Motivation-based transformative learning and potential volunteer tourists: facilitating more sustainable outcomes

Abstract

Transformative learning (TL) is an important component of sustainable volunteer tourism experiences, potentially reducing unsustainable outcomes, and educating and enlightening volunteers. This paper reviews theories and issues about TL in volunteer tourism, and analyzes data from 1008 useable responses to an online survey of potential volunteer tourists. A factor–cluster analysis of potential volunteer tourists’ motivations identified key volunteer tourist segments and assessed differences in expectations of TL across each segment. Altruism remains the primary motivation, with personal development an expectation, but the study also found desires to experience different cultures, build relationships with family, and to escape one's daily life. Three motivation segments emerged: Volunteers, Voluntourists, and Tourists. Differences in the three clusters’ expectations for TL were assessed through multiple analysis of variance using items representing Taylor's three elements of TL: self-reflection, engaging in dialogue, and intercultural experience.

Differences in TL expectations varied significantly across the three segments. Potential Voluntourists were most likely to expect to participate in TL opportunities. The paper concludes with suggestions for maximizing TL for each segment. Volunteers and Tourists may require activities that include different, less obvious forms of TL. Volunteer tourism organizations need to invest significantly in staff training in TL.

依据动机的转化学习和潜在旅游志愿者：促进更加可持续的结果

转化学习是可持续旅游志愿者经历的重要组成部分，可能会减少非可持续行为，教育和启发志愿者。这篇文章参考了关于旅游志愿者在转化学习中的理论和存在问题，分析了从潜在旅游志愿者中收集的份可用网络调查问卷中得到的数据。用因子归类的分析方法分析了潜在旅游志愿者的动机，划分了主要的旅游者群体，并且检验了对不同群体在进行转化学习的期望差异性。利他主义仍然是主要的动机，个人发展需要也是一种动机，但是这篇文章也发现了对于体验不同文化、和家人建立良好关系和逃离日常生活的需求，出现了三种动机划分：志愿者、志愿旅游者和旅游者。通过变异数分析法，利用泰勒转化学习（2008）的三个要素：自我反思，参与对话和跨文化体验来评估三个群体在转化学习中的期望的不同。转化学习在这三个群体中的期望有很大不同。潜在旅游志愿者最有可能参加转化学习。这篇文章得出结论并对怎样最大化每个群体的转化学习结果提出建议。志愿者和游客可以在不同的，形式不明显的活动中进行转化学习。旅游志愿者组织需要在员工转化学习训练中投入更多的资金。

Keywords:

• transformative learning
• volunteer tourism
• segmentation
• expectations

关键词:

• 转化学习
• 旅游志愿者
• 划分
• 期望

Notes

1. For a full discussion of Mezirow's 10 phases of transformative learning, see Coghlan and Gooch (2011).

2. Volunteer tourism was referred to and labeled as voluntourism in the survey instrument.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Whitney Knollenberg

Whitney Knollenberg is a PhD student in the hospitality and tourism management program at Virginia Tech, USA. She earned her MS in sustainable tourism from East Carolina University. Her research interests include tourism's impact on communities, tourism planning, and the role of policy, power, and partnerships in tourism development.

Nancy G. McGehee

Nancy McGehee received her MS and PhD in sociology from Virginia Tech in 1995 and 1999, respectively. She previously worked in the regional rural tourism development field. She is an associate professor and the Willard and Alice S. Marriott Junior Faculty Fellow of hospitality management in the Hospitality and Tourism Management Department at Virginia Tech. Her academic career has focused on the volunteer tourism segment of the industry. She has worked with numerous volunteer tourism organizations throughout the USA, in Mexico, and most recently in Haiti.

B. Bynum Boley

B. Bynum Boley, PhD, is an assistant professor of natural resources, recreation, and tourism at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia, USA. His research focuses on sustainable tourism with a special attention to how the natural and cultural resources of a destination influence competitiveness, and how increased awareness of the economic value of natural and cultural resources influences policy and management decisions about sustainable development.

David Clemmons

David Clemmons is the founder of VolunTourism.org., working with academics and practitioners in shaping the voluntourism industry. He is the publisher and editor of the quarterly The VolunTourist Newsletter and The VolunTourist Weekly Review, and he informs stakeholders, the media, academics, and the public on emerging practices within the voluntourism community. He is a recognized global thought leader on voluntourism, and his opinions and insights are reflected in numerous other publications. Since 2000, he has consulted with the tourism industry, NGOs, and the public sector in such places as Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Jordan, Mexico, and the United States.