As a result of academic research into the effects of mass travel, an industry of alternative tourism has emerged. Application of this research has resulted in myriad forms of tourism, two of these being ecotourism and educational travel. Ecotourism represents a response to what is the destructive nature of the mass tourism industry and its damage to host communities' social, economic and environmental systems. Educational travel is an attempt to use tourism for education, such as trips arranged by university study abroad programs. I contend that both forms of alternative travel represent a reactive approach to mitigating the impacts of mass tourism. The potential of educational travel is not realized as it provides no framework or guidelines as to how students can apply the information and knowledge they have acquired on their trip. I will define a new type of tourism, advocacy travel, which seeks to address the shortfalls of ecotourism and educational travel. Advocacy travel is tourism as a strategy used by activists to educate, promote ideological awareness and motivate participants to work for social change. Global Exchange, a non-profit organization, has been using organized tours as one component of their activist strategy since 1989. Tours to destinations that are politically charged are used as a tactic to create a more politically aware and active citizen from an average person living in the United States. The ultimate goal of the tours is to promote change in the participant that will translate into an increased level of activism around the international issue about which Global Exchange is attempting change. This study is specifically aimed at determining whether tourism utilized in this manner can have a successful outcome for the organization employing it. I developed and distributed a survey questionnaire to Reality Tour participants from both the Cuba and Chiapas programs. Results reveal that the trips do promote an increased awareness of general news and world events and, to a lesser degree, serve to make the participant more politically active overall. However, this result is not equally applied to all participants. Those who indicate a previous awareness of the specific situation of their destination or a more general political knowledge are more likely to report that the Reality Tour inspired them to change. Also, I found that the Reality Tour participant differs greatly from the average US citizen in terms of education level, income, area of residence and occupation. / Graduation date: 2002