What would you think about the prospect of an 18-year-old Kenyan student working as a volunteer at a children’s home in the Home Counties without any job-specific qualifications, criminal record screening or pre-departure interview to establish if he or she were suited to the task?

Or would you cast a second glance if an arts graduate from Costa Rica, with no knowledge of English, started a voluntary placement monitoring whales and dolphins off the coast of Cornwall? These scenarios may seem somewhat unlikely, but hold a mirror up to the UK’s gap year industry, which sent at least 25,000 volunteers overseas on pre- and post-university or career-break placements in 2006, and ask the same questions. For each year, Britons pay sizeable sums of money – £1,200 for four weeks is typical – to work on projects that are redundant, on placements where their skills are inadequate and receive no pre-departure training or screening for criminal records.

We know this because Tourism Concern, an independent, campaigning charity that fights exploitation in the tourism industry, has surveyed the majority of the UK’s gap year operators. Its report, Gaps In Development, published last year, found that of 74 UK-based organisations, 27 per cent offered neither face-to-face interviews nor provided pre-departure training. Only half mentioned partner satisfaction or project sustainability as elements requiring monitoring or evaluation.

When it comes to working with children, standard procedures that are statutory requirements in the UK are frequently ignored. Only 57 per cent of organisations requested disclosure checks of potential volunteers, while 17 of the 40 organisations that operated projects where volunteers worked on a one-to-one basis with children didn’t request any disclosure checks.

One consequence of this is that many volunteers, who set out full of enthusiasm and determined to make a positive impact, return disillusioned, with 37 per cent of volunteers questioned by Tourism Concern admitting that they felt their work was of no benefit to the local community.

Royal approval

The gap year is nothing less than a phenomenon, growing in popularity each year. The 2006 figure of 25,000 gappers represents a rise of 50 per cent on 2005, but it’s thought that, in total, 200,000 Britons of all ages now take time out each year. And there are many outstanding operators – indeed, Geographical is a co-sponsor of the annual Responsible Tourism awards, which includes a category for Best Gap Year Operator. The concept has even received royal approval, with Prince Harry digging trenches for crops in Lesotho and his brother, Prince William, participating in a project with Raleigh International in Chilean Patagonia.

A key driver for this popularity is that, increasingly, a gap year attachment lasts considerably less than 12 months. According to Tourism Concern, 91 per cent of operators offered projects lasting three months or less, and 29 per cent only offered schemes of three months or less.

But while the gap year may conjure up images of working with impoverished people in underdeveloped parts of the globe, or with vulnerable animals and ecosystems, it is in fact a lucrative multinational industry. According to Mintel, the gap year market is valued at £2.2billion in the UK and globally at £5billion. It’s one of the fastest growing travel sectors of the 21st century, and the prediction is for the global gap year market to grow to £11billion by 2010.

Many within the industry are becoming increasingly concerned that the market is being exploited by profit-oriented, and often unscrupulous, operators. Unlike charities, commercial operators don’t need to demonstrate to the Charity Commission that they are providing a benefit. One of the major gap-year companies, i-to-i, which sends 6,000 volunteers abroad each year, was so successful that last year, it was bought by the package-holiday group First Choice for £20million. And in May this year, Tui, which last year merged with First Choice, also bought Real Gap, which includes the Gap Year for Grown Ups brand.

Justin Francis, managing director of responsibletravel.com, which runs the Responsible Tourism awards, feels that the popularity of the gap year concept is proving its undoing. ‘It’s expanded dramatically, and therein lie some of the problems,’ he says. ‘There are definitely mixed performances in terms of responsible tourism. You used to have to sign up for a long period of time, and it was focused on hard-core volunteering. But some elements of it have now become soft adventure travel. Some businesses feel this is the kind of trip from which you can make money. I don’t have a problem with that for normal holidays, but for volunteeering, it’s incredibly important that you are meeting a real need.’



