoting voluntourism through a dedicated business or brand,'' Mr Olsen, of Wellington, says.

United Travel general manager John Willson believes a change is imperative.

Online travel sites and booking facilities are putting the squeeze on traditional main street travel agents.

Experience-based holidays such as voluntourism can offer them a brighter future, he says.

''United Travel has been specialising in Unique Experience holidays for several years. Voluntourism certainly fits into this category,'' Mr Willson, of Auckland, says.

''United Travel locations know that they must be up-skilled in all these types of Unique Experience holidays, such as voluntourism, as this is the future for bricks and mortar locations.''

Ms Lapuz has turned her attention back to her work at the Sinclair Wetlands. She is squatting, cutting sacks with large scissors in order to ''trouser'' the vulnerable new plants.

''I've always liked New Zealand,'' Ms Lapuz says.

''Because of the Lord of the Rings,'' she adds with a shy laugh.

It is surprising how strongly she feels about the country, given she has been here only four days and has spent most of that time doing voluntary work on the edge of a swamp.

Would she have considered coming if there were no opportunities to volunteer?

''Well yes,'' she replies.

''But I feel that this is better ... than just being a tourist.''

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