The international journal of tourism research tập 12, số 03, 2010 05 + 06

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 205–218 (2010)
Published online 10 August 2009 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.746

Factors Affecting the Service Quality of
the Tour Guiding Profession in Macau
Athena H. N. Mak1,*, Kevin K. F. Wong2 and Richard C. Y. Chang3
School of Management, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK
2
School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon,
Hong Kong
3
Department of Tourism, Providence University, 200 Chung Chi Rd., Taichung 43301, Taiwan

1

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

This study examines the factors affecting
the service quality of the tour guiding
profession in Macau. In-depth interviews
were conducted with representatives from
the Macau Tourist Guide Association, the
Macau Government Tourist Office and
selected practising tour guides to explore
the issues from multiple insiders’
perspectives. The factors identified were

classified into six categories: unhealthy
business practices, market domination,
immaturity of tourist market, changing
tourist behaviour, intense competition
between inbound tour operators and human
resource issues. The findings suggest that a
number of these problems actually
originated from the unhealthy business
practices of the tourist-generating country,
namely mainland China in this study.
Considering the growing importance of the
Chinese outbound tourism market, the
study findings will be of significant value to
Macau and to other destinations targeting
the Chinese market. Copyright © 2009 John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

he tourism literature has widely recognised that the service quality of the tour
guide is a critical factor in achieving
tourist satisfaction (Lopez, 1980; Geva and
Goldman, 1991; Mossberg, 1995; Wang et al.,
2000; Ap and Wong, 2001; Wong, 2001; Zhang
and Chow, 2004; Black and Weiler, 2005), influencing travel operator’s reputation and wordof-mouth publicity (Heung, 2008) and affecting
the image and revisit intention of a destination
(Whipple and Tach, 1988; Chang, 2006; Sahin
and Balta, 2007). On the other hand, destination governments and tourism industries are
increasingly aware of the need to improve the
service quality of the tour guiding profession;
for instance, by investing in training programmes (Weiler and Ham, 2002; Dioko and
Unakul, 2005) as well as quality assurance and

regulatory mechanisms (Ap and Wong, 2001;
Black and Weiler, 2005). This is a particularly
pressing issue in many Asian destinations in
the face of fierce intra-regional competition.
Macau is one of the destinations in Asia
which faces strong competition from established destinations in the neighbourhood such
as Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Singapore
(Leong, 2007). Macau has been experiencing a
rapid expansion of the inbound tourism market
over the past decade. According to the Macau
Government Tourists Office (MGTO) (Macau
Government Tourist Office, 2008a), visitor
arrivals in 2007 exceeded 27 million, representing a growth of 22.7% from 2006. The advent
of the liberalization of the gaming industry in
2002 (Yong and Fu, 2006) and the resultant
significant scale expansion of the casino
business, as well as the relaxation of travel

Received 26 January 2009; Revised 18 June 2009; Accepted 25
June 2009

Keywords: Macau inbound; Mainland China
outbound; service quality; tour guide; tour
guiding profession.
*Correspondence to: Athena H. N. Mak, PhD Researcher,
School of Management, University of Surrey, Guildford,
Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK.
E-mail:

T

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206

A. H. N. Mak, K. K. F. Wong and R. C. Y. Chang

arrangements made by the Mainland Chinese
government have significantly contributed to
the exponential growth of Macau’s tourism
industry in recent years.
In spite of the thriving success in the inbound
market, the large influx of visitors has posed
great challenges to the MGTO and the travel
industry on retaining and recruiting enough
well-qualified and well-trained tour guides in
the industry, especially when there is an acute
labour shortage in Macau (Kale and De, 2006).
More importantly, the monitoring and controlling of the service quality of the tour guides
has become more difficult. There are a number
of reported incidents of rows and conflicts
between tourists and the tour guides (The
China Post, 2007); Macau Daily Times, 2008)
about excessive shopping trips and the changing of the original itinerary without the agreement of the tourists. These incidents resulted
in a growing crisis of confidence in the tour
guiding profession in Macau. Accordingly,
there is a pressing need for policy-makers and
stakeholders to understand the current state of
the tour guiding profession and its impact on

