Share Your Volunteer Tourist Experiences: Focus Group

Not-for-profit (NFP) organisations vitally require volunteers to fulfil sustainable goals that benefit communities and environments. Volunteer tourists devote their discretionary time and skills to travel outside their usual surrounds in a bid to help people, communities and environments in need. Volunteer tourists seek to benefit others and their own selves, resulting in their fulfilment and well-being. To secure the critical involvement of volunteer tourists, it is critical to understand what NFP personality traits volunteer tourist find appealing; why they are motivated to engage; which goals for well-being are satisfied in NFP engagement; and how they may be persuaded to re-engage with NFPs.

I am a PhD student and my research explores the NFP personality traits that attract and the motivations that drive volunteer tourists to fulfil well-being goals. Your input deepens theoretical understanding of how goal-orientated volunteer tourists consider personality traits and form motivations that propel their pursuit of well-being. Such findings guide NFPs in framing targeted recruitment and activation campaigns to potential and existing volunteer tourists and in designing activities in projects that offer enriching experiences. Should you be interested in obtaining a summary of the survey results, please contact me after 15 December 2025.

You have been invited to a focus group conducted on Monday 2 December, 5:30 pm – 7 pm, which should take approximately 90 minutes to complete. You are under no obligation to participate in the focus group. Your participation is strictly voluntary and you may withdraw from the focus group at any time. Apart from giving up your time, it is not expected that there will be any other risks or inconveniences associated with your participation.

Should you choose to participate, the information collected from the focus group may be re-identifiable (coded). This means that the raw data collected may identify participants. However, any identifying information will be replaced with a numeric identifier (code number) when analysing the data to protect the privacy of participants. The information collected will be used as part of a research project at Curtin University. The collected data will be kept under secure conditions at Curtin University for seven years after the research is published and then, it will be destroyed.

If you require any further information or have any questions regarding the research project, please do not hesitate to contact my PhD supervisor, Associate Professor Vanessa Quintal on Vanessa.Quintal@cbs.curtin.edu.au

Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) has approved this study (HREC number 2024-0667). Should you wish to discuss the study with someone not directly involved, in particular, any matters concerning the conduct of the study or your rights as a participant, or you wish to make a confidential complaint, you may contact the Ethics Officer on (08) 9266 9223 or the Manager, Research Integrity on (08) 9266 7093 or email hrec@curtin.edu.au

I would greatly appreciate your participation in this focus group. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards
Adam Qihao Xiong, qihao.xiong@postgrad.curtin.edu.au
PhD student, Faculty of Business and Law, Curtin University