Travel philanthropy: A multifaceted ‘exchange economy’

Travelling with a purpose and ‘helping’ the ‘suffering’ is a growing practice within the important, but under-researched travel philanthropy phenomenon. Systems theory and critical realism informed this qualitative study exploring multiple travel philanthropy contexts in rural tourism destinations in three Sub-Saharan African destinations (Uganda, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia). This paper contributes new theoretical and conceptual understandings of the travel philanthropy phenomenon as a multifaceted and evolving exchange economy, a system characterised by a dynamic set of stakeholders’ roles and functions. Five key system perspectives are introduced outlining different purposes shaping the system. It contributes new critical understandings on why the exchange economy system exists for different actors and advances the science of open systems research applications in the travel and tourism domain.