Volunteer tourism as profit frontier : the case of Fathom cruises in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

Volunteer tourism is a market driven approach to development. Volunteer tourism was developed to serve travelers who want to practice meaningful experiences within host countries. Carnival Cruise lines created fathom (sic) as a venture to capture this target audience with impact activities as excursions in and around Puerto Plata Dominican Republic. These activities involve utilizing tourist labour to achieve positive ‘impacts’ on the lives of Dominicans. Exploring the perspectives of both cruise representatives, partner organizations representatives and tourists, it was determined that volunteer tourism is a preferred model of development due to lack of political interference and the sustainability of profit for project organizers. However, long-term sustainability of volunteer tourism as a development model is dependent on volatile tourism market forces, staged experiences, cultural imperialism and new profit opportunities through the commodification of poverty.