Host volunteering in tourism as a voluntary exchange

Volunteering in tourism has gained popularity globally in recent years. While the understandings of volunteering are mainly from Western countries, the Chinese context volunteering is still marginalized. By focusing on how volunteering is conceptualized in the tourism field, this research explores the nuanced understanding of host volunteering in tourism in China. A constructivist grounded theory is adopted by drawing data from autoethnography and in-depth interviews with 34 volunteers and 15 tourism industry workers. The findings show that the voluntary exchange nature of host volunteering in tourism is prominent with productive, symbolic, and economic elements. The voluntary spirit emerges as important in the exchange relationship. A framework of host volunteering in tourism as a voluntary exchange is developed. Several Chinese characteristics are identified including the productivity of collective volunteering and outsourcing, tourism organizations involving volunteers to signal the active responses to the government policies, and the wide existence of volunteers with payment. This paper provides valuable insights into the under-theorised volunteering in tourism as an exchange and identifies practical implications.