Volunteer Tourism: Benefits, STP Plan, And Its Emergence In Australia

Volunteerism and its motivation

Question :

Volunteer tourism represents an emerging tourism sector for those who want to make a difference while on vacation as well as ensuring that local communities benefit both environmentally and economically (Coren & Gray, 2012). Organisations such as World Wildlife Fund, Antipodeans, Conservation International, Australian Volunteers, to name just a few, are offering volunteer tourism expeditions to Australians. The literature review identifies four motivational themes of cultural immersion, seeking camaraderie, giving back, and bonding opportunities among the segments of volunteer tourists (McGehee & Clemmons, 2008). The Orangutan Foundation in Central Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo runs tours where volunteers can assist with constructing buildings and fences to secure
the wild orang-utans. The mission statement for the organisation informs us that “the Orangutan Foundation goes beyond that of purely protecting the orangutan. Critically it also includes a recognition that orangutan habitat is unique in its richness of biodiversity and crucial for local communities, who are as dependant on the forest as is the orang-utan” (Orangutan Foundation 2014, p.1). Your task is to promote its conservation strategy to Australian volunteer tourists. You are required to conduct a literature review of about 500-800 words on the topic using keywords such as volunteer tourism, segmentation, targeting and positioning. You then have to develop a segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) plan targeting the Australian tourist market which the Orangutan Foundation could use to know to which Australian tourists to promote its conservation strategy. This is a challenging assignment and it is recommended that students read various academic materials before writing this report. 

Volunteer tourism is one of the emerging tourism industries in Australia. Initially it was said to be form of deep eco-tourism. Now it is considered as a tourism that fosters environmental and social positive outcomes, offering the tourists an opportunity to support their host community (Wearing and McGehee, 2013). In this report, the author will be conceptualize the volunteer tourism, its benefits and develop an STP plan for The Orangutan Foundation, to secure the lives of orangutans.

Volunteering is the activity in which people engage to benefit or help the strangers. The volunteerism motivation mainly focuses on the meeting needs, fulfilling motives, psychological and social functions that are being served through volunteer work (Dolnicar and Randle, 2007). Presently, volunteerism is contributing around $ 2 billion each year from around 1.6 million tourists (Lovelock, 2011). The Bureau of Labor Statistic of US record, around 63.8million individuals has taken part in volunteerism from September 2013-2014. There are various advantages of volunteerism (Sinha, 2014):

• Protective Function: It helps the individuals to cope up with the conflicts and inner anxieties.
• Social Function: It helps the individuals to contribute and collaborate with the social groups that they value
• Career Function: It helps individuals to gain experiences which boosts their career
• Enhancement Function: It permits individuals to connect with the sociological and psychological development and increase self-esteem
• Value function: Individuals volunteer to act on or express values they value
• Understanding function: This gives an opportunity to the people to increase their knowledge and also practice and develop specific skills.

According to the survey of ABS 2010, it is reported that around 6.1million that is 36% of the Australian population aged 18years have taken part in volunteerism and women (38%) were slightly more than men (34%). It is found that the people of age 45-54 years of have more interest in volunteering. Also the survey found that the young individuals are more interested in recreational activities and sports. This shows that volunteer tourism is the fast growing trend in the tourism industry (Volunteeringaustralia.org, 2014).

However, it is to be noted this tourism have some drawbacks that has to be taken care of. The issues are in identifying the actual needs that will be served by the volunteer tourists. Further lack of methods for choosing the volunteering opportunities might hamper this area.

Volunteerism contribution by tourists

As per the opinion of McGehee and Clemons (2008), the STP (Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning) process helps to promote a particular products of an organization is a specific market to specific customers. According Pike (2012), the STP process helps to maximize the impact of marketing activities on product. Then Coren and Gray (2012) supported by saying the STP process helps to influence the buying behavior of the customers. 

According to Natter et al., (2008) the segmentation can be defined as the process of splitting the market into groups with similar need and characteristics. Targeting is the process of selecting a particular segment to deliver the product using either the focused targeting strategy, undifferentiated targeting strategy or the Differentiated targeting strategy

Segmenting: The key factors that The Orangutan Foundation of volunteer Tourism should focus on carry out the segmentation process are customer type, motivational factors and the demographic profile (Dolnicar and Randle, 2007). Based on the literature review discussed above, the two major segments that the foundation should focus on are: Young Volunteers who are studying zoology or are interested to start their career related to animals’ world aged 15-30 years and the Mature Volunteers ages 50 years and above.

