
Dr Konstantinos Tomazos
Senior Lecturer
Work, Employment and Organisation
Publications
- Volunteer tourism : an ambiguous phenomenon
- Tomazos Konstantinos
- Guest Lecture on Volunteer Tourism, pp. 1-33 (2009)
- Social entrepreneurship and volunteer tourism: beauty and the beast?
- Cooper William, Tomazos Konstantinos
- Institute for Small Business and Enterprise (ISBE) Annual Conference (2009)
- Volunteer tourism : the new ecotourism?
- Tomazos K, Butler R
- Anatolia Vol 20, pp. 196-212 (2009)
- The volunteer tourist as 'hero'
- Tomazos Konstantinos, Butler Richard
- Current Issues in Tourism Vol 13, pp. 363-380 (2010)
- https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500903038863
- Volunteer Tourism, an ambiguous phenomenon: An analysis of the demand and supply for the volunteer tourism market
- Tomazos Konstantinos
- (2009)
- Volunteer tourism: working on holiday or playing at work?
- Tomazos Konstantinos, Butler R
- Tourismos: An International Multidisciplinary Journal of Tourism Vol 4, pp. 331-349 (2009)
Research Interests
My main research interests lie in the study of volunteering, volunteer tourism and other tourism niches. I would welcome post graduate students interested in the study of both the demand and supply for volunteering and volunteer tourism experiences but also the study of tourism niches and countercultures and how perhaps more deviant, non-conformist social activities, gradually find their way into the mainstream. More specifically I am very interested in the motivations, expectations and outcomes of various tourism niches.
I would strongly encourage students who are interested in investigating the role of altruism, instrumentalism and expected outcomes in terms of the possible motivations of volunteers as this is a very fertile ground for future research as reflexive volunteering is a relatively new concept and we need to learn more about its implications on the recruitment, training and management of volunteers.
I would also encourage applications from students who would seek to study volunteer tourism as a social enterprise and investigate the role that the third sector has played into the development of contemporary volunteer tourism. From small beginnings to the phenomenon that it is today, volunteer tourism has undoubtedly been shaped by individual initiative creating social goods where the public sector had failed. This drive to turn a vision into reality opens research paths into transforming leadership and how such organisations and their management have succeeded in selling their vision and mission and turning themselves into financially viable business entities. The evolution of the phenomenon is also interesting from an institutional theory perspective as a socio-cultural phenomenon as volunteering and helping others has become highly commoditised and homogenised due to market forces.
Perspective students are more than welcome to drop me a line with their ideas or questions at k.tomazos@strath.ac.uk
Professional Activities
- RGS-IBG annual conference: Understanding the Complexities of Volunteer Tourism
- Participant
- 27/8/2013
- Giving a Voice to the Homeless
- Participant
- 7/2012
- The Institutionalization of Volunteer Tourism: Where do we go from here?
- Invited speaker
- 2/11/2015
- ESRC Seminar on International Volunteering
- Participant
- 20/4/2016
- External Examiner
- External Examiner
- 1/2/2015
- Volunteer Tourism an Ambiguous Phenomenon
- Invited speaker
- 12/11/2009
Projects
- Gambia Sustainable Energy for Development
- Tomazos, Konstantinos (Academic)
- I have supervised the KE activity of a group of students travelling to Gambia and acting as business consultants to the another university faculty working on the installation of solar panels
- 10-Jan-2012 - 01-Jan-2014
- Inclusive tourism in the city: how urban tourism can benefit marginalised and vulnerable communities
- Baum, Thomas (Principal Investigator) Tomazos, Konstantinos (Co-investigator) Rogerson, Robert (Co-investigator) Vermeylen, Saskia (Co-investigator) Dimitrijevic, Branka (Co-investigator) Horgan, Donagh (Co-investigator)
- Multi-disciplinary research-informing workshop, funded through the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) in collaboration with the University of the Philippines Diliman to engage with tourism from a social and economic inclusion perspective in the context of the contemporary city. Involved engagement with this theme from multiple perspectives including gender, economic, employment, human rights, urban planning, architecture, law and anthropology.
- 01-Jan-2018 - 31-Jan-2018
- Developing Volunteer Tourism with ZID (Montenegro)
- Tomazos, Konstantinos (Principal Investigator)
- In was approached by an NGO from Montenegro to help them plan, design and deliver a volunteer tourism strategy in rural areas.
I visited Podgorica twice and i ran three workshops for NGO members, employees, and other stakeholders.
The result was a booklet on VT, and an issue mapping session that was used to deliver strategic options for the organisation. - 15-Jan-2016 - 11-Jan-2017
Contact
Dr
Konstantinos
Tomazos
Senior Lecturer
Work, Employment and Organisation
Email: k.tomazos@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 3846