Emotional Labor of Tourist Guides: How Does It Affect Their Job Satisfaction and Burnout Levels?

A multi-task profession requiring multi-faceted responsibilities in a multi-component job setting, tourist guiding comprises complicated and multivariate roles composed of different kinds of unrelated roles and sub-roles, where above all, the establishment of strong face-to-face relations with guests necessitate the regulation, management and adjustment of emotions in a service intensive business environment that is in ongoing expansion and competition, all contributing to emotional burden of tourist guides. If the actually felt emotions by the employees are not incompatible with the emotions that are displayed, various negative results ensue. The purpose of this study is to examine the use of emotional labor and outcomes of emotional labor here being job satisfaction and burnout, using a quantitative method, in the context of the tour guiding industry in Turkey followed by recommendations for practice.

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