The impact of a volunteer tourism experience, in South Africa, on the tourist: The influence of age, gender, project type and length of stay

This paper explores the influence of age, gender, project type and length of stay on the impacts of a volunteer tourism experience. The impacts measured were changes to volunteers' personality traits. A quasi-experimental study was carried out on volunteer tourists undertaking community, wildlife and conservation projects, in South Africa. These tourists completed a standardised web-based personality inventory (IPIP-NEO) prior to and following their volunteer vacation to measure changes to 15 personality traits.The findings address a number of shortcomings in the volunteer tourism literature by providing statistical evidence of the influence of age, gender, project type and length of stay on the impacts of a volunteer tourism experience, and they broaden our understanding of the limited and contradictory research into these factors. The findings can therefore contribute theoretically; and practically to tourism marketing, and programme design.

► Age, gender, project type and length of stay influence the volunteering experience.
► The experience is more likely to change the 16–29 years of age than the 30 + years.
► Some traits are more likely to change among the men and others among the women.
► There are different impacts for volunteer tourists depending on project type.
► Length of stay influences the likelihood, and type, of change for volunteers.