Volume 4

Small under-resourced communities are often involved in the provision of accommodation services and cultural experiences to groups of students from international institutions. These host communities become invaluable field partners that help institutions nurture the global citizenship of their students through volunteer work on local improvement projects, homestays with families, and involvement in communal cultural activities. In many cases, hosting these groups may represent a dominant portion of a small community’s business. Therefore, there is a dire need to stimulate dialogue between small tourism communities and their institutional clients to manage mutual expectations and mitigate disruptions caused by the COVID19 pandemic. In this webinar, two Latin American tourism microentrepreneurs will explain how their communities benefit from hosting global service learning groups, they will relate the impact of COVID19 on their tourism livelihoods, and will discuss their hopes and concerns about programs scheduled for 2021. Three American global service learning professionals will react to those presentations, sharing their insights into the best practices in their field during this pandemic.