As 'Voluntourism' Explodes In Popularity, Who's It Helping Most? : Goats and Soda hide captionHaley Nordeen, 19, is spending the entire summer at the Prodesenh center in San Mateo Milpas Altas, Guatemala. The American University student helped build the center's new library. Carrie Kahn/NPR Haley Nordeen, 19, is spending the entire summer at the Prodesenh center in San Mateo Milpas Altas, Guatemala. The American University student helped build the center's new library. As you plan — or even go — on your summer vacation, think about this: More and more Americans are no longer taking a few weeks off to suntan and sightsee abroad. It's called volunteer tourism, or "voluntourism," and it's one of the fastest growing trends in travel today. But some people who work in the industry are skeptical of voluntourism's rising popularity. hide captionChildren learn to cook at Prodesenh, a community center in San Mateo Milpas Altas, Guatemala. Children learn to cook at Prodesenh, a community center in San Mateo Milpas Altas, Guatemala. But today they are cooking.
Post-tornado Joplin, Mo., map spurs outcry An inspirational sign at an intersection in a Joplin, Mo., neighborhood… (Charlie Riedel / Associated…) Much of the post-tornado rubble has been removed from Joplin, Mo. But for the city's residents, a six-mile scar of house foundations and turned-up dirt serves as a raw and sorrowful reminder of the epic twister that killed 161 people and destroyed thousands of homes as it swept through around dinner time May 22. While the community struggles to rebuild, a flap is playing out on Facebook over a map created by the local tourism agency that points out-of-towners to hard-hit areas in the tornado's path. "The vast majority of us were unaware the maps existed," says Aaron Durall, a lifelong Joplin resident and local photographer who calls the map "tacky and tasteless." The Joplin Convention & Visitors Bureau, which created the map that was distributed at hotels and the city's welcome center, sees it differently: It's a way to begin to tell the story of what happened here. travel@latimes.com
The ethics of disaster tourism: What is the right thing to do? Removal of fuel from the Costa Concordia, which ran aground last month off Tuscany, began last week and officials say that after it’s gone, it may take seven to 10 months to refloat the ship. Meanwhile, Tuscan tourism officials are urging tourists to visit eight-square-mile Giglio, off whose coast the ship ran aground on Jan. 13, as a “gesture of love.” Not long after the accident, which killed at least 17 people (15 are still missing), islanders said people came to Giglio to gawk and not because of their affection for Giglio, one of seven islets in the Tuscan Archipelago. All of which raises this question: Is it love or is it lewd to visit a place after a disaster? After a recent story in the Travel section reported that some residents of Joplin were angered by a map showing where a tornado devastated the southwestern Missouri town last spring, we asked ethicists about tourism in the aftermath of tragedy. Fundraisers, for instance, often have at their core human suffering, she noted.
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