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Visitor centre staffing: Involving volunteers

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  • Smith, Karen A.
  • Holmes, Kirsten

Abstract

Volunteer involvement in visitor centres has received little attention by tourism researchers despite the critical role staff play in welcoming tourists to a destination and promoting tourism activities. The community function of visitor centres – of which volunteering is part – has also been underplayed in previous research. Using data from a survey and interviews with visitor centre managers in Australia, this paper investigates the rationales for staffing visitor centres with volunteers and/or paid employees and, related to motivations for volunteering, the factors influencing the attractiveness of visitor centre volunteer programmes. The dominant rationales for involving volunteers are need, community involvement, visitor experience, and the personal qualities and motivations of volunteers. Visitor centre volunteering is attractive because of location and local pride, interactions with tourists and social relationships with other volunteers, and the reputation of the visitor centre and its volunteer programme.

Suggested Citation

  • Smith, Karen A. & Holmes, Kirsten, 2012. "Visitor centre staffing: Involving volunteers," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 562-568.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:touman:v:33:y:2012:i:3:p:562-568
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2011.06.010
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Barry E. Pitegoff & Ginger Smith, 2003. "Measuring the Return on Investment of Destination Welcome Centres: The Case of Florida," Tourism Economics, , vol. 9(3), pages 307-323, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Paraskevaidis, Pavlos & Andriotis, Konstantinos, 2017. "Altruism in tourism: Social Exchange Theory vs Altruistic Surplus Phenomenon in host volunteering," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 26-37.
    2. Leask, Anna, 2016. "Visitor attraction management: A critical review of research 2009–2014," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 334-361.
    3. Daehwan Kim & Chanmin Park & Hany Kim & Jeeyoon Kim, 2019. "Determinants and Outcomes of Volunteer Satisfaction in Mega Sports Events," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-18, March.
    4. Alexander, Amanda & Kim, Sung-Bum & Kim, Dae-Young, 2015. "Segmenting volunteers by motivation in the 2012 London Olympic Games," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 1-10.

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