With temperatures warming up across the country, the countdown to summer travel season has officially begun. This year, as travelers start scouting out destinations, they're picking places where they can feel good and do good at the same time. This makes them the ideal audience for volunteer recruitment strategies-​based advertising campaigns by non-profits.

Volunteering on vacation is one of the fastest growing travel trends in 2019, according to a recent survey from Travelocity, with one-​in-​four (27%) U.S. travelers reporting they plan to volunteer on a trip this year and more than two-​thirds (65%) citing that they've volunteered on a previous vacation.

"As consumers become more socially conscious of the impact travel has on communities, we're seeing an increase in people searching for ways to do good in their favorite destinations," said Bruce Horner, marketing director at Travelocity. "In fact, nearly half of travelers (47%) say that volunteer opportunities would influence where they vacation this summer." The survey also revealed that U.S. travelers, particularly Gen X bookers, increasingly want to help causes closer to home. More than 40% said they will travel out of state to volunteer and over half (54%) said they want to volunteer in states and cities affected by natural disasters such as wildfire, flooding or hurricanes.

Volunteer Recruitment Strategies

According to AudienceSCAN, in just the past month, 63.3% of Charity/​Cause Volunteers have used a search engine to research a service they were considering, such as a travel destination that provides volunteer opportunities. They were most likely using Google (the preferred search engine of 88.4% of these consumers). Only 21% will go past the first page of search results, though.

Travel advertisers can promote their volunteer opportunities to Charity/​Cause Volunteers many ways. According to AudienceSCAN, last year, these consumers took action after receiving direct mail ads (64.2%), seeing ads in both printed and digital newspapers (54.5%) and receiving email ads (54.2%). They're also 21% more likely than other adults to react to magazine ads they read, both online and in print, and 43% more likely to find advertisements on their mobile apps useful. Any of these media types can aid in non-​profit volunteer recruitment strategies.

AudienceSCAN data is available for your applications and dashboards through the SalesFuel API. Media companies and agencies can access AudienceSCAN data through the AudienceSCAN Reports in AdMall.