Fostering Voluntourism Satisfaction and Future Behaviour in Island Destinations

Abdul Hafaz Ngah, Abdul Halim Mohd Rahimi, Serge Gabarre, Luis Araya-Castillo, Antonio Ariza-Montes and Heesup Han
Additional contact information
Abdul Hafaz Ngah: Marketing Department, University Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu 21300, Malaysia
Abdul Halim Mohd Rahimi: Tourism Department, University Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu 21300, Malaysia
Serge Gabarre: Department of Foreign Languages, University of Nizwa, Birkat Al Mouz PC 616, Oman
Luis Araya-Castillo: Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago de Chile 7591538, Chile
Antonio Ariza-Montes: Social Matters Research Group, Universidad Loyola Andalucía, 4 14004 Córdoba, Spain
Heesup Han: College of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, Korea

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-17

Abstract: Volunteer tourism, which is commonly referred to as voluntourism, is currently a dynamic alternative travel option with a focus on sustainable tourism. However, existing literature reveals that voluntourism activities do not meet tourists’ expectation, fail to provide experiences related to environmental issues, and thus, leads to their dissatisfaction. Realising the importance of the satisfaction of the voluntourists’ future behaviour, applying the volunteer function inventory, coupled with environmental concern, the authors aim to identify factors influencing voluntourists’ satisfaction and present the outcomes of voluntourists’ satisfaction among island visitors in Malaysia. Using a purposive sampling method, the data were collected through a survey among voluntarists in east coast island tourist destinations. A total of 278 valid questionnaires were gathered from two sessions of data collection process. Due to the model’s complexity, SEM-PLS version 3.3.2. was employed to analyse the hypotheses of the study. The results of the study revealed that career and social functions, in contrast with other variables, do not positively influence the voluntourists’ satisfaction. The continuous intention and the intention to recommend factors positively support the research model. Studies on voluntourists in Malaysian island destinations are relatively novel. Besides enriching the literature on voluntourism, which is particularly scarce especially in the Asian setting, the findings are also beneficial to local governments and voluntourism organisations to develop suitable approaches and policies to promote voluntourism in island destinations. The study is limited to the island destination setting. Future studies should focus on other destinations such as cultural and heritage sites, because these destinations have sentimental values that should be preserved.

Keywords: voluntourist satisfaction; continuous intention; intention to recommend; volunteer function inventory (VFI) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2767/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2767/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:5:p:2767-:d:510690

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().