Volunteer Tourism: Illustrating the diversity of the sector
Added to website: 26 February 2007
Abstract
Volunteer tourism represents an emerging tourism sector for vacationers who want to make a difference during their holidays. There is, however, little research on the nature and scope of this tourism sector. This study aims to illustrate the heterogeneous nature of this tourism sector by 1) developing a typology of volunteer tourism organisations based upon their promotional image; 2) identifying the expectations and motivations of actual volunteer tourists; and 3) comparing these with the organisations’ promotional images. Four groups of volunteer tourism organisations are identified and labelled - “research conservation holidays”, “holiday conservation expeditions”, “adventure conservation expeditions” and “community holiday expeditions”. Results also show that the volunteers’ motivational and socio-demographic profiles varied between organisations, although the volunteers’ expectations remained fairly consistent. Finally, it was found that an organisation’s promotional image does not necessarily match the volunteer tourists’ expectations. The results suggest that volunteer tourism is a diverse sector, with a range of niche markets and different emphases on holidaying vs. volunteering. It is proposed that organisations should be aware of their perceived images in order to match their volunteers’ needs and ensure the success of their volunteer tourism expeditions.
Introduction
Currently, dozens of tourism operators, environmental or humanitarian NGO’s and academic groups are offering travellers the opportunity to participate in sustainable alternative travel that can assist in community development, scientific research or ecological restoration (Wearing, 2004; Wight, 2003; Wood, 1991). The growth of the volunteer tourism sector may represent a new approach to tourism whereby “new business structures, new motivations for travelling, new experiences and a new type of tourist are emerging” (Wearing, 2004). As a conservation tool, this alternative form of tourism has been developed as a partnership between conservation groups and the tourism industry, involving the general public in international conservation efforts (Wight, 1993; Wood, 1991).
The organisations operating in this sector are diverse as conservation groups began to realise that “ecotourists represent a potential army of recruits with free time and money to spend on sustainable development efforts” (Wheelan, 1991: 16). Many organisations, such as Earthwatch, are now tapping into this human resource, involving tourists in “citizen science” projects such as counting turtle eggs or observing whale behaviour. With such a range of projects, it is likely that volunteer tourists themselves will also be highly diverse. Previous resarch has suggested that volunteer tourists have a similar profile to ecotourists and are motivated by altruism (Accott, La Trobe and Howard; 1998; Galley & Clifton, 2004; Gilmour & Saunders, 1995; Wearing, 2001, 2003; Weiler & Richins, 1995).
It is proposed here that the nature and perceptions of volunteer tourism organisations is an area of volunteer tourism research that needs greater examination. There has been little research carried out that explores the heterogeneity of the volunteer tourism sector, or investigates the range and diversity of expeditions and projects within this sector.
Study aims and objectives
This study aims to illustrate the heterogeneous nature of the conservation-oriented segment of the volunteer tourism sector. It accomplishes this aim by 1) developing a typology of volunteer tourism organisations based upon their projected and perceived promotional image; 2) identifying the expectations and motivations of actual volunteer tourists from a sub-sample of the 29 volunteer tourism organisations; and 3) comparing the expectations and motivations of actual volunteer tourists with the organisation’s promotional image.
Materials and Methods
The sample, based on a search of the Internet and specialist literature, included 28 volunteer tourism organisations.
In order to determine the organisations’ projected images, elements that could easily be compared between organisations and represent fundamental aspects of the organisation were analysed. The elements chosen were the organisation’s mission statement, their promotional photographs and the testimonies of past volunteers. A content analysis was performed on each element, followed by a multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis to detect any groupings within the organisations.
The perceptions of organisational images were assessed using a modified version of the multiple sorting procedure (Wilson and Mackenzie, 2000) where respondents are asked to sort the sample of volunteer tourism promotional material into groups based on similarity, using their own criteria. The respondent was then asked to explain what criteria he/she has used to sort the brochures. The respondents came from the Tourism Programme (N=30) and the Schools of Biological Sciences and Tropical Environmental Science and Geography (N=30) from James Cook University in Australia.
