Lessons learned from pilot testing an experimental communication intervention: Generation Y and park benefits

This paper reports a series of lessons learned from pilot testing an experimental intervention that aimed to shift Gen Y\u27s perceptions of the cultural and heritage benefits of parks. Designed in collaboration with the Office of Environment and Heritage in NSW and delivered via the OEH website, the intervention took respondents on a controlled virtual tour of two national parks, Ku-ring-gai Chase in the Sydney metropolitan area and Mutawintji in outback NSW, both rich in Australian culture and heritage. Overall, the intervention was viewed as successful in impacting respondents\u27 perceptions of the benefits of parks, and will be used in a subsequent on-line study on a broader sample of NSW respondents. The series of methodological decisions and associated consequences for the interpretation of findings presented in this paper are designed to help foster best practice experimental design in fieldbased tourism research

Effects of emotional labor on adventure tour leaders\u27 job satisfaction

The aim of this study was to examine the potential effects of two types of emotional labor, surface acting and deep acting, on the job satisfaction of adventure tour leaders employed within Australia. While surface acting refers to faking feelings that are not really felt, or hiding feelings that are inappropriate to display, deep acting is concerned with aligning one\u27s true feelings with the ones required by the job. An online survey measuring adventure tour leaders\u27 levels of emotional labor and job satisfaction was made available on the Internet for a period of 2 months. A sample of 137 participants responded to this survey. The results show that while deep acting has a statistically significant positive impact on adventure tour leaders\u27 job satisfaction, there is no statistically significant relationship between surface acting and job satisfaction. These findings are consistent with research suggesting that deep acting could help to convey a sense of authenticity and a feeling of achievement in employees, thus leading to higher levels of job satisfaction. This, in turn, has implications for the way adventure tour operators manage their employees in relation to human resource management areas such as recruitment, selection, training, development, performance appraisal, and retention

Adventure tour leaders: a brilliant blend of identities?

This study has two main purposes. The first purpose is to explore how adventure tour leaders in Australia comprehend their identity construction. The second purpose is to examine what impact emotional labour could have on adventure tour leaders’ job satisfaction. Data were collected through the methods of an online survey and email interviews. The results show that adventure tour leaders can take on multiple identities, although they still believe that they possess one core ‘self’. Consistent with this view, identity theory advises that multiple identities could be arranged in a hierarchy where higher-order identities representing individuals’ core values, morals and traits oversee the activation of lower-order identities. It is suggested that the emotional labour that adventure tour leaders perform could be arranged along a continuum where surface acting causes adventure tour leaders to feel inauthentic due to non-verification of their higherorder identities; deep acting causes them to feel mostly authentic due to a near verification of their higher-order identities; and genuine emotion display causes them to feel authentic due to verification of their higherorder identities. Given this relation between identity and emotional labour, it is proposed that verification of higher-order identities plays an important role in regards to the positive effect that deep acting has on adventure tour leaders’ job satisfaction. This, in turn, has implications for the manner in which adventure tour operators manage their human resources in order to assist future success of the adventure tourism industry

Emotional labour and the job satisfaction of adventure tour leaders in Australia

This thesis critically examines the relationships between two types of emotional labour and job satisfaction of adventure tour leaders employed within Australia, applying a mixed methods approach. While deep acting has a statistically significant positive impact on adventure tour leaders’ job satisfaction, there is no statistically significant relationship between surface acting and job satisfaction. These findings are consistent with research suggesting that deep acting could help to convey a sense of authenticity and a feeling of achievement in employees, thus leading to higher levels of job satisfaction. This has implications for the way adventure tour operators manage their human resources

Tour guiding research and scholarship: a review of 50 years of research

Fifty years since the first publication on tour guiding it is timely to assess the state-of-the-art of theoretical and empirical research in this field to identify research strengths and opportunities. Based on a bibliometric and content analysis of 280 published scholarly works, a number of trends, patterns and gaps in tour guiding research were uncovered. About half were journal papers with the majority of authors based in either Australia or the US. Key themes were identified including the role of the guide as communicator/interpreter, the guide’s contribution to sustainability, visitors’ expectations of and satisfaction with their guide, and the use of tour guide training and other mechanisms for fostering quality. Most studies were located in Australia, China/Hong Kong/Taiwan, the US and Europe. In addition to highlighting the need for more theory when investigating tour guiding, many avenues for future research were identified that can underpin quality tour guiding practice

Lessons learned from pilot testing an experimental communication intervention: generation Y and park benefits

This paper reports a series of lessons learned from pilot testing an experimental intervention that aimed to shift Gen Y’s perceptions of the cultural and heritage benefits of parks. Designed in collaboration with the Office of Environment and Heritage in NSW and delivered via the OEH website, the intervention took respondents on a controlled virtual tour of two national parks, Ku-ring-gai Chase in the Sydney metropolitan area and Mutawintji in outback NSW, both rich in Australian culture and heritage. Overall, the intervention was viewed as successful in impacting respondents’ perceptions of the benefits of parks, and will be used in a subsequent on-line study on a broader sample of NSW respondents. The series of methodological decisions and associated consequences for the interpretation of findings presented in this paper are designed to help foster best practice experimental design in field-based tourism research

Lessons learned from pilot-testing an experimental communication intervention: generation Y and park benefits

This paper reports a series of lessons learned from pilot testing an experimental intervention that aimed to shift Gen Y’s perceptions of the cultural and heritage benefits of parks. Designed in collaboration with the Office of Environment and Heritage in NSW and delivered via the OEH website, the intervention took respondents on a controlled virtual tour of two national parks, Ku-ring-gai Chase in the Sydney metropolitan area and Mutawintji in outback NSW, both rich in Australian culture and heritage. Overall, the intervention was viewed as successful in impacting respondents’ perceptions of the benefits of parks, and will be used in a subsequent on-line study on a broader sample of NSW respondents. The series of methodological decisions and associated consequences for the interpretation of findings presented in this paper are designed to help foster best practice experimental design in field-based tourism research