Motivation of international volunteers in sport events: Case 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Denmark

The objective of this thesis was to discover the motivation of international volunteers in the IIHF World Championships in 2018. A secondary objective was to find out how the whole volunteering experience affects the motivation. Understanding the whole process from the volunteers’ perspective will help event organizers to adjust their procedures accordingly when there are international volunteers involved. The volunteering experience starts from the first decision to apply to volunteer, and lasts throughout the event and its afterglow. It is a major deciding factor in a person’s future desire to volunteer. A qualitative research was conducted in May 2018 in Herning, Denmark. Of the 1031 volunteers in the tournament, around thirty-eight percent, or 391 volunteers, were international. Ten of them were interviewed, alongside with five Danish volunteers. The results of the two groups were compared to see how many differences and similarities could be found. The results suggest that the most important reason to volunteer was the passion towards ice hockey and sports in general. It was also motivating to the volunteers to be able to help to make the event possible, learn new skills, and to be able to travel and experience a new culture. For the Danish volunteers, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The volunteer experiences in the tournament were mainly positive, but there were certain issues that could be improved. The information can be used by event organizers especially in sport events with international volunteers, but it can also be of help in any kind of event planning. It offers an inside perspective from the volunteers of what motivates them to continue working, and on the other hand, what could be improved so that the experience would be more satisfactory. The event industry is continuously growing and evolving, and will become even more international in the future. Although event volunteering has been studied before, the focus has rarely been on international volunteers. It offers an opportunity for future research to be conducted, for example on the travel habits and environmental factors related to international event volunteer tourism