Cracking the code

Unlike groups such as travel agents, gap year placement providers aren’t governed by any regulatory body, but this seems likely to change. Tourism Concern is in the final stages of establishing a code of practice for the industry, which would involve the creation of a kite mark scheme. This would require gap year organisations to prove that the projects to which they send students are long-term and sustainable – not just established hastily to meet the latest fashionable cause or popular destination – and demonstrate that there is a need from the host community. They must also ensure that the scheme doesn’t impose an undue financial burden on the host community and provide pre-trip training and post-trip support. Companies will risk being blacklisted if they don’t comply. The companies will also be obliged to disclose how they spend the fees that are paid by students – an issue that appears to be raised more than any other on gap year internet forums.

The essential aim is to ensure that projects are suggested by local people rather than invented by a marketing department. ‘We’re seeing a growing commercialisation of the sector,’ says Rachel Noble, campaigns officer for Tourism Concern. ‘The sector is growing at a vast rate and needs to be brought into line. There are companies that are largely motivated by profit and don’t really care about the project. The intention is for the kite mark to make some organisations pull their socks up. Potential gap year participants will be able to decide which companies are going about things in the right way.’ 

A code of practice would be welcomed by international development charity VSO, whose director, Judith Brodie, last year said that ‘people would be better off travelling and experiencing different cultures, rather than wasting time on projects that have no impact and can leave a big hole in their wallet’. Abbie Fulbrook, a spokeswoman for VSO, said that research was crucial. ‘You need to examine the organisation very thoroughly, but if you haven’t been to a developing country before, it can be difficult to know what to ask or look out for. It’s certainly not all bad, but until the introduction of such a scheme, the message is “buyer beware”.’

Yet while the code sounds sensible, Professor Harold Goodwin, of Responsible Tourism Management and director of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism at Leeds Metropolitan University, suspects that it may prove insufficient to make the industry clean up its act. ‘The trouble with any code of conduct is that, unless a critical mass of operators signs up, it’s merely a wish list,’ he says. ‘So many companies claim to be ethical and responsible – how on Earth do people get behind the marketing speak?’

Other countries have managed to achieve this. In Ireland, Comhlamh, an organisation dealing with global development issues, has a code of practice, signed by 31 Irish organisations, that has, to an extent, provided a template for those seeking to improve standards in the UK. Goodwin has also advised on the creation of a code of conduct for the South African volunteering industry. Among other elements, this includes having a long-term relationship and agreement in writing with the host community; programme outputs determined by and with the community through collective consultative meetings; ensuring that volunteers don’t take the place of local employees; and ensuring that volunteers are screened for personal references and criminal records.

‘I’ve come across extraordinary stories of people signing up for volunteering trips that are basically sightseeing, and where the company telephones a local project and they go along and hand out food,’ Goodwin says. He has established the gap year organisation People and Places, which makes a point of being transparent about exactly where fees paid by clients end up. On its website, the company guarantees that at least 80 per cent of all fees go directly to the host country.

Establishing the nature of this relationship between operator and host project is a key requirement for any potential gap year client. ‘The question is whether volunteering opportunities are driven by needs in local communities or are demand-driven by students looking for things to do in their gap years,’ says Noble. ‘If it’s the latter, then you get issues about communities getting projects imposed on them, bad practice, lack of training for volunteers, and companies offering these schemes simply to make large profits. Volunteers seem to get no preparation of the cultural context and there is frequently little attempt to match the suitability of the person to a role. They pay the cheque and they go.’

Safety first

A code of practice – albeit a voluntary one – already exists for the 35 operators who belong to the Year Out Group, a not-for-profit trade association. The group’s chairman, Richard Oliver, points out that elements of the code and charter have been adopted by the British Standards Institution for its own specification for activities, expeditions, visits and fieldwork, although he acknowledges that he is ‘very much reliant on self-policing’.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Oliver feels that further regulation is unnecessary. ‘I have some sympathy with what Tourism Concern is trying to do,’ he says. ‘But it deals with things very much from the host project point of view, rather than the operator. What most parents and individuals are concerned about is safety.

