The purpose of this study is to examine the management of American domestic volunteerism in order to find ways to improve domestic volunteer tourism in Thailand. Sebastian Inlet State Park in Florida was selected to be the research site of this case study. This study answers questions about how domestic volunteer management works in the United States, who the volunteers are, what the factors that motivated and discourage the volunteers are, ways to enhance volunteer management, and how such findings can be applied to domestic volunteer programs in Thailand.
Ethnographic research methodology of participant observation was performed to answer the research questions. During ten weeks of field research at Sebastian Inlet State Park, 49 volunteers and 7 park employees were interviewed on site.
Results indicate that the domestic volunteerism program at Sebastian Inlet State Park was established in recognition of the deficiency of the park's human resources as compared with the work needed to maintain the park. The park's volunteer management was casual. The volunteers had high self-discipline and self-motivation. More rules and regulations tended to reduce the volunteers' motivation.
The majority of the volunteers at Sebastian Inlet State Park were retirees who lived close to the park. Their major motivation to volunteer was to keep themselves active. The rest were students and working-age volunteers who worked either because of their personal interests or school requirements. The retirees tended to continue their service for long periods of time while the younger people tended to quit when they had to move away or when their interests changed.
The results indicated that various aspects of American volunteer management could be applicable to the domestic volunteerism program in Thailand. The key factor was that this domestic volunteer concept should be applied step by step in order to generate awareness and acceptance among the local population.