Host perspectives of international volunteer tourists in Ghana: the case of Asebu community

Abstract

Volunteer tourism discourse seems to have a disproportionate emphasis on the guest at the expense of the host. This trend seems to be replicated in the Ghanaian studies although it is well understood that without host support, tourism cannot be sustainable. Thus, this inquiry sought to examine the host guest relationship from the lens of the host, mainly from the relatively unexplored dimensions of language, power and reciprocity. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to solicit data from forty three participants in the Asebu community from November 2015 to April 2016. The data was analyzed using QDA miner, to bring out the themes and patterns in the transcript. The results indicate that the host has different perspectives towards the international volunteer tourist. These perspectives appear to be shaped by the degree of host involvement in the volunteer tourism enterprise. The findings revealed a spectrum of attitudes toward the guest which ranged from tolerance, indifference to suspicion. It was established that the host uncertainty about the motives of the guest was predicated on resident’s perceptions of direct benefits from volunteer tourism. Based on the findings, it was concluded that host perspectives of the volunteer tourist is function of contact factors which either enabled or mitigated interactions. It was recommended that the volunteer tourism organisation consider addressing the feelings of uncertainty among the host, by giving communities enough information about the motives and activities of the volunteer tourists.