A WEB CONTENT ANALYSIS OF VOLUNTEER ORGANIZATIONS MARKETING PRACTICES IN THEIR WEBSITES: A CASE STUDY OF THE EGYPTIAN TOURIST DESTINATION


Tarek Sayed Abdel Azim Ahmed


Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Minia University, Egypt & Department of Tourism and Archaeology, Hail University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia


Corresponding Author’s E-mail: tarekazimh@gmail.com; t.abdelazim@uoh.edu.sa; t.abdelazim@mu.edu.eg


ABSTRACT

This exploratory study aims to examine not-for-profit and for profits volunteer tourism organizations websites in Egypt regarding their marketing practices to attract potential volunteers. In order to achieve the objective of study, a web-content analysis was applied. Purposive sampling was used to obtain a preliminary list of organizations undertaking volunteering activities. An internet search of public domain websites for organizations yielded

(21) websites related to volunteering practices in Egypt. The findings revealed that studied organizations place strong emphasis on volunteers’ interests in their missions’ statements. All organizations made used of images/photos, videos, messages to attract more volunteers and to gain more donations.


Keywords: Volunteer Tourism, Images, Messages, NGOS Organizations


INTRODUCTION

Joining travel and Voluntourism is a unique method to combine the modern traveler's leisure needs with the motivation to help others through volunteering (Kidder & Spears, 2011; Tourism Research and Marketing, 2008). It contributes to associate travel with chances for involvement in various volunteer activities internationally (Wilkinson, McCool, & Bois, 2014) which are focused more on the wellbeing of their host communities (Weaver, 1998).


Voluntourism is a form of alternative tourism (Mostafanezhad, 2014) that is beneficial to the local destinations and to environment and through which the voluntourist can experience authenticity, leading to expectations of a responsible tourism ethos (Smith, 2014). This new market is facilitated by various volunteering projects and destinations, various target markets, and several forms of players (Callanan & Thomas, 2005).


Voluntourism is a combination of donation voluntary service to the destinations visited, which directly affect natural, socio-economic environments of the destinations (Rattan, 2009). Wearing (2001) & Brink (2015) stated that the main objectives of voluntourism are to alleviate the poverty of some groups in society, to restore environments or to conduct researches into features of society or environment combined with tourist activities.

Today, volunteer tourism is the fastest growing and flourishing travel sector in many countries in both developing and developed world (Smith, 2014; Young, 2008; Butcher & Smith, 2010). Growth in the sector of volunteer tourism has been most marked since 1990. This has been partially because of for-profit operators entering the market (TRAM, 2008).


A report on United Nations Volunteering showed the growing tendency towards volunteering, with steady increases year by year (United Nations Volunteer, 2014; Smith, 2014). Henceforth, those increases evidently indicate the internationally growing popularity of volunteer tourism (Simkute, 2017; Brink, 2015). Originally, for-profit or non-profit organizations or academic institutions (Reel, 2014) can play vigorous roles in the organizing volunteer tourism programs, often performing as intermediate between the host community and volunteer tourists (Ong, Pearlman & Lockstone-Binney, 2011).


The growing trend of volunteer tourism have drawn attention of researchers in the field of tourism (Holmes & Smith 2009; Brown, 2005). Little research surveyed NGOs in facilitating volunteer tourism projects (Simkute, 2017). International Voluntary Service is increasingly being believed as a tool for doing development of poor regions in the South (Butcher & Smith, 2010). The organizations’ website is a key tool to advise potential volunteer tourists about the various types of volunteer projects (Bremen, 2015).


There has been little focus on how they attract new volunteers. In fact, it would be more necessary to explore the way volunteer organizations used to promote themselves for gaining more volunteers. Voluntary sector is under research. Very limited literatures exist about the subject of volunteer tourism. This study aims to contribute to the literature review. The author aims to contribute with the findings to both the academic field and volunteer tourism in terms of volunteer organizations undertaking volunteering activities in Egypt.


