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The Travel Foundation Volunteer Programme is helping to build the industry's understanding of sustainable tourism by providing first hand experience on our destination projects. We started with a pilot programme with ten volunteers from First Choice which ran from July 2006 to April 2007. Click here to read the case study. Some of the volunteers were winners of a competition run by First Choice to encourage staff to think about sustainable tourism and some applied for the positions. Take a look at the film below to see how First Choice employees have been putting sustainable tourism into action.
The volunteers had a wide range of skills, backgrounds and interests. Ian, one of the volunteers who went to Sri Lanka is a football coach. Ian had a football kit which his team had grown out of so he took it with him and presented it to a local school after playing a game with them. Ian and Phil, another volunteer in Sri Lanka described this as their 'Bob Geldof moment'. We also had a number of priority projects within each of the programmes, so volunteers were matched according to their skills and the needs of the programmes. Robert, a finance manager from First Choice Airways, went to Tobago to help review the micro-loan processes and procedures and to help with the contracts.
Before the volunteers headed off on their adventures, we hosted a Briefing Day to give an over view of The Travel Foundation and what we do and to explain the purpose of the volunteer programme. It was also an opportunity for them to have any questions answered. The volunteers were provided with a laptop and digital camcorder and asked to make video diaries to be used as a communications tool (see film above). Volunteer experiencesA debrief day was held at First Choice House when all of the volunteers had returned and we were able to get some detailed feedback from the volunteers and discuss improvements to the programme for future volunteers. The volunteers thoroughly enjoyed their experiences and their contributions were invaluable. Took a look at the short clip below to hear the views of some of the volunteers.
One of the benefits we have had to The Travel Foundation Programmes has been that we have gained expert industry knowledge in areas where we required knowledge but did not have the expertise available. It has helped the industry understand sustainable tourism – which of course is one of the main objectives of The Travel Foundation. A lot was achieved in a short space of time. The volunteers were only in destination for between a week and three weeks and they were able to get a lot accomplished during this short time.
 One volunteer in Mexico was there to try to provide a route to market for women in the Maya community to sell jams. The support of a tour operator really made this possible when getting commitment from hoteliers for the purchase of jams. A couple of large hotels have agreed to use the jams for breakfast. There are just some issues to be ironed out and there have been improvements made to the quality and some health and hygiene policies have been put in place. The brand and label design has already been agreed on. Having volunteers such as Quality co-ordinators working on the programmes helped the programmes teams to understand the industry better. The importance of health & safety and any minimum requirements were met and addressed during the set up stage, especially when setting up the farm excursion in the Gambia. The volunteer programme gave industry support to the farm excursion in the Gambia and helped mobilise ground handling agents. This meant that the excursion was set up according to guidelines from the beginning and was market led. Tourists have been visiting the demonstration farm in the Gambia and learning about what they are doing there. The volunteers were able to give an insight as to what customers would enjoy as they are aware of the needs of the market. Thomas Cook and First Choice have sold the farm excursion in the Gambia over the winter season and we have seen from some of the customer comments this was very well received and enjoyed by all and will continue next season.
Look out for updates to this page on improvements to the programme and plans to work with some of our other partners on similar programmes.
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