The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in home-stay arrangements in Ghana’s cultural city, Kumasi, and further assess NGO intermediation of home-stay from home-stay operators’ and international volunteer tourists’ perspectives.
A mixture of quantitative and qualitative approaches is used to target three main stakeholders of volunteer tourism including international volunteer tourists, home-stay operators, and local NGOs.
There are seven major roles played by volunteer NGOs in the home-stay arrangement. However, from operators’ perspective, NGOs may hinder the economic viability of home-stay through inadequate/low payment.
The study highlights the unexplored brokerage role of NGOs in volunteer tourism in home-stay intermediation and its implications for sustainable tourism.