the travel industry in Macau. It is in such a
context that this study attempts to examine the
factors and the underlying causes that affect
the service quality of the tour guides in Macau.
This study is part of a wider research project
that seeks to document and explore the issues
and problems affecting the tour guiding professions in the Southeast Asia region.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Roles of tour guides
According to the European Federation of
Tourist Guides Associations (EFTGA), a tour
guide is defined as a person who ‘guides
groups or individual visitors from abroad or
from the home country around the monuments, sites and museums of a city or region;
to interpret in an inspiring and entertaining
manner, in the language of the visitor’s choice,
the cultural and natural heritage and environment’ (European Federation of Tourist Guides
Associations, 1998, unpublished). In Macau,
MGTO defined a tour guide as ‘the person who
receives and escorts tourists, provides commentaries as a tourist service, and receives
remuneration for his or her service’ (Macau
Government Tourist Office, 2008b). Although
the two definitions differ, both emphasise the
‘guide/lead’ and ‘interpret/inform’ roles of
the tour guide, which are respectively represented under the ‘leadership sphere’ and
‘mediatory sphere’ in Cohen’s (1985) model on
the dynamics of the tour guide’s role (see
Table 1).
Cohen’s (1985) model delineates the four

major components of the role of modern tour
guides, namely ‘Original Guide’ (pathfinder),
‘Professional Guide’ (mentor), ‘Animator’ and
‘Tour-leader’. Although the model aptly captures the roles tour guides play based on the

Table 1. Cohen’s Model on the dynamics of the tour guide’s role
Outer-directed

Inner-directed

Leadership Sphere

(1) Original Guide (Pathfinder) (instrumental
primacy)
a. Direction
b. Access
c. Control

(2) Animator (social primacy)
a. Tension-management
b. Integration
c. Morale
d. Animation

Mediatory Sphere

(3) Tour-leader (Inter-actionary primacy)
a. Representation
b. Organisation

(4) Professional Guide (Mentor)
(communicative primacy)
a. Selection
b. Information
c. Interpretation
d. Fabrication

Source: Adopted from Cohen (1985)
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 205–218 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


Service Quality of Tour Guiding
needs of the tourists, there are other ‘mundane’
roles that they perform. For instance, as
employees of the tour operators, tour guides
are the ‘spokespersons’ representing the image
and reputation of the company and the ‘salespersons’ selling the next tour (Grönroos, 1978;
Fine and Speer, 1985; Chang, 2006). From the
host destination’s perspective, they serve as
the ‘interpreters’ translating the cultures and
values of the host destination (Holloway, 1981;
Katz, 1985; Ryan and Dewar, 1995) and as the
‘mediators’ mediating between the host destination environment and its visitors (Weiler
and Davis, 1993; Ballantyne and Hughes, 2001).
In a wider scope, they also function as the
‘ambassadors’ of the host communities who
are entrusted with the public relations missions ‘to encapsulate the essence of place’

(Pond, 1993, p. vii) and serve as the window to
a particular destination (Holloway, 1981; Pond,
1993). The studies by Zhang and Chow (2004)
and Black and Weiler (2005) provide a comprehensive summary on the various roles tour
guides play.
Among the many diverse roles tour guides
play, there has been a strong emphasis on their
‘mediator’ role which includes mediation
between the tourists and the tour operator,
hotels and other tourism suppliers (Dahles,
2002), as well as between the tourists and the
host community and environment (Weiler and
Davis, 1993; Ballantyne and Hughes, 2001).
The harmonious balancing of the benefits of
these various stakeholders is most ideal;
however, as cited by Dahles (2002), the process
of mediation in the actual tourism practice can
be problematic, and the roles of tour guides are
not likely to be harmonious at all times. In fact,
the different roles are often in conflict with one
another (Holloway, 1981). Moreover, tour
guides have an ‘entrepreneurship’ role to fulfil,
as they have a need to make their encounters
with tourists profitable for themselves (Steege
et al., 1999; Dahles, 2002). Based on these
arguments, there is a tendency of an overidealisation on tour guides’ ‘mediator’ role
with their various stakeholders including tourists, tour operators, host communities, host
environment and government authorities
(Steege et al., 1999; Dahles, 2002), and an underawareness on tour guides’ ‘entrepreneur’ role
to satisfy their own economic self-interests.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

