Welcomed Guests: How WWOOF is Reshaping Ideas of Tourism

Abstract

Tourism is changing. Traditional mass tourism was once the obvious way to spend a vacation, but a growing public awareness of its negative consequences on local communities and environments has shifted demand in tourism markets. Alternative tourism, specifically volunteer tourism, emerged as more a responsible way to enjoy one's holiday. Characterized by tourists, mostly from Western countries, traveling to poorer nations to volunteer, volunteer tourism has since been described as problematic for the reason that it creates imbalanced power dynamics between hosts and guests. Exchange-based tourism has come to the forefront of the sustainable tourism conversation, and involves hosts and guests directly negotiating the terms of an exchange, mostly being work in exchange food and board. This paper discusses WWOOF, or World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, an example of an exchange-based tourist organization where hosts are organic farms, and guests seek to acquire organic knowledge and skills.