The purpose of this study is to examine not-for-profit and for profits volunteer tourism organizations websites practices to attract new volunteers and to explore their mission statements. The paper is arranged as follows: A theoretical review, the conceptual framework and questions will firstly be presented. Thereafter the methodology, data analysis and conclusions are discussed. The final section presents the managerial implications, limitations and recommendations for future research.


LITERATURE REVIEW

Volunteer tourism (the concept and activities)

The tourism literature does not provide an approved conceptualization of what volunteer tourism is. It is a complex and a multi-dimension character (Simkute, 2017; Callanan & Thomas, 2005) where many actors play significant roles.


The phenomenon has, however, over time, boasted various definitions and is identified through myriad of terms associated with it such as ecotourism, niche tourism, pro-poor, sustainable tourism and international volunteering (Wearing, 2001; Callanan and Thomas, 2005; Uriely, Reichel & Ron, 2003).

The term “voluntourism” recently appeared in the Word English Dictionary as ‘tourism in which travelers do voluntary work to help communities or the environment in the places they are visiting’ (Alexander, 2012). The concept of Volunteer tourism has attracted increased attention of various researchers (Wearing, 2001; McGehee & Santos, 2005; Brown, 2005; Vrasti, 2013).


The most commonly used Wearing’s (2001) definition of volunteer tourists as those who ‘volunteer in an organized way to undertake holidays that may involve the aiding or alleviating of the material poverty of some groups of society, the restoration of certain environments, or research into aspects of society or environment.’ He argues that the concept of “volunteering” is founded on concepts of altruism and self-development. These notions involve volunteering works (Kidder & Spears, 2011; Miske, 2016; Andereck et al., 2011).


Vrasti (2013) defined volunteer tourism as “a mix of travel and work, hedonism and purpose, charity and self-growth; volunteer tourism seems well-poised to solve the pervasive problem of modern alienation and loss”.


Volunteer tourism is universally described as “an eco-friendly and economically sustainable alternative form of mass tourism resulting, in part, from the relatively negative consequences of mass tourism, that is undertaken by individuals who want to contribute and help community in a less poor countries”’ (Miske, 2016). Volunteer tourism is considered as a form of sustainable development based on thoughtful policymaking and planning (Billington, Carter & Kayamba, 2008). It is being used as a development tool for poverty reduction in in developing countries (Kennedy & Dornan, 2009).


Voluntourism is a mixture of offering voluntary service to the destinations visited which directly affect natural, socio-economic environments of the destinations (Rattan, 2009). Volunteer tourism can be considered as a form of ethical consumption that aims to support conservation and community well-being goals in the global South (Smith, 2014).


Volunteer tourism is a contradiction of philanthropic work and pleasure seeking. The idea of traveling for volunteering is to help others while living in inexperienced conditions; being able to manage those and returning enriched (Simkute, 2017).Four basic components of volunteering have been identified: free will, availability of rewards, official organization, and closeness to the beneficiaries (Handy et al., 2000).


Volunteer tourism diversifies from other business sectors by its complexity and distinctiveness relating aid work, desire assisting in communities and at the same time engaging with local culture, nature, and people (Callanan & Thomas, 2005).


Voluntourism activities can require a series of skill levels but tend to least professional skills (Birman & Kolkin 2013). In volunteer tourism, there is a range of projects available from humanitarian projects (targeting to improve the life`s conditions for people such as education,

health (Alexander & Bakir, 2011) to conservation projects (the protection of animals, plants, land and buildings) and disaster mitigation’ (Alexander & Bakir, 2011). Drawing on fieldwork about the backpacker volunteers in Tanzania, showed that the idea of volunteer tourism and the dualism of work and leisure has led to a consideration of a “holiday within a holiday”, where backpacking activities have taken place during the volunteer placement.


