Professional volunteering-based tourism and its role in narrowing the intra-state development gap in A

Abstract

Booming tourism industry recently has contributed significantly to the socio-economic development and structural change of many countries in the world, especially those of emerging economies. However, negative impacts resulted from tourism development of whatever forms – community-based tourism, ecotourism, etc. – should not be neglected. Thus, the tourism forms that can maximize the positive environmental and socio-economic effects while potentially minimizing the negative ones in the destinations where the host communities, tourists, and tourism enterprises interact are strongly encouraged. A tourism model named Professional Volunteering-based Tourism (PVBT) can become one. Based on the 2-week pilot study in rural areas around Cambodia, it can be seen that the PVBT is a highly feasible tourism form, remarkably benefiting the local people. In this paper, the author firstly describes what such a model is, followed by its organization and operation. The paper then examines the role that PVBT can play in community development, particularly in reducing the development gap between rural dwellers and citizens, with a set of convincing evidences observed and collected in the two provinces in Cambodia where the pilot studies had been carried out in Kampong Speu and Kandal Provinces (Cambodia) in August and September 2013 respectively.