Volunteers from six organisations were surveyed in order to represent the range of volunteer tourism trips available within this sector. Each organisation ran expeditions of varying lengths and sizes, in different locations. Surveys were distributed to volunteer tourists from each of the six organisations. Volunteer tourists were asked to provide information on their gender, age, occupation, travel experience and previous volunteer tourism trips undertaken. They were also asked two questions concerning their involvement in conservation work. The closed-ended question, “how involved are you in conservation work?” was answered on a scale of 1 (very) to 3
(not very). The open-ended question, “please explain in what ways you are involved in conservation work” was intended to provide more detail on the volunteers’ conservation work as well as to control for social-desirability bias, which may lead to an overstatement of conservation involvement.
Tourist expectations were identified using one open-ended question: “please describe what you expect to get out of this experience”. Tourist motivations were investigated using a combination of one open-ended question “please describe what made you decide to participate in this project” and a 26-item survey of close-ended questions, where volunteers were asked how strongly they agree with the statement “one of the reasons I chose to come on this trip was…” for each item on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The items were selected based on previous motivational studies such as Pearce and Lee (2005), Manfredo and Driver (1996), Moscardo et al. (1996) and Weiler & Richins (1995), as well as those elements that were identified as being important in the promotional image of the volunteer tourism organisations.
Results
Developing a typology of Volunteer tourism organisations:
Analysis of Projected Organisational imageThe organisations could be most easily distinguished according to the theme of their mission statement – conservation, cross-cultural or personal development/adventure-oriented, followed by the types of photographs present in their promotional material. A series of Mann-Whitney tests revealed that conservation-oriented organisations were more likely to use photographs of animals (W=238, p<0.05) and volunteers collecting data (W=233, p<0.05), whilst photographs of volunteers with local people were more likely to be used by cross-cultural (W=181, p<0.05) and personal development organisations (W=171, p<0.05). Organisations with a cross-cultural focus were also more likely to use photographs of monuments (W=183, p<0.05) and local people (W=171, p<0.05) than the other two types of organisations. The types of volunteer testimonies, on the other hand, showed little variation between organisations. The analysis was then refined using an MDS analysis using the data from the content analysis of the photographs overlaid with the organisations’ mission statements. The MDS reveals that there are arguably three groups of organisations based upon the counts of different categories of photographs. The organisations appear to have been grouped along two dimensions; an “animal & research” vs. “people & work” axis and a “people” vs. “adventure” continuum.
Analysis of perceived organisational image:
A total of 270 different groups emerged from the respondents’ multiple sorting task, with a range of two to 10 groups per respondent. A thematic analysis of the sorting criteria revealed 18 criteria that were used more than once. The five most commonly cited sorting criteria which accounted for over half of the groups were the focus of the project (community vs. conservation) (N=73), whether it was a holiday or work project (N=69), the variety of projects and destinations offered (N=58), the environment or species studied (N=45), and quality and quantity of information provided (N=44). Some respondents were also noting the benefits that a volunteer may receive from participating; for instance whether the expedition priority focussed more on the volunteer or the work to be done was mentioned 14 times, whilst the learning component fora volunteer (summer school/skill development) was mentioned 12 times. Finally, the cultural interaction and the adventure content of the trip were also mentioned a few times by respondents.
The final typology was therefore based on the three key elements, along with the results of the multiple sorting procedure. Four main types of organisations were identified; research conservation expeditions, holiday conservation expeditions, adventure holiday expeditions and community holiday expeditions.
Identifying the socio-demographic profile, motivations and expectations of volunteer tourists:
The socio-demographic profile of volunteer tourists:The total number of respondents to the survey of volunteers was 76 due to a general response rate of 50% recorded across the organisations, with slightly lower response rates in some organisations, such as Organisation C. However, despite this low return rate, the final sample of respondents represented a variety of ages, nationalities and experience (Table 2a and 2b).
The motivations of volunteer tourists
After coding the responses to the open-ended question, it became apparent that there was a substantial overlap between the survey items and the themes that arose from the latter question. According to the survey the items that scored highest were “to experience new and different things”, with a mean score of 4.48 (SD=0.9). This item was followed by items such as “have a good time” (mean=4.35, SD=0.86) and “take part in a rare opportunity” (mean=4.32, SD=0.95). Items that were related to conservation or volunteering scored much lower, so that we find items.
Alexandra Coghlan
PhD Candidate, Tourism Program.
James Cook University
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