‘I do have concerns about those companies that have been bought up by Tui,’ he continues. ‘I’m concerned that there are a lot of start-up operators and that there’s a need to keep control of them. But there is a perception that operators simply go into places and bully an organisation into working with them. It may be that some do that in some places but not all the time. The key is to read up on the operators. You would be amazed at just how little research people do.’

Sending volunteers to count turtles that have already been monitored 50 times may be sharp and cynical practice, but many projects carry more serious connotations. ‘We’ve dealt with people sent to work in Romanian orphanages and have been upset by what they see,’ says Noble. ‘Nor they do they have sufficient training to carry out the work expected of them. That has an effect on the volunteers and an impact on the local community.’

The fall-out from these problems has led to many excellent gap year operators to fear being tainted by association. Azafady, an NGO that works with local people to conserve threatened forests in Madagascar, install wells and set up pharmacies, won the best volunteering organisation award in last year’s Responsible Tourism awards. ‘The key issue is motivation,’ says managing director Mark Jacobs. ‘If the aim is to make money then, generally, the schemes are a load of rubbish. The industry is getting slammed and it’s a pity because there are many good, and usually small, operators out there. But the sentiment is understandable if a company is effectively sending one group of people out to dig a hole and another group to fill it in.’

Tom Griffiths, founder of gapyear.com, is also concerned about the practices of some operators. ‘Where there’s a lack of consistency, it just reflects badly on the whole sector. If you are sending a young person off to the jungle, there are all sorts of issues to consider. What about snake bites or accidents? Does the company have a mechanism for airlifting people out? What we are talking about in a worst-case scenario is a preventable death. It isn’t about wrapping people up in cotton wool; it’s about knowing the basics.’

Griffiths feels that a code of practice is long overdue, but argues it should be self-regulatory. ‘The industry has been crying out for regulation for ten years,’ he said. ‘It should be about the best companies sharing their best practice.’

Increased risk

But is it unreasonable to expect things to always go to plan and guarantee that people won’t have a bad experience, or that a company won’t mess up from time to time? After all, even with the safest precautions, road accidents in developing nations are commonplace, and you can be mugged in Venice as easily as on a beach in Venezuela. Griffiths feels that people must accept that risks do increase by dint of being in a developing country. ‘Gap year companies often offer multiple projects overseas and you have to accept that at times, things won’t be as efficiently as back home. Sometimes things change. You aren’t selling fridges, it isn’t a standard project. It’s a fluid offering.’

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has said that around a quarter of gap-year travellers are likely to suffer a bad experience, including theft or illness, abroad. The FCO operates a desginated website, gogapyear.com,  for those planning to take a career break or year out before or after university. ‘If you decide to organise your trip with a gap year company, research it thoroughly before committing,’ says a spokeswoman. ‘Find out how long they have been operating and how many people they have taken abroad in the past. It’s a good idea to speak to past gap travellers who have used the company to find out about their experiences. Volunteering projects require careful structuring, planning and support, and volunteers will get more benefit the longer the project and the closer it matches their skills.’

Despite the widespread misgivings, Justin Francis feels the gap year’s original, arguably pre-Lapsarian or Corinthian, spirit will survive. ‘I feel very positive about it – the companies causing the problems aren’t dominant in the industry. The phrase ‘life-changing’ is over-used in travel, but I feel it really does apply to volunteering. I know many people who say that volunteering abroad has changed their lives and their careers. But there are many organisations outside the Year Out Group, and I think it’s in their best interest – for their own integrity – if they develop and strengthen their approaches towards the communities with which they work.’

In search of transparency

I called several gap year operators, posing as either a potential gap year client or as the father of one. I asked most of the questions that Tourism Concern and Professor Goodwin suggest are necessary to establish the criteria under which the operator works.

