The influence of residents' perceptions on their support to voluntourism projects

Volunteer tourism is considered as an innovative form of sustainable community development. The pure intention of voluntourists when participating in voluntourism is believed to bring more benefits to the host community. However, whether local people see a difference or have a preference for volunteer tourism is questionable. Therefore, understanding local perceptions is necessary to evaluate the implementation of voluntourism projects in the community. The researchers of this study were involved in several volunteer projects across our home country. The same personal interest in this field has brought the researchers together to implement this study. Numerous practices and theories about residents' perceptions were examined in the study including Doxey Irridex Model and Social Exchange Theory. Based on these theories, a conceptual framework of residents' perceptions towards volunteer tourism in their community was built. The use of framework is to guide the collection as well as the analysis of the primary data. The town which was chosen in the research was Sapa- mountainous area in Vietnam. Sapa has great potential of tourism development but the residents still suffer from poverty and illiteracy. In order to carry out the research, 160 questionnaires were sent to Sapa inhabitants between December 2011 and February 2012. 107 responses were received of which 12 were uncompleted. The result then was analysed with SPSS statistic software version 19. The findings showed that the majority of respondents agreed with the positive impacts of voluntourism in their community but there were two major notices in the survey. The first one was about the level of economic dependency and the second was the residential characteristics. Furthermore, while respondents were supportive with voluntourism activities, they were reluctant to participate in the planning process. In order to achiveve the goal of sustainability development, local policy makers and tour operators need to ensure that the varied voices of the community should be taken care of