The volunteering Organizations

These days, there is a wide range of volunteering organizations, which play as gatekeepers between the potential volunteers and the hosting communities (Wearing & McGehee, 2013). The first NGOs practicing volunteering that were established After the World War I called “Save the children fund” and catholic churched based “Caritas” (Kennedy & Dornan, 2009). After World War II, various international volunteering organizations appeared in Europe to alleviate the negative effects of the war in Europe and to participate in projects of development in the poor areas in the third World (Kennedy & Dornan, 2009). One of the first organizations that started to develop voluntourism programs was the non-profit British Trust Conservation Volunteers, established in the 1950s and their projects included communities, environment, and science (Wearing & McGehee, 2013).


Today, volunteer tourism has been delivered by several organizations. Each supplier of volunteer tourism has a different mission and vision, objectives and aims. Because of the growth of the volunteer tourism market, there has been a transformation from non-profit organizations to a mix of non-profit and for-profit organizations (Tomazos & Cooper, 2011). Nowadays, volunteer tourism has grown to a niche sector within the tourism industry that attracts a wide variety of travelers who have little time and no specific experiences, skills and education and it is often managed by tour operators (Barrell, 2014).


Over the past decades, many actors have taken advantage of the significant growth in demand for volunteer tourism transforming volunteering into millions generating business (Simkute, 2017). Sending organizations play an increasingly significant role in this expanding sector (Guttentag, 2009). Options for volunteering are now offered via a growing range of sending organizations including private companies, government organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), charities and commercial operators, universities, conservation agencies, religious organization (Soderman & Snead, 2008; Raymond & Hall, 2008; Guttentag, 2009).


Brown (2005) found that the number of volunteer tourism organizations increased from 75 in 1987 to 275 in 2003. The GoAbroad website offers links to 938 organizations that propose 5568 volunteers abroad programmes (Wilkinson, McCool & Bois, 2014).


Furthermore, the individual volunteer organization Earthwatch between 1971 and 2008 has sent about ninety thousand volunteers in 1400 projects across 120 countries and generating 67

$US million. There are various categories of voluntary projects, which include community welfare, environmental conservation, research, education, construction, business and information technology development and healthcare (Callanan & Thomas, 2005).

Calkin (2014) referred to the need to differentiate between for-profit and non-profit organizations. Scholars suggest that for-profit organizations may not have a concern about community development. Instead, the emphasis is on the volunteer and services offered to gain more profits (Simkute, 2017). According to (Alexander, 2012) the notion of ‘payment’ differentiates international volunteer tourism from international volunteering. Because NGOs not driven by revenue, but by commitment to a given because that is the objective of all income beyond what it takes to run the organization. Their values are placed upon the personal development, economics, social and environmental sustainability for the communities (Wearing, McDonald & Ponting, 2005). Missions provide more ethical and philanthropic ways of volunteering (Simkute, 2017). There is a huge interest of creating NGOs on sustainability, ecotourism, responsible traveling which which contribute to reduce the negative impact brought by the market system (Simkute, 2017).


Volunteer tourism was traditionally preserved for non-profit charities or NGO, which trained volunteers to become for instance, teachers, nurses and engineers for long-term projects, which were suited for their skills (Barrell, 2014).


Wearing & Ponting (2009) consider NGOs the best vehicle for delivering noncommercial, not- for-profit ecotourism and volunteer tourism projects working with local communities in the developing world. These non-profit organizations organized trips for volunteers to support communities, generally in the poor regions of the world, in construction, education and conservation projects (Tomazos & Butler, 2009).


Volunteer organizations either not for profit or for profit put several requirements for volunteers in order to join them and participate in their various volunteer activities. For example, some providers such as the VSO require volunteers to pay a registration fee, but then provide volunteers with a modest living allowance, covering expenses (Alexander, 2012). Similarly, the American Peace Corps provides a living payment that enables volunteers to live in a way analogous to the local people in their community; they also cover medical and dental expenditures and travel in addition to providing volunteers with $6000 post assignment towards their transition to living back home (Alexander, 2012). However, the international charity Habitat for Humanity requires no fees from volunteers, nor pays volunteers (Alexander, 2012). Conversely, commercial operators such as Aviva requires volunteers to pay all their own expenses including travel, accommodation, a project contribution and general living (Alexander, 2012).