Gapsports.com recently launched an eight-week attachment working with street children in Quito, Ecuador, costing £1,195, excluding international travel and transport from accommodation to the place of work. The company, which is a member of the Year Out Group, doesn’t conduct face-to-face interviews, although it does require a referee. When staff were canvassed, they told callers that it didn’t run criminal records checks on volunteers working with children ‘unless they’ve been out of education for a few years’. The company was unable to provide a detailed breakdown of where the fee went, although it said that in similar projects in Ghana, ten to 15 per cent of the money went to the host family and organisation.

After these points were put to the company, a spokeswoman said that gapsports.com did run Criminal Records Bureau checks on anyone out of full-time education. On the question of where fees went, she said that logistics made it difficult to provide a full breakdown. ‘Payment can often be in kind, such as hockey sticks or footballs, or financial,’ she said.

I approached i-to-i about working in an orphanage in Xian in China. The company runs checks on all volunteers who work with children, and the operation is run by local people. But they make no more than a basic effort to match the person’s skills with the job. I mentioned I’d worked with children in eastern Europe and was told that I sounded very well qualified. Nor do they require face-to-face interviews with volunteers. Most crucially, they were unable to provide a breakdown of the £1,195 cost of the eight-week trip, other than to say that part of the fee would pay for my lodging and another part would pay for an online teaching English as a foreign language course offered to volunteers.

The company argues that logistically, it’s difficult to provide a breakdown of how funds are distributed. ‘We are a commercial travel organisation and the bottom line is very important,’ said Matt Lewis, product manager at i-to-i. ‘Over the past year or two, we have significantly improved the amount of information we make available on how money is spent. Most people do this for some kind of commercial gain as well as the greater good.’ Lewis added that the takeover by Tui wouldn’t alter the ethos of the company, and that i-to-i supported stronger regulation. ‘We fundamentally believe in more regulation in the industry,’ said Lewis. ‘There’s a border line between volunteer work and tourism, and the industry needs a standard across the board.’

A typical four-week programme working for the Lubombo Conservancy in Swaziland, setting up traps and nets to capture birds and bats, and looking after/monitoring game awaiting re-release, costs £1,495, excluding flights with gapyearforgownups.co.uk, part of the Real Gap group. The company won’t provide a breakdown of how your fee is spent, saying that each project has different overheads. The company has introduced criminal records checks for UK nationals working with children, but doesn’t ask for face-to-face interviews with clients.

The company admits that it has yet to adopt all of the British Standards outlined by the Year Out Group. ‘It’s difficult because of the sheer number of people we are sending to Third World countries,’ said Felicity Milligan, spokesperson for Real Gap. ‘Many of these countries have standards that are a lot lower [than Europe], so it’s time-consuming and we have a lot of work involved to meet every single standard. We are a commercial company, so we are reluctant to reveal our profits, but if someone really wanted to question us, we will discuss it with them.’

A brief history of the gap year

The gap year, in the sense of a pre- or post-higher education journey with, at the very least, a vaguely structured vocational theme attached to it, first emerged during the 1960s. One of the pioneers was Project Trust, established in 1967 as an educational charity on the Hebridean Isle of Coll in northwest Scotland, and which continues to send 17–19-year-olds on year-long projects.

A critical mass of gap year operators emerged during the 1970s, given impetus by the creation of Operation Drake (now Raleigh International) in 1978, when Colonel John Blashford-Snell and HRH Prince Charles ran youth projects from ships circumnavigating the globe. The emergence of consolidated, cheap around-the-world air tickets in the 1980s made it easier for those on
gap years to combine travel with their projects.

Today, overseas gap years break down into three categories. The first group includes expeditions, conservation, trekking and personal development programmes; the second, more specialist category, comprises science projects and NGOs in need of research assistants; the |third group comprises voluntary work lasting anything from four weeks to a year.

Case study: go with an NGO

Laura Robson, now studying geography at Cambridge University, spent ten weeks working with Azafady in Madagascar after her A-levels. She worked on three projects, helping to build a school, tree planting and seed collecting, and building a well and school latrine.

