The impact of volunteer tourism : case study of Meixian Team

Volunteer tourism has been growing as an important segment of youth tourism. It generates significant impacts on both the volunteers and the host community. This paper takes Meixian Team (Meixian Dui) as the case study. College students in Guangzhou, Southeast China, travel to Meixian County to help with primary teaching in rural Guangdong Province. This paper sheds light on how volunteer experience impacts on the participants of volunteer tourism, and how the volunteers transform the host community. Young volunteers develop their personalities during their journey of helping rural children with limited resource. These volunteer tourists manifest how their experience resulted in shifts in personal attitude and world views of Chinese colleague students. In the meantime, the short stay of the volunteers brings changes in the host community, although the sustainability of the benefits to the local villages remains questionable.