The impact of volunteer interaction on the tourism experience of people with visual impairment based on a mixed approach

ABSTRACT

The tourism experience has always been a hot topic in tourism research. However, the tourism experience of people with visual impairment (PwVI) has its own particularity. This paper explores the unique tourism experience of PwVI based on travel notes written by them. Since PwVI are often accompanied by volunteers when travelling, this paper also discusses the impact of the interaction between volunteers and PwVI on the tourism experience, and analyses the intermediary role of the sense of helplessness experienced by PwVI in the above impact. The empirical results based on a self-administered questionnaire completed by visually impaired groups show that ① the interaction between volunteers and PwVI has a significant positive correlation with the seven unique tourism experiences of PwVI, and ② This correlation is partially mediated by the sense of helplessness. The results show that positive interaction helps to reduce the sense of helplessness of PwVI and thus improves their tourism experience.

KEYWORDS:

• People with visual impairment
• interaction
• learned helplessness
• tourism experience
• mixed approach

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 21BGL282], Scientific Research and Creation Project of Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism [grant number 2021KYY025]; Zhejiang Gongshang University Graduate Research Innovation Fund [grant number 2021].