VACATIONSWITH PURPOSE

Tourists trek all over the world for sights like this one—a peak in Nepal’s famous Annapurnas, a part of the Himalaya range west of Mt. Everest.

Increasingly these travelers are combining their global adventures with service, in what’s become known in the last two decades as socially conscious tourism.

How much these tourists—often wealthy Westerners who visit the developing world—can do, practically speaking, with their limited time and skillsets remains to be seen. But the intangible impact on the tourists themselves and the people they serve may prove most important in the economy of vacations with purpose.

Text, layout and photography by

David Adams

Just after sunrise, a chorus of activity drifts up to my window: pots clink-

ing, fires being stoked, children feeding goats and chickens.

This is life as it begins every morning in the village of Ghyangphedi, Ne-pal—a life I’ve lived for a few short days as a socially conscious tourist. I’ve eaten traditional meals like dal bhat (lentils and rice), bathed in a waterfall and fallen asleep at night to monsoon rains drumming on a tin roof.

I am one of many travelers each month who have experienced Ghyang-phedi from a local perspective—a trend which has tangibly transformed the village.

When organizations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Kathman-du-based social business Five14 Pvt. Ltd. first began working in the village, sanitation was poor, morale was low and worst of all, many women and girls had been sold into trafficking. But over the

past few years, their efforts—and those of the tourists who joined them—in-creased income in the village and con-tributed to a cascade of other positive trends

Home stays, established by WWF and maintained by the village in part-nership with Five14, allow visitors to stay in the village, as I did. Ghyang-phedi sits on the edge of Langtang National Park, making it a convenient launching point into the popular trek-king area.

Five14 also leads educational semi-nars, health clinics and building proj-ects—driven by the village’s needs and the skills of those who visit it as socially

conscious tourists. But perhaps the most striking example of transformation in Ghyangphedi is the village’s grand opening to tourism, which residents celebrated in April 2014.

“In the past, I never imagined these changes would happen here…,” says

Karmajit Tamang, a village leader and one of Five14’s closest partners. “[Now] I want to see the village very green and beautiful, the people with beautiful thoughts, everyone being educated and everyone—women and youth—doing their own jobs whole-heartedly.”

One of the biggest goals of Five14’s work in the community is to help peo-ple see the value of their village and the people within it.

“As a whole village ... we want to help create a place where people love to live,” says Xiwan Magar, a guide for Five14 who has been working in the village for the past two years.

Five14 has focused on economic development, education and instill-ing community values during its work in Ghyangphedi—all driven by the increased number of

travelers visiting the village. Both socially conscious and traditional leisure tourism encourage development in a profound way, with tourism standing to make significant contributions to Nepal and other emerg-ing economies worldwide in the coming years.

Tourist Jenny Blumenberg, a college student from Oklahoma, left, leads a paper craft workshop in Ghyangphedi, Nepal. Locals like village leader Karmajit Tamang, center, learn new skills they may be able to use for profit.

As a whole village ... we want to help create a place where people love to live.”“

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A growing trendSocially conscious tourism, also called volunteer tourism, has grown signifi-cantly in the past 25 years.

Volunteer tourism is travelers’ at-tempt to “‘make a difference’ through ethical travel,” as a 2010 study for the Centre for Tourism Recreation Research puts it. One of the study’s authors, Jim Butcher, says he’s seen volunteer tourism skyrocket since about 1990.

About 1.6 million volunteer tourists travel internationally each year, with the bulk of them traveling to developing countries, according to a 2010 report by Tourism Research and Marketing. Construction sites, orphanages and children’s homes and schools are a few of the places volunteer tourists seek out on their socially conscious getaways.

More recent estimates on the num-ber of volunteer tourists are difficult to make given the wide variety of programs available—like gap years and traditional vacations that include cultural “immersion days.” But Butch-er, principal lecturer for sport science, tourism and leisure at Canterbury Christ Church University in the U.K., says the current popularity of volunteer tourism is driven by societal changes. He doesn’t foresee its popularity diminishing any time soon.

“If you go back 40 years, nobody would have talked about ethical tour-ism,” Butcher says. “Ethics was some-thing connected to broader political positions, rather than personal, private acts of consumption.”