Though there are volunteer sending organizations that consider themselves non-profit and focus on solidarity rather than charity (such as CUSO, WUSC, among others), these organizations still need to market and promote themselves to earn grants and attract participants (Buchmayer, 2017). Although increased attention has been centering either on the voluntary service, little research has been conducted about the NGOs from the Western world. In addition, Holmes and Smith (2009) indicated that there is a lack of research particularly about small organizations.

Cousins (2007) conducted a study to provide a wide vision about the UK conservation tourism industry, investigating the scale of the industry and the range and practices of the organizations involved. The paper then searches the range and distribution of holidays, the volunteers partaking and fees allocation. She recommends that these organizations to keep the quality of their conservation products high and the volunteer's commitment with nature deep and meaningful. Coghlan (2008) showed that most volunteer tourism organizations fell into four categories of voluntary objectives: conservation research expeditions, conservation holiday expeditions, community holiday expeditions and adventure expeditions. In her research, Lamoureux (2009) found that satisfaction toward partnerships established amongst volunteer tourism organizations was relatively positively affected by partnership behavior, communication behavior and conflict techniques, while volume of volunteer tourism organizations was not found to be significant. In their study of organizations in Peru that host short-term volunteers, Lough et al., (2011) found that volunteers contribute to organizational competence in many ways, containing providing employment in times of shortages, presenting innovative ideas, increasing intercultural competency of clients and staff, sharing professional skills, and providing resources that support sustain organizations. Ong, Pearlman & Lockstone- Binney (2011) tested the guiding considerations that not-for-profit volunteer tourism sending organizations apply in planning and implementing volunteer tourism programs. The results indicated that that they emphasis strongly on a host community-led strategy that keeps their programs pertinent to key beneficiaries. The learning and adventure components of trips, being a prominent guiding consideration to emerge from the analysis.


Wilkinson, McCool & Bois (2014) showed how organizations proposing voluntourism placements apply internet-marketing activities to promote their volunteer opportunities. The content analyzes results revealed that internet marketing is an adaptive policy for marketing via social media, search engines, websites, blogs, direct emails, and show marketing offering appealing images and recommendations of previous volunteers to attract potential voluntourists. Bremen (2015) study aimed mainly to encounter the principal motivations of tour operators organizing volunteer tourism trips in Sweden, the Netherlands, USA and Great Brittan. The findings reveled that some of the tour operators that have been researched pay much attention to these aspects whereas other tour operators do not provide the potential volunteer tourists with hardly any information about the impact on the environment. Each tour operator puts the importance of volunteer tourism somewhere else, which makes it very difficult for prospective volunteer tourists to make an accurate decision about volunteer tourism. Simkute (2017) investigated practices of Nordic NGOs, which promote international volunteering. Findings suggest that those organizations, which focus more on community, needs incline to decommodify volunteer tourism projects by choosing only skillful volunteers, assigning them to missions in line with expertise, in addition providing cultural education. Al- Azzazi (2016) conducted a theoretical study which focused on the history and concept of voluntary tourism, the current situation of this type of tourism in Egypt and the positive and negative impacts.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this study is to examine for-profit and non-profit volunteer organizations’ marketing practices (images, videos, messages) to attract new volunteers. Besides, it seeks to explore their missions' statements.


Research questions


By reviewing the selected organizations` missions, and through comparing quantitatively between then, it was found that unit analyze (volunteer benefits) was the first cited with a percent of 35% followed by the unit analyze (animal care) with a percent of (21.17%). It seems that many selected organizations focus on satisfying volunteers and meeting their desires. This means that organizations in order to attract more potential volunteers to alleviate the suffering of local communities in the host destinations, need to clarify which benefits and volunteers may gain. Therefore, they could find that acquiring volunteers’ new skills, self-actualization, to discover new and unfamiliar destinations in addition to getting a high-quality service are persuasive reasons to join their various programs.

