Managing Volunteers in Tourism

Book excerpt: Recent years have seen an explosion in research on tourism volunteering. Volunteers are an essential part of tourism, whether they are volunteering in their local museum, at a sporting mega-event, as an airport ambassador, or travelling the global as a volunteer tourist. Managing Volunteers in Tourism reviews the latest research to highlight the key management issues and relate them to the tourism volunteering context. It includes previously under-researched forms of tourism volunteering such as meet-and-greeters, surf life-savers, conservation, festival, and information centre volunteers and volunTourists. The book develops through three distinct sections, the first of which begins by introducing the concept of volunteering and considering the variety of volunteer forms and settings within tourism. The next part picks up the organisational approach and examines volunteer program design and planning, volunteer motivation, recruitment and selection, training and development, reward and retention, and diversity management. The final part consists of ten case studies from leading international researchers and practitioners identifying best practice and key management challenges. Real-life examples and case studies throughout this book provide an in-depth examination of the challenges facing those managing tourism volunteers, making this book indispensible for current and future managers in the tourism industry.