But he sees the rise of social tourism

If you go back 40 years, nobody would have talked about ethical tourism. Ethics was something connected to broader political positions, rather than personal, private acts of consumption.”

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Kathmandu’s Dharahara towers over the city, offering visitors a look at the country’s only metropolis (pop. 975,000). Nepal’s capital is a hot spot for sex trafficking, and some tourists are visiting the city to volunteer with organizations seeking to stop it.

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driven by “the impulse to be a sort of player in the world, to make a difference in the world… [It] is a really positive thing.”

Nepal is the perfect breeding ground for social tourism: a country that attracts millions of people every year to its natural beauty and adventure, yet it faces many develop-mental and social challenges.

Socially conscious tour operators seem to be popping up everywhere. Business-es like Five14, Social Tours, Mountain-Child and Last Resort are contributing to the growth of volunteer tourism within the country, while organiza-tions like Volunteers Aid Nepal attract visitors as well. Five14 has been leading tourists to Ghyangphedi for 2 years, and

residents there already see the benefits of increased tourism in their community.

“You come, you stay here, you eat, give money and go,” says Mirmendu Tamang, a woman whose family hosts homestay guests. “You guys have helped

us. You’ve shown your love and care for us, and we trust you.”

MountainChild is a similar business; it focuses on the establishment of homes and schools in Kathmandu and Jumla to raise and educate poor children from ru-ral Tibetan communities, half of whom would die under age 8 if they were not rescued, according to the business’s website.

Tourists stay in the MountainChild

guest house and participate in short-term treks to the communities the business serves. They contribute both monetarily and by caring for the chil-dren in the homes and schools.

In cash-strapped communities, socially con-scious tourism is encouraged as a means of spurring economic growth.

Homestays in villages like Ghyang-phedi, treks through the country’s abun-dant national parks or pilgrimages to some of the holiest Buddhist and Hindu sites in the world—including the birth-place of the Buddha—are some of the unique experiences identified by Nepal’s Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation in its 2009 Tourism Vision for 2020 report.

More recently, Nepal commissioned the UN World Tourism Organization (UN WTO) to establish guidelines for supporting Nepal’s economic growth through the tourism sector over the next five to 10 years. The WTO’s 2013 annual report concluded tourism is critical for the continued development of least-developed countries like Nepal.

The number of tourists visiting Nepal and the revenue they generate continue to rise—tourist arrivals are up 60 percent and tourism revenue is up 25 percent in the last five years, accord-ing to statistics from UN WTO and Nepal’s tourism ministry. It looks like tourists will keep looking for ethical ways to spend their holidays.

Scammers exploit tourists’ good willDespite the positive results of the work of businesses and nongovernmental or-ganizations (NGOs), volunteer tourism has its flaws.

Wealthy Westerners eager to make a difference in Nepal, for example, may sign up for expensive trips without vetting the organizations with which they will serve. Butcher’s 2010 study estimated the average cost of these trips at US $3000—a hefty price for a potentially worthless endeavor.

Children’s homes are a popular volunteer option in Nepal, but they are poorly regulated by the Nepali government. Unscrupulous home operators have deceived well-meaning tourists into donating money in the past, pocketing the cash for themselves.

The average cost of a volunteer tourism trip is US $3000—a hefty price for a potentially worthless endeavor.

One of the most popular activities for tourists in Nepal is to serve at children’s homes. But the U.S. Embas-sy in Kathmandu cautions that many supposed children’s homes are not charities at all: “Instead, they are prof-it-making enterprises set up to attract donations from abroad and financial support from volunteers,” the em-bassy’s warning states. “Many of the children are reportedly not orphans, and volunteering at such an organiza-tion may indirectly contribute to child exploitation.”

Bogus children’s homes preying on wealthy tourists’ dollars and im-poverished Nepali families were the subject of a May 2014 investigation by The Guardian. As many as 85 percent of the children in registered Nepali children’s homes had at least one living parent, indicating that the homes in question may be fakes, according to a 2008 study by the

UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Swiss NGO Terre des Hommes.