This result agrees with several studies. Bremen (2015) showed that the studied tour operators seem to prioritize the importance of the potential volunteer tourists’ motivations rather than the importance of the CSR that relates to the host destination. Gazley (2001) considers that volunteer tourism organizations “blatantly promote the more personal benefits, for instance cost-savings and personal growth”.


The second consideration is animals care (21.17%). Organization which are all not for organizations interested in animals care are more concerned about the confirming a sustainable improvement in the animal welfare through the contribution of volunteers. They see also that this consideration is not enough. So, they bear on their shoulders the responsibility of increasing public awareness, about the values of animal’s especially abandoned and stray animals. Besides, proposing legislations to protect animals’ rights.


Emphasis on communities came in the third rank. Emphasis on empowering the host community and sustainability ensure that volunteer programs are meaningful and of value to the host community. In fact, not-for-profit organizations are more inclined towards emphasizing on the assisting host communities than for profit organizations. It seems that organizations that put the local community in their priority have the best intentions to serve the local communities and to help suffering people in Egypt. Ong, Pearlman & Lockstone-Binney (2011) discovered that community and development were the two terms most commonly mentioned in the missions’ statements.


Volunteer tourists allocate an amount of their leisure time and expenditure to alleviate material poverty, restoring certain environments or engaging in research into society or the environment largely, although not wholly, in the global South (Wearing, 2001).


Regarding the analyze unit (environment), it was found that it was ranked in the fourth place. Volunteers who are interested in natural resources may find from Egypt an ideal place to solve the environmental problems facing Egypt today and tomorrow. So, emphasizing on environment preservation of several organizations through asking help of volunteers who are in the most cases, skilled, is a lucrative way to motivate them to apply their extensive experience. They also give a part of their attention to environment awareness through promoting conservation and sustainable tourism practices.


Organizations focusing on education are more for profit than not for profit purposes. Instead, they focused on community development in the first place. Some are surprised of this result. But the author believes that the objective of developing community through their competent linguistic skills is a strong expression to persuade volunteers to travel and cut hundred miles to give languages courses to people in poor regions. This is coupled by emphasizing on intercultural exchange. After that, personal development could be achieved.

Table 2: Missions of the Selected Organizations



Unit of Analyze

Classes of Analyze

Frequency

Percentage

Animals care

Animal Welfare

(6)

13%

Public Awareness

(3)

6.5%

Help hand lost animals

(3)

6.5%

Animal Rights

(1)

2%

Total

13

28%

Local Communities

Empower the host community

(3)

6.5%

Sustainability

(2)

4%

Total

5

11%

Volunteers Interests

Acquiring volunteers’ new skills

(5)

11%

Self-satisfaction

(3)

6.5%

to discover

(2)

4%

Get good services

(3)

6.5%

Intercultural Reasons

(3)

6.5%

Total

16

35%

Environment

Environment Preservation

(4)

8%

Environment Awareness

(3)

6.5%

Total

7

15%

Education

Personal Developing

(1)

2%

Intercultural Education

(2)

4%

Community Development

(2)

4%

Total

5

11%

Total

16

46

100%


Marketing Practices

To attract potential volunteer, the selected organizations make use of images/photos, videos and messages on their website effectively.

Images/photos


Wilkinson, McCool & Bois (2014) show that marketing offering appealing images and recommendations of previous volunteers to attract potential voluntourists.


Most of the surveyed organizations provide images to illustrate the volunteer projects that are described on their websites. According to figure 1, organizations which are interested in children care, used extensively vulnerable children in images and photos posted in their websites. The children look happy and innocent. This way is a very lucrative way to attract more volunteers to come overseas to help these needy children and to participate in volunteering activities. In fact, using needy children could be justified by not for profit to get more financial support from potential volunteers.


