Helping Others, Creating Yourself: Understanding Volunteer Vacations

ABSTRACT - Vacations spent doing volunteer work are growing in popularity. This relatively new form of tourism blurs traditional understandings of vacations as the opposite of work and poses the question of what we seek in such vacations and why we spend our precious money and vacation time working. Four in-depth interviews suggest that volunteer vacations help participants to construct their identities; provide a vehicle for accumulating cultural capital; and offer an opportunity for social interaction and creation of meaning in their lives.

Citation:

Hillary Leonard, Russell W. Belk, and Debra L. Scammon (2003) ,"Helping Others, Creating Yourself: Understanding Volunteer Vacations", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 6, eds. Darach Turley and Stephen Brown, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 264.

European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 6, 2003      Page 264

HELPING OTHERS, CREATING YOURSELF: UNDERSTANDING VOLUNTEER VACATIONS

Hillary Leonard, University of Utah, USA

Russell W. Belk, University of Utah, USA

Debra L. Scammon, University of Utah, USA

ABSTRACT -

Vacations spent doing volunteer work are growing in popularity. This relatively new form of tourism blurs traditional understandings of vacations as the opposite of work and poses the question of what we seek in such vacations and why we spend our precious money and vacation time working. Four in-depth interviews suggest that volunteer vacations help participants to construct their identities; provide a vehicle for accumulating cultural capital; and offer an opportunity for social interaction and creation of meaning in their lives.

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