Giving Voice to Australian Professional Tour Guides: Perspectives of Their Social Identity

Abstract

Professional tour guides play an instrumental role in Australia’s tourism industry, yet there is little understanding of their perspectives. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Australia’s professional tour guides lack an industry voice and feel neglected within the larger tourism industry. This qualitative study delves into the rich perspectives of professional tour guides and links it to Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (1974) to understand the specific mutual link between professional tour guides’ cognitive and emotional social identity. Tajfel called this theory “a conceptual three-legged tripod” (Turner & Reynolds, 2010, p. 16), based on three components: social categorisation, social comparison and social identification. Firstly, the social categorisation of professional tour guides is based on the cognitive process of categorising the challenges they face and expectations they hold. At the core of all their hardships lies the unregulated tour guiding industry, which brings along numerous challenges including safety and staffing issues. Secondly, the social comparison process relates to how professional tour guides feel that they are being compared to ‘guides’ who do not have the same professional due diligence standards. Professional tour guides are very intent on avoiding this comparison. Most participants are frustrated by the mixed sense of recognition, but they nevertheless also show an amazing resilience and motivation to change this situation. This important finding is evidence that this group’s sense of recognition and emotions are not concomitant. Thirdly, social identification is related to values that make them feel they belong to their ‘in-group’. Professional tour guide members strongly identify with the ‘in-group’ because of their shared passion for their profession, friendships, camaraderie, respect, collegiality, high professional standards, strong client focus, and membership advantages including the sharing of knowledge and job opportunities. A key finding is that belonging is the attribute that triggers how the majority of participants behave because of their social categorisation and recognition by others. Professional tour guide members with a strong sense of belonging to their ‘in-group’ gain a remarkable motivation to engage and strive for recognition of their professional standards. Tajfel indicates that members of a group tend to behave uniformly (Turner, Brown & Tajfel, 1979), yet results of this study propose that some individuals are more willing to act independently when they belong to a group with a collective sense of belonging and strong social identity. The study offers a unique social identity framework that helps us understand how Australia’s professional tour guides construct their own social identity. This framework can have a wider application for volunteering or membership groups that wish to foster the strong sense of belonging, as belonging often results in staff retention and staff engagement. The unique framework also offers possible reasons for staff shortages and safety challenges in the tour guiding industry. Future applied research between researchers, industry and professional tour guides is recommended.