Figure 1: Vulnerable Children used for websites of some studied organizations



image


According to figure 2, organizations posted many images on their websites with cute animals showing the happiness of volunteers as a sign of their motivations and enthusiasm to rescue these suffering animals. They make also use of famous personalities visiting their locations in order to increase the credibility and respect.


Figure 2: Animals Used for Websites of Some Studied Organizations



image


According to figure 3, studied organizations focusing on environment preservation show in their images/photos, volunteers participating in environmental projects, who seem very happy, because of the positive effects of their contributions, aiming not only to sustain and survive environment, but also to produce useful products that raise the standard of living of local people. Photos show not only volunteers working but also enjoying with the natural and human

made resources. So, a combination between work and leisure in these photos is considered as a feasible way to persuade more potential volunteers.


Figure 3: Environment Used for Websites of Some Studied Organizations



image


According to figure 4, studied organizations interested in teaching languages, show how teachers who came from thousand miles are very satisfied, because they think that they did well their jobs and also contributed to decrease the gap between Western countries and Southern countries. I believe that their smiles express their feeling towards people in needy regions, who need to learn foreign languages as a way to personal development to get jobs .


Figure 4: Education and Cultural Activities used for Websites of Some Studied Organizations


image


Videos

Essentially, volunteer organizations use videos in their websites to attract new volunteers. They intend to form a positive impression about different types of volunteer activities practiced lively by previous volunteers. This is considered as a good way to convince the potential volunteer either to travel to experience activities or to contact travel agencies organizing volunteering tourism programs to make fun and provide aid to suffering regions (environmentally, socially etc.). For example, Hospital cancer 57357 showed children with cancer and how they are welcomed by famous characters internationally or nationally. Association of disabled children showed disabled and poor children and how volunteers help them. On the other hand, organizations focusing on the environment make use of the nature and beautiful scenes like

desert, mountains and marine life. Organizations interested in creating projects to serve the local communities, showed how volunteers take part in these activities effectively and how residents are satisfied. They showed how value added to the local communities through the effective participation of volunteers. This creates the spirit of initiative and responsibility to aid people who are needy and without volunteers their lives could be difficult. Several organizations tell through the videos that volunteering work is necessity for helping needy people. On the other hand, some organizations try to play on the psychological side, showing how volunteers in videos, seem enjoyed and how they made others live in happiness.


Messages

Another aspect that caught attention is the messages that studied organizations use to persuade potential volunteer. Selected organizations make use of texts promising volunteers to get positive experience in a different way.


Organizations either not-for-profit organization and for-profit organizations used strong words which entice volunteers to participate them to transfer dreams into facts such as (The dream we are all working hard to realize, Help us to complete the picture, with colors, The more you donate, the more colorful the picture becomes) (57357). The word of (change) was used by several organizations to persuade them to join them. This kind of words could make volunteers to take the decision to participate effectively through their capacities to change their lives or people`s lives. For example: Volunteering for peace means changing your life and others (VFP- Volunteers for Peace).


Other organizations which require specialized qualifications, concentrated on skills and talents of their volunteers in their messages to persuade them to participate for example: ESMA needs your talents and skills. It takes a lot to keep our shelter and activities going, and we depend on contributions from the community. Share your abilities and help us to keep ESMA strong and effective (The Egyptian society for mercy of animals).


Other organizations used statistics to tell volunteers how many persons affected positively through contributions of volunteers for example: (By God's grace, your love and generous gift can be the reason that 1,550 more children across Egypt, in places like Minya and Assiut, are enrolled in Coptic Orphans' life-changing program! (Coptic orphans).


To attract new volunteer, the organizations appear to be forced to use such influential words in order to show the positive effect of volunteers on the target groups. Because of the messages the organizations post in their websites, the volunteers will likely have high anticipations of the volunteer actions they will conduct. So, organizations, should realize if their promises, are not achieved, the volunteers will be in low spirit. It could be said that volunteer should realize before they start volunteering, that they will make a great difference through their constructive actions.


