Applying Tourism Life Cycle to Explore the Development of Volunteer Tourism in Taiwan － A Case Study of ELIV

Abstract

As Taiwan goes through rural population loss and declining industrial development the development of rural revitalization strategy is a contemporary issue Volunteer tourism is an innovative and socially responsible tourism business model that can provide human resources and bring economic benefits to Taiwan's rural communities In this study ELIV (a Taiwan volunteer tourism organization and a social enterprise) was selected as a case study to explore the key factors of tourism partnership and local influence in deconstructing the success of volunteer tourism in Taiwan Employing the life cycle model through participant observation in-depth interviews and textual analysis can lead to an in-depth understanding of the status of the organization’s volunteer tourism in Taiwan This study found that in addition to volunteers volunteer organizations and communities volunteer leaders play a key coordinating role in the tourism life cycle or the development of tourism partners The benefits of volunteer tourism include increased visibility of local communities enterprise participation talent input in-depth tourism experience and training of local leaders all of which are very meaningful to the development of sustainable local partnerships for rural revitalization and regional revitalization policies

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English
Supervisor	Hsiu-Tzu Chang (Supervisor)