‘Azafady appealed to me because it’s an NGO,’ she says. ‘It was important to me that my money didn’t go to a commercial organisation. It’s quite funny to think that you’re spending £2,000 to go to a poor country, so you want to know where you’re money is going, and Azafady was very open. Azafady is also very integrated – you work on a variety of projects. It isn’t just about conservation or health, and you can’t do it without local people on board.

‘I have friends who have travelled with commercial operators and they felt the programme existed for the volunteers. At Azafady, you are there because the programme is based on locally defined needs. But it’s a two-way thing. I’m looking for a career in development, and it was a good experience of working with an NGO.

‘This summer, I’ve been looking for a project, but it’s difficult to find something – I think I now have very high standards and I’m a bit dubious about some of the commercial companies. I think it’s very easy to stumble into a project with the bigger companies – they have a lot of advertising and plush brochures.’

Case study: raleighing around

Keith Kelly worked on volunteer projects for Raleigh International in Uganda and Chile, and was later employed by the charity to manage its recruitment team.

‘A whole industry has emerged around evaluating development by large professional NGOs, and often the criteria for this evaluation are applied to voluntary gap years. It’s naïve to think that a group of volunteers on a short-term project can come up with the same results as professional organisations such as Oxfam working on long-term projects. A lot of the work done is very good and certainly better than nothing. Some of the projects are poor, but then, not all development by large NGOs is problem free. The fundamental question is whether the project is doing some good.’

Kelly is concerned about the long-term impact that commercial companies may have on the gap-year market, particularly the way in which many encourage clients to fundraise to pay for their trip. ‘Raleigh is a charitable organisation with all of the regulation and need to show real benefits that that entails. What concerned me when I was there was that commercial gap year companies were also using fundraising as a commercial tool. It’s as if someone came up to you in a pub and said they were fundraising for Shell. Would you give in those circumstances? We’ve now had seven or eight years of young people whose first experience of fundraising is to help a commercial operation line its pockets. The consequence is that in 20 years time, we’re going to have a society that doesn’t understand what “giving” means.’

Case study: alone with the Terracotta Warriors

After completing a Masters degree in archaeology, Nicky Temple spent four weeks working at the Terracotta Warriors Museum in Xian, China, on a placement organised by i-to-i. ‘It was totally worthwhile,’ she says. ‘What other oppportunity would I have to spend time working in a World Heritage site? I didn’t expect to be able to go into the pits, but I got to speak to experts, and even just walking around was a privilege. I went into the halls at 8am every day and I was the only person there. I feel very lucky.

‘I was desperate to get my career off the ground. I specifically searched for a placement that I thought would help me, rather than just wanting to “travel” as some younger gap year students do.

‘I did a lot of research before I went, and I think i-to-i provided enough information. If you didn’t really know where you wanted to go and what you wanted to do, maybe you would require more guidance than they offer. For me, half the adventure is going somewhere completely different and not being spoon-fed. Maybe that depends on age or experience.

‘It cost £1,495, which is a lot of money. It included a teaching English as a foreign language course, food, accommodation and insurance, and I worked at the museum for four weeks, eight hours a day with weekends off. I paid nearly a year in advance, but I noticed the price had gone up even before I left. For me, I still think it was well worth it. When I got home and started to apply for museum jobs, I had lots of interviews and got my dream job within a few months.’

Ten questions to ask

1.  What does the work involve?
2.  Who decides what I’ll be doing?
3.  Who runs the projects?
4.  Is there any continuity?
5.  Can you provide a breakdown of how my money will be spent, including how much do you take as profit?
6.  Do you conduct face-to face interviews with potential volunteers?
7.  Do you provide pre-placement training and support during and after trips?
8.  Do you seek disclosure checks on those who will be working with children?
9.  What attempts do you take to match volunteers to the right position?
10.  Can I talk to previous volunteers and local people before I travel?

Questions compiled by Professor Harold Godwin, Responsibletravel.com and Tourism Concern

August 2008