Voluntourism Research: Getting Beyond The CANUUs
Dear Readers: I recognize that I have been absent from the blogosphere over the last several months. Trust me when I say it has been for good reason. I have been focused on research, writing, and other tasks that have required my undivided attention.
This being said, I am impelled to take a momentary break from my ‘blog-sabbatical’ as I am no longer able to contain my sincere excitement regarding the fact that voluntourism research is extending beyond the CANUUs (populations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the US.). Finally, we are receiving some invaluable input from other population sets. The latest such effort comes from the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Ada S. Lo and Candy Y.S. Lee bring us the results of interviews and a focus group with voluntourists from Hong Kong in a recent article published on the website of the journal of Tourism Management. (The article has been accepted by the journal – “Articles In Press,” but has not yet been officially published in the journal.) In “Motivations and Perceived Value of Volunteer Tourists from Hong Kong,” the authors share their findings regarding: 1) the motives for participating in voluntourism trips, 2) the perceived value of the experience for travelers, and 3) the factors that will influence future decisions to participate in such experiences.
One of the immediate correlations between East and West that can be made regards our response to natural disasters. Reading commentary from interviewees regarding the Southeast Asian Tsunami and the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake in Chengdu respectively, we find two powerful statements:
“It was two months after the Tsunami when I went to Phuket. The site was devastating… A number of organizations set up temporary stations there to coordinate relief efforts. There was nothing else in my mind but I just knew I wanted to use my professional knowledge to help these people to rebuild their homes.” (A university-educated female age 35 – 39 whose occupation is listed as a ’surveyor.’)
“The same ‘Dragon’ [Chinese] blood runs in our bodies. I should do whatever I can to help and give back to the motherland.” (a male student aged 15 – 19 years having completed ’secondary’ level of education)
Similar language has been found in studies involving other populations responding to the Southeast Asian Tsunami and, as an example, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. Gulfcoast region. (For additional quotes and commentary on natural disasters, you may be interested in reviewing “Destination Recovery & VolunTourism: What Did We Learn In Decade 1.0 That Can Be Applied in Haiti, And Now, Chile?” which appears in Volume Six, Issue 1 of The VolunTourist Newsletter.)
“Motivations To Participate In Volunteer Trips”
The authors identified five motives from the focus group and interviews with individual respondents:
- Cultural Immersion and Interaction with Local People – “Learning about the local culture and interacting with locals were the major motivations for respondents to participate in volunteer trips.”
- Desire to Give Back – “The respondents also expressed their desire to show love and care and provide practical assistance to needy communities.”
- A Shared Experience with Family Members and an Educational Opportunity for Children – “In addition to building a shared experience with family members through volunteer travel experience, two informants said that it was a great educational opportunity for their children.”
- Religious Involvement – “As all of the focus group participants were Christians, it was not surprising that religious involvement was identified as one of their motives to take volunteer trips.”
- Escape from Everyday Life – “Some respondents said that they were motivated to partake in volunteer trips because it was a great opportunity for them to escape from their normal life.”
We can certainly compare these results with focus groups and interviews from other studies to see both similarities and differences.
“Perceived Value of the Volunteer Tourism Experience”
According to the authors, ’six major themes’ were identified and described under five main categories:
- Changed View of Life – “All of the individual respondents and more than half of the focus group participants said that the way they looked at life and the world changed after the volunteer trips.”
- Relationship Enhancement – “Many respondents indicated that they were motivated to volunteer overseas because of the opportunity to participate in direct and profound social interaction.”
- Personal Development and Growth – “The responses of the study participants confirmed the finding that volunteer travel experience is an opportunity for personal development and growth.”
- Broadening Horizons and Gaining Life Experience – “All of the focus group participants thought that the volunteer trips enriched their life experience, broadened their horizons, and provided them with rare and memorable experiences.”
- Influence on Future Career, Studies and Life Direction – “The findings of this research support those of previous studies that volunteer travel experiences influence individual’s future studies and career.”
Again, one can see the similarities to existing research regarding CANUUs; perhaps, we are not so different after all.
“Factors Affecting Intention to Participate in Volunteer Trips in the Future”
The authors identified five factors that would influence participation in future trips:
- Time – “Time was the top priority of respondents because they had busy work lives.”
- Financial Ability – “Although all of the respondents thought that the fees of their previous volunteer trips were reasonable, half of the informants stated that financial ability would be a concern when considering future participation in volunteer trips.”
- Safety and Health Issues – “Regarding participation in future volunteer trips, respondents were also concerned about safety and health issues.”
- The Arrangements and Scale of the Volunteer Tours – “Comments from nine of the respondents showed that they were concerned about the itinerary (amount of time dedicated to volunteering) of the volunteer trips…Another two interviewees expressed concerns related to the scale (number of participants) of the volunteer trips.”
- Reputation of the Volunteer Tour Organizers – “Two individual respondents were concerned about the background and reputation of the organizers of this kind of trip. This showed that Hong Kong people tend to be cautious about charitable organizations as some of these organizations may be fraudulent, and people do not want to be cheated.”
Concluding Thoughts
The authors of the study are quick to point out that this is a small sample and therefore problematic should it be taken as ‘generalizable’ across the entire Hong Kong population. They also discuss in the ‘Limitations and Future Studies‘ section of their article that the majority of their respondents had a ‘volunteer-minded’ view of voluntourism as opposed to a ‘vacation-minded’ view of voluntourism. Despite these limitations, this study contributes much by the simple fact that the respondents are from Hong Kong – we are benefited by having a view of one of the up-and-coming voluntourism markets – versus another study focused on the CANUUs. Yet, and this should not surprise us, we are able to discern, almost immediately, similarities between the responses from the interviewees of this study and the responses of other population sets in research studies that have been conducted around the world. Should this trend of similar results continue to be found, we may discover that voluntourism affords us an opportunity to get beneath the epidermis of cultural differentiation to discover a common blood of our singular humanity.
[The study findings and quotes contained in this blog post are attributed to Ada S. Lo and Candy Y.S. Lee, authors of "Motivations and Perceived Value of Volunteer Tourists from Hong Kong" and are copyright 2010 by Tourism Management.]
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[...] was reading an old post on the Voluntourism.org blog from May 5, 2010 (http://blog.voluntourism.org/?p=238) about a voluntourism study conducted in Hong Kong titled Motivations and perceived value of [...]