Since the beginning of the 21st Century, the so-called solidarity tourism has begun to gain importance and popularity in Spain. Nowadays, solidarity travels have experienced a significant growth, not only in qualitative, but also in quantitative levels. In any case, the conception of solidarity travels is changing. At the beginning, they were only isolated actions carried out by some NGOs. They tried to offer transparency allowing their donors to see ‘in situ’ the funded projects. But, nowadays, they are becoming strategic components for these organizations and other agents involved. The aim of this paper is to show the first stage of an exploratory study that tries to explain the characteristics of these travels in Spain, and analyze their effects on the different agents involved (tourists, NGOs, travel agencies, etc.).

Note: This paper is a Research Note