Turning Travelers Into Agents of Social Change
Each year, millions of tourists visit Hawaii. But let鈥檚 face it: Many of their trips do not directly benefit our local communities. We need to change that.
Organizations increasingly employ crowdsourcing to harness the collective energy and creativity of large numbers of contributors. While companies were first to embrace this approach, recently nonprofits and social businesses started to tap the crowd for social innovation. What if this tool could be used in the service of the community?
Through crowdsourcing, local nonprofit organizations can be invited to submit ideas for meaningful travel experiences. The best experiences could then be offered for travelers to join. The pool of meaningful experiences then aims to inspire travelers to create a positive impact during their trip to Hawaii.
We have found that this idea works. Travel2change, a non-profit, seeks to make travel meaningful for travelers and beneficial for locals. It is based in studies of how to design crowdsourcing platforms for social innovation. The number of crowdsourcing social innovation platforms is increasing, but many fail to engage a critical mass of users who are both willing and capable to participate. However, the desire to create a positive impact during a trip to Hawaii has resonated with many people.
For example, last year, one travel2change project invited tourists to walk along the main highway on the Big Island to pick up debris, raise awareness of the situation and promote better trash disposal choices. Now, we are looking for more ideas to better serve Hawaii and hoping to get an even bigger response this year. In addition to presenting crowdsourcing research at Hawaii Pacific University鈥檚 Science Pub-Hawaii, this week we kicked off the 2014 travel2change Hawaii Challenge to find ideas for meaningful travel experiences that benefit communities in the Islands.
We all love to travel. Now, let us make a difference.
For more information, please visit travel2change.org.
About the author: Thomas Kohler is an associate professor of Marketing at Hawaii Pacific University and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. His research has been published in journals such as the MIS Quarterly, Technovation and the Harvard Business Manager. His research inspired him to start the nonprofit organization travel2change, a crowdsourcing platform for meaningful travel experiences.
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