This is an article published in the Sunday Times on the 24th April and written by Sunday Times Journalist Mark Bridge
This supports what we have been saying all along.
“Leading gap-year companies are sending travellers on pointless volunteer placements that cost thousands of pounds but fall far short of brochure promises, according to industry insiders.
Travel experts say that the placements, which are supposed to help underprivileged communities in the developing world, often have little or no positive impact — and in some cases may do harm. They say that this leads to high levels of customer dissatisfaction.
Dr Kate Simpson, of Ethicalvolunteering.org, says: “The sector has become much more commercial in recent years. Selling volunteering is now the same as selling safaris — it is simply tourism”. She adds: “In my opinion, there is nothing altruistic about most larger companies. Their business is entirely profit-driven and the needs of the destination communities are secondary. ”
A current employee of Real Gap Experience, which is owned by TUI, Europe’s largest travel group and the parent company of First Choice, says that the company applies significant mark-ups on placement costs and that the most profitable include those that enable a large stream of volunteers to “cuddle animals and take photos”. He says that fees of £1,000 to £2,000 (without flights) for a number of weeks in basic accommodation are common.
However, the company denies his allegation. A spokeswoman says: “We are not aware of any project that does not need and benefit from the work of the volunteers who travel.”
The “Where does your money go?” section of Real Gap’s brochure states: “On average, just over half of the fee paid goes directly to your destination, normally to pay small, local suppliers of your transport, accommodation and food.” It states that the fee also pays for local support staff and sometimes a contribution to the project placement. It adds that “the remainder” of the fee is used to provide “all the other services we carry out to ensure that you have a fantastic and valuable experience”.
According to our insider, this does not make clear to customers how large a proportion of their fees may become profit for Real Gap or overseas middlemen who, in turn, deal with “small, local suppliers”. The company was forced to make changes to its brochure for 2010 after the Advertising Standards Authority found that it had used wording that was “ambiguous and likely to mislead” about its use of volunteers’ fees in the previous year’s edition.
The insider says that the company’s employees are “constantly” asked by volunteers to justify the high costs and that dissatisfaction is particularly high for programmes in certain regions. He adds: “Vietnam is notorious — it is normally about the quality of accommodation; rodents or praying mantises in the room, that kind of thing.”
Real Gap says that the company encourages feedback from travellers and responds quickly and effectively. But, the spokeswoman adds: “In the past 12 to 18 months we had some challenges within certain areas of Vietnam and sadly we did need to find another partner to work with who was not only committed to helping our travellers contribute to worthwhile projects but who are also equipped to manage visitors’ experiences.”
The company added that customers who did leave feedback overwhelmingly rated their experiences as positive.
Experts allege that gap-year providers may also do harm with some of their programmes. Peter Bishop, of Tourism Concern, which campaigns for ethical practice in the travel industry, says that ill-conceived projects may take jobs from locals or create division by benefiting only parts of a community. For example, Bishop says that he visited a village in Cambodia where local people resented the presence of three British volunteers who had been sent to teach English.
“They weren’t needed because a local teacher was already doing a great job. There was bad feeling because some people thought that they were taking up village resources and contributing nothing . The volunteers couldn’t understand why they weren’t welcome.”
He says that many gap-year providers pay their partners to take on volunteers, recognising that they will be a cost to the community. However, he says that this can lead to partners taking on volunteers to receive payment, even though they have no need for labour.
Sam Zubaidi, of PricePie.co.uk, which campaigns for fair pricing, says that this arrangement can cause problems when travel companies withdraw support from local partners that may have become dependent upon them.
The Real Gap employee, who wanted to remain anonymous, says that the company recently dropped former partners in South Africa and Costa Rica, and that he believes one reason for this may have been that the relationships were not delivering sufficient profit.
Real Gap said that it did not claim to be a charity or not-for-profit organisation. The company confirmed that it had changed partners in South Africa and Costa Rica but said that this was to offer superior customer service. The spokeswoman added: “It has not been our experience that any of our projects have caused harm or division in the communities in which we work. In fact, we’ve had positive feedback.”
Whether or not their help is needed, some returned volunteers say that their placements were badly organised, and that they were given little training or support. Ben Haines, who volunteered with Real Gap in Swaziland in 2008, says that he was sent to help in a Neighbourhood Care Point “with next to no training or advice on how to teach, interact with or care for the children in orphan care”. He says that the project helped immediate survival but did not contribute to significant progress — and that “the results did not match the large sums paid by volunteers”, with children still short on essentials. Since his placement, Haines has stayed in Swaziland to do voluntary work on his own initiative. He says that he still visits the same Care Point and despite having complained, can see no change in the working conditions of Real Gap volunteers.
Real Gap says that it is unable to comment on Mr Haines’s case because the management team who would have dealt with him are no longer employed. But it adds: “We aim to ensure that volunteers are prepared for trips. All customers receive an online account with a wide range of information and advice on how to prepare. Once they arrive, they also receive an orientation from our local partners and continued support for the duration of their trip.”
Mr Bishop says that Mr Haines’s feeling of having been placed “for the sake of it” is not uncommon. “Volunteers with various travel companies are often thrust into the middle of nowhere on their own. In South-East Asia I recently met a girl of 18 who had been sent to teach at a temple school where there were no other English speakers.”
Dr Simpson says that this sort of poor organisation is typically down to the greed of local middlemen who take on the logistics of arranging placements. She says that the willingness of some companies to send volunteers with no interview and minimal training is evidence of the spurious nature of many placements. “There is something wrong when an organisation is willing to send someone to teach English with no qualifications or experience and no requirement for training .”
Mr Bishop says that the industry is unregulated — something that Tourism Concern hopes to mitigate with the launch this summer of a scheme to encourage high standards. This will ensure that programmes are set up to meet a purpose identified with host partners and communities, rather than to meet demand from volunteers. They must also provide a breakdown of placement costs, a pre-departure meeting (and training) and ongoing support.
He stresses that criticism of some large providers does not reflect on the entire market — many volunteer organisations play a positive and uncontroversial role. He says that research is key to finding the right trip and that companies that ask to meet prospective volunteers and discuss arrangements in detail before booking are the safest bets.
Mr Bishop adds that volunteers should request a breakdown of how fees would be used, as well as detailed information on the project and their potential role in it. He says the most valuable placements for the intended beneficiaries tend to be longer-term ones, where the volunteer brings specific skills, for example, qualifications and experience in medicine.
Where people do not have these kinds of skills or cannot commit to longer placements, he says that some providers are scrupulous in matching volunteers to needs. “For instance, Raleigh International identifies demand first and sends people out accordingly. Earthwatch is also fantastic .”
One option for more adventurous travellers is to contact directly organisations working overseas. For example, Future Hope, a UK-registered charity that runs a home for former street children in Kolkata, India, takes a small number of young volunteers for periods of at least six months each year.”
There you have it people. Exactly why we do not sell volunteering trips.
