Date of Award

1-1-2017

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences

First Advisor

Alejandro Cerón, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Esteban Gomez

Third Advisor

Rebecca Galemba

Keywords

Anthropology, Development, Latin America, Tourism, Voluntourism

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of host community perceptions of volunteer tourism in the context of a small community in the highlands of Guatemala called San Juan Comalapa. Voluntourism acts as a bridge between development aid and traditional tourism and therefore voluntourism organizations should act as both roles in the community. In this research I found that voluntourism organizations, particularly one organization called Long Way Home, can lean more towards one role than another in the eyes of members of the host community. Based on these findings I recommend that these organizations embrace these dual roles and engage the community as both a development organization as well as tourism operator.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Samantha Grace Hagan

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

98 p.

Discipline

Cultural Anthropology, Latin American Studies

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