The Nepali Central Child Welfare Board (CCWB) lacks the resources to effectively monitor children’s homes and close those involved in scams, according to the U.S. Embassy. It suggests that donating money to reputable national or international charities may be the best strategy for travelers who wish to make a difference.

Freedom Matters, a British-operat-ed NGO in Nepal, similarly cautions travelers in “Behind the Smiles,” its overview of the orphan business in Nepal: “Think carefully before you become involved in supporting a children’s home/refuge in Nepal. Some serve a really useful purpose as a short to medium term care cen-tre (a kind of safety net), but many are lucrative businesses that do not prioritise the best interests of the child.”

Short-term work, short-term impact?Even tourists working for reputable or-ganizations may not be using their time or resources well. Butcher argues the development in which tourists partici-pate during short-term trips is unlikely to make a lasting impact.

“It is hard to argue that the actual contribution to development amounts to a great deal directly. Indeed, the impacts on local people are often assumed, rather than researched,” Butcher wrote in his 2010 study.

If a tourist took the $3000 he was planning to spend on a volunteer trip and donated it directly to a local NGO, the impact could be far greater than any he could have during his volunteer experience.

Volunteer tourism also contributes to a small-scale mindset toward devel-opment work, where individuals try to make a difference on their own. This,

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Matt Wendel, a special education teacher in Chicago, and his wife, Mary K, taught a seminar for local teachers in Ghyangphedi during their vacation in Nepal in summer 2014. The Wendels trekked to Ghyangphedi with guides from Five14, who also translated the seminar.

Butcher writes, “reduces development to individual acts of charity, most often ones that seek to work around rather than transform the relationship of poor, rural societies to the natural world.”

A key to development is large-scale projects that promote infrastructure, which can only be accomplished by large NGOs or governments.

Volunteer tourists may believe their work is sufficient to fight poverty and thus ignore needed political dialogue that could lead to development on a grander, longer-term scale.

Intangible benefitsThe greatest benefits of volunteer tour-ism may not be the tangible effects of tourists’ short-term projects and do-nations. Instead, the personal develop-ment for both tourists and community members may be more significant in the long term.

Volunteer tourism projects “play a role in developing people who will, in the course of their careers and lives, act ethically in favour of those less well-off,” Butcher wrote in the 2010 study. “...Through individual experi-ence we can develop, decision by de-cision, a more ethical world, with less suffering, more fairness and greater opportunity.”

These experiences change people. They are often inspired to join the debate on community development,

charity and politics. “When we discuss what’s ethical or not, we should have a wider frame of reference,” says Butcher. “Now, If you begin to say, ‘Well hang on a minute, … ‘Is [volunteer tourism] more ethical than large-scale develop-ment?’ then you have the beginning of a political debate.”

When individuals and societies begin questioning their limited notion of pov-erty, expanding beyond the small-scale ideas of development in which volun-teer tourism operates, Butcher believes there will be greater opportunities for community transformation on a large scale for the world’s most impoverished people.

In Ghyangphedi, better roads to link the village to markets in Kathmandu, access to electricity and more money for improving the school are some of the community’s biggest needs—needs that can only be met by the government, which may need spurred by political pressure. Yet, it’s difficult to argue that tourism in recent years has not led to an advent of hope among community members and partners like Five14.

“I always feel happy when people

come and say, ‘Wow, this is not Ghyang-phedi, this doesn’t look like Ghyang-phedi—it’s totally changed!’” Five14 guide Magar says, glowing about the de-velopments both physical and personal in the years since Five14 began working in the village.

Karmajit, the village leader, awaits

the day when he can introduce Ghyang-phedi to the world as a village re-newed—by tourism, partnership with groups like Five14 and the unity of its people.

“We will tell them to come to Ghyangphedi and enjoy the village and be joyful in seeing the beauty, the mutu-al cooperation of the villagers … and the culture and traditions,” Karmajit says to those who may visit in the future—the very people who will contribute to Ghyanhphedi’s continued development through tourism.

David is a senior journalism major at Taylor University. He interned for a social tourism business in Nepal in 2014. He graduates from Taylor in May 2015.

Volunteer tourism projects “play a role in developing people who will, in the course of their careers and lives, act ethically in favour of those less well-off.”

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