It seems that not-for-profit organizations are more concerned over the needs and wants of the local involved in the volunteer tourism projects. While for-profit organizations are more

concerned over the needs and wants of volunteers. In fact, the two types of organizations are right in their directions.


For profit organizations used the method of indirect message through using the old tourists in their websites to attract new ones (for example, refer to Embah Safaris website). Others published complete stories narrated by tourist volunteers (title for example, Rosie`s story-life as a volunteer (for example, refer to Pharaohdiveclub website).


CONCLUSION

The purpose of this study is to examine for-profit and non-profit volunteer organizations’ marketing practices (images/photos, videos, messages) to attract new volunteers to Egypt. Besides the study explores the mission statements of these organizations. In order to achieve the objectives of the study a web-content analyze 21 organizations websites practicing volunteering activities to Egypt. The research questions have been answered by a content analysis on the organizations’ websites.


With respect to the first question related to the mission statement. The vast majority of not-for- profit organizations has promising missions regarding volunteers’ interests, animals’ welfare, environment preservation and helping residents in the poor regions. It was found that focusing on volunteers’ interests got the high rate especially for-profit organizations. Not-for-profit organizations mission statements were more centered on environment preservation and local communities’ interests including animals care. So, it is inferred that there are significant differences between not for and for profit organizations.


Regarding the second question related to the marketing practices used in volunteer organizations to attract new volunteers for appealing their potential volunteers all surveyed organizations try to make use of images, videos, messages to attract potential volunteers. It is commonly observed that vulnerable children and animals were the more salient elements used especially by the not-for-profit organizations. Despite the significant impacts of using these elements, but it seems that they do not care about the privacy of vulnerable children and organizations have taken many photos of them to pleasing affection of volunteers either to donate or to come to offer help through their skills. Environment is made used by both the two types despite the significant differences between them. Regarding not-for-profit organizations, they showed through their commercial activities how volunteers made a positive change to the environment for example cleaning the beaches of Hurgada and implanting fruitful trees in the desert to raise the standard living of residents who really need help. On the other hand, they showed how volunteers enjoy with the natural resources which are one of the main reasons to book a volunteer trip. By evaluating all the aspects of marketing activities, it seems that the studied organizations make use of the vulnerability of the host destination to attract the volunteers to make profit.


The first limitation that has been raised in this research is the limited time to conduct. The time period for this research was from December to the end of April 2019. The questions that were asked were narrowed down than what was initially thought of. This was because there were

too many questions would take too much time. By doing this, not all questions that were raised at first were asked. It is important to note that a large number of the selected volunteer organizations do have tourism programs to be offered to volunteers taking part in their activities. Only website content was examined in the analysis.


This paper aimed to discover several considerations of not-for-profit and for-profit organizations through a web content analysis. However, it would be useful to interview the selected volunteer organizations to gain more in-depth information regarding the organizations that offer volunteer tourism. Accordingly, more research should be conducted regarding other organizations that offer volunteer tourism to Egypt to get more explanations about their volunteer tourism projects.


Future research should be conducted to gather information regarding expectations and satisfaction with the volunteer organizations they participate in their volunteer projects. Investigating the relationship between volunteers and the host community should be conducted in a future research to form a holistic picture about the nature of this relationship. As marketing practices of these organizations were only based on their only websites, so examining the other marketing practices using their social websites and traditional ways of promotions is also essential to weigh the effectiveness.

RECOMMENDATION

The results of this study have the following implications. First these findings could enrich the body of knowledge of volunteer tourism in terms of the main considerations taken by volunteer tourism organizations in their websites to attract potential volunteers. The findings of this study have several implications for volunteer tourism organizations to increase their loyalty.


These findings can predict behaviors of volunteers to marketing activities practiced by volunteer tourism organizations through their websites. In other words, these findings form the basis for managers of volunteer organizations to improve their existing websites in design and technical aspects. In addition, the volunteer tourism organizations should pay close attention to the update website with the most available information that is required to provide answers to all inquiries of potential volunteers.


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