Impact Travel Is On the Rise, and Here’s How Your Nonprofit Can Benefit

Nonprofit fundraising has a chance to profit from the current increase in impact travel despite rising inflation rates. You can take advantage of this relevant trend to increase brand recognition, volunteerism, and ultimately, your worldwide impact.

62 percent of individuals intend to travel twice or more in 2022. It also demonstrates that 78 percent of people wish to have a positive influence on the communities they visit.

We explain what it means to travel with a purpose, how it affects organizations, and special ways your organization can benefit to support your goal over the long term in the sections below.

Start Crowdfunding

What is Impact travel?

Impact travel is described as tourism that strategically contributes time, skill, and treasure to social and environmental programs in locations by the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST). Simply expressed, it's the practice of traveling in a way that has a beneficial influence on the people and places you visit.

Impact travel can take a lot of various shapes. Here are a few illustrations:

• Locally sourced travel favors small enterprises over multinational ones. This could be visiting locally owned eateries, lodging at a bed and breakfast, or shopping at a small boutique.
• Ecotourism aims to significantly reduce or perhaps completely eradicate each traveler's specific environmental footprint. This can entail reserving lodging at a green hotel or choosing more environmentally friendly modes of transportation to get where you're going.
• Volunteer travel: People have the chance to serve while on a volunteer trip for local causes. Depending on where they are going, this can involve working on construction projects, taking care of children, or providing support in a hospital.

Immersive cultural events that improve the local community are becoming more and more popular. The chance to raise awareness of their cause among a worldwide audience, increase the number of volunteers, and attract ardent backers who share their values is enormous given this trend.

62 percent of individuals wish to travel more wisely in terms of destinations and modes of transportation. We'll break down four distinct possibilities to draw in these world travelers by providing them with volunteering opportunities. 

Partnership with hotels

The quality of the trip as a whole is greatly influenced by the accommodations that are chosen. Travelers are increasingly drawn to hotels that share their socially conscious ideals rather than searching for a resort with the best amenities or most upmarket dining options.

Finding the correct fit is the first step in creating any partnership. A hotel can get all teamed up with like-minded NGOs to have a stronger impact to give you an idea of things to look for while choosing your perfect partner.

Promote engaging volunteers opportunities 

One of the best methods for a tourist to fully immerse themselves in a new culture is through volunteer travel, often known as voluntourism. Plan a few memorable volunteer events to draw tourists looking for ways to interact with locals.

To pique tourists' interest and motivate them to participate in the organization's topical projects, the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau created a statewide voluntourism program in 2021. 

Launch a volunteer referral program 

Volunteering possibilities can also be used as an example of how to mobilize your followers to advocate for your cause. As far as we are aware, one-time-based peer-to-peer fundraising initiatives raise 3.8X as much money as any other time-based campaign. When we analyze it, it ties straight back to the power of leveraging the networks of your contributors to accomplish more.

Profit from the impact that your supporters have among their friends, relatives, coworkers, and online communities. When you provide people with images, videos, and important issues to discuss, they can more naturally find additional volunteers who might not have joined up without your encouragement.

Connect to travel influencers 

Influencer marketing has a significant impact on how people feel about specific goods, causes, and current events. Additionally, it influences people's everyday and lifestyle decisions, and travel is no exception.

Influential people in the travel industry can promote your cause by motivating their followers to participate in volunteer opportunities. In the end, that exposure can rapidly increase your online reach.

Wrapping up 

You can also spread your message through an online fundraising platform and can also aware volunteers of the impact traveling.