Target market	Age range	Travel experience	Motivation factors
Young volunteers interested in animal world or studying zoology	15-30 years	0 to 4 international trips in wildlife sanctuaries in 1 year	Interaction with people Improve Knowledge, skills and attitude Fun factor Developing experience to boost career
Mature volunteers	50years and above	Atleast 7 international visits in last 2years	Supporting the organization Contributing to the society Experiencing new cultures

Targeting: Differentiated Targeting Strategy can be adopted by the foundation to target the two segments. To target the young volunteer, the whole package should be designed in manner that it helps them to gain knowledge about wildlife preservation from their trip (Suki, 2013; Larson and Poudyal, 2012). A special tourism package should be designed in such a way that the young people can go in a group of 5-6 to gain experience and have fun too. Similarly to tap the mature volunteers, the tour package should be developed in such a way that would help them to interact with other culture people, contribute effectively to the society and have fun. The package duration should be planned based on their age.

Positioning: The positioning strategy of Orangutan Foundation Services would focus on three fundamental elements. These include the brand personality, the emotive expression and the destination attributes (Prayag, 2007). The brand personality included with this tour would be spirited, affable and proud so the tourists can actually contribute to the society and the local community people and also conserve and extend the economy. Further the emotive expression include creating and experience strong bonding with the family, delight feeling and also contribution to the society. For young volunteers this trip would give a new experience by serving the wild animals and gain knowledge to link their theories with the practical life. Thirdly, the main destination attributes would include supporting the society, differentiating self with other tourists, having fun, gaining knowledge, interacting with other culture people and also a nice holiday trip. Keeping all these three elements, the foundation can position them as a low cost travelling agency which is involved with volunteerism to benefit the society and economy and also promoting conservation of wild species of orangutans.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the presented report has discussed the marketing strategic aspect of volunteer tourism of the Orangutans Foundation. The literature review section of this report has reviewed the statistics of volunteer tourism and also the concept of STP (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning). The report consist of a segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy that would help the foundation to tap the consumer segment that is the mature volunteer and the young volunteer. 

References

Coren, N & Gray, T 2012, Commodification of volunteer tourism: a comparative study of volunteer tourists in Vietnam and in Thailand. International Journal of Tourism Research, Vol. 14, pp. 222-234

Dolnicar, S. and Randle, M. (2007). The international volunteering market: market segments and competitive relations. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., 12(4), pp.350-370.

Dolnicar, S. and Randle, M. (2007). What Motivates Which Volunteers? Psychographic Heterogeneity Among Volunteers in Australia. Voluntas, 18(2), pp.135-155.

Larson, L. and Poudyal, N. (2012). Developing sustainable tourism through adaptive resource management: a case study of Machu Picchu, Peru. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 20(7), pp.917-938.

Lovelock, C. (2011). Services marketing. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

McGehee, N. and Clemmons, D. 2008, An outgrowth of the 2004 voluntourism think tank a joint effort of Los Ninos Inc. Paper presented at the Educational Travel Conference, George Washington University

Natter, M., Mild, A., Wagner, U. and Taudes, A. (2008). Practice Prize Report —Planning New Tariffs at tele.ring: The Application and Impact of an Integrated Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning Tool. Marketing Science, 27(4), pp.600-609.

Pike, S. (2012). Destination positioning opportunities using personal values: Elicited through the Repertory Test with Laddering Analysis. Tourism Management, 33(1), pp.100-107.

Prayag, G. (2007). Exploring the Relationship between Destination Image and personality of a Tourist Destination – An Application of Processing Techniques. Journal of Travel and Tourism Research, pp.111-126.

Sainaghi, R. (2008). Strategic positioning and performance of winter destinations. Tourism Review, 63(4), pp.40-57.

Sinha, S. (2014). The Benefits of Volunteering. IEEE Potentials, 33(3), pp.30-31.

Suki, N. (2013). Young consumer ecological behaviour. Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, 24(6), pp.726 – 737.

Volunteeringaustralia.org, (2014). Volunteering Facts »  Volunteering Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.volunteeringaustralia.org/research-and-advocacy/the-latest-picture-of-volunteering-in-australia/ [Accessed 14 Jan. 2015].

Wearing, S. and McGehee, N. (2013). Volunteer tourism: A review. Tourism Management, 38, pp.120-130.