Volunteer Tourism: Motivations of German participants in South Africa

This paper examined the motivations of German volunteers that were recruited for the South African Volunteer programme by German companies. In order to collect the data for this study a quantitative approach was used, which consisted of a web-based questionnaire that was set up as an online link and distributed by three German Organisations. The survey utilised key push and pull motivational factors that were often cited in the literature. The results suggested that the five most important factors of motivation of the German volunteers were: 'to experience something different, something new'; 'meet African people'; 'to learn about another country and cultures'; 'to live in another country' and 'to broaden one's mind (cultural experiences)'. Four of these were push factors. Volunteer perceptions of 'best' experience were linked to the concepts of self interest and altruism; whereas 'worst' experiences highlighted the themes of poverty, crime and violence.