207
Service quality in tour guiding
Service quality is defined as the difference
between customer expectations and perceptions of service (Parasuraman et al., 1988).
Parasuraman et al. (1985, 1988) posit that a
customer’s assessment of overall service quality
depends on the ‘gap’ between expectations
and perceptions of the actual performance.
According to this paradigm, customers decide
whether they are satisfied, and a smaller gap
between expectations and perceptions leads to
the service being perceived as a higher quality,
thus resulting in customer satisfaction.
In the context of tour guiding, the perceived
service quality of a tour guide can be evaluated
through three major constructs: (i) core service
delivery, (ii) customer orientation and (iii)
communication effectiveness (Heung, 2008).
Heung (2008) explicates that core service refers
to the essence of a tour guide’s service (e.g.
follows the agreed itinerary, provides commentaries and assures customer satisfaction
during the tour) which the guide must deliver
with consistency. Customer orientation, on the
other hand, denotes the extent the guide puts
tourists’ needs and interests ahead of his/her
own in providing superior value to tourists
(e.g. not to be focused on short-term selfinterest and not to adopt a ‘hard’ selling
approach to tourists). Communication involves

the exchange of information (e.g. communicates the itinerary/arrangement to tourists and
handles tourists’ inquiries) and is regarded as
a crucial function of the tour guide. Likewise,
Ap and Wong (2001) suggest that the tour
guide’s attitude with respect to service
(particularly in terms of the extent of moneyoriented or customer service-oriented), product
knowledge and communication skills are significant aspects in assessing the perceived
service professionalism of the guide.
Indeed, the service quality aspect of the tour
guiding profession is starting to receive more
research attention. For instance, Zhang and
Chow (2004) identified 20 tour guide service
quality attributes pertinent to mainland
Chinese tourists. The six most important
attributes perceived by Chinese tourists were:
(i) punctual, (ii) able to solve problems, (iii)
knowledge of destination, (iv) honest and
trustworthy, (v) inform safety regulations and
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A. H. N. Mak, K. K. F. Wong and R. C. Y. Chang

(vi) deliver service promised in itinerary. Other
studies have collectively contributed to a
growing insight and understanding of the
service quality aspect of tour guides (Mossberg, 1995; Wang et al., 2000; Wong, 2001;

Heung, 2008). Nonetheless, most of these
studies have taken the perspective of tourists
and have not taken account of the guiding
profession’s and the industry practitioners’
perspective.
Although Ap and Wong (2001) raised and
discussed some of the issues and challenges
facing the tour guiding profession in Hong
Kong from the tour guide and industry practitioners’ perspective and provided insights into
understanding the nature of and issues faced
by the tour guiding profession in Hong Kong,
this study extends and delves more deeply into
those challenges and seeks to identify and
evaluate specific (and new) tour guiding issues
which are unique to Macau, a strongly competitive Asian tourist destination which still
receives a large number of tourists. By exploring and investigating the viewpoints of various
stakeholders, this research aims to present an
updated and in-depth analysis of the current
state of the tour guiding profession and its
impact on the travel industry in Macau.

or other local or overseas higher education
institutions approved by the IFT. As of the end
of 2007, there were 1317 licensed tour guides
in Macau, representing a 6.8% growth from
2006 (Macau Government Tourist Office,
2008b).
The Macau Tourist Guide Association
(MATGA) was established in July 2002. The
MATGA is devoted to advancing the professional development of the tour guides

in Macau. It also aims to promote unity
and encourage communication between its
members as well as the coalition and cooperation of the other guide associations in other
parts of the world (Macau Tourist Guide Association, 2008). With the rapid growth of the
tourism industry in Macau, the role of the
MATGA as the official tour guiding association offering support to upgrade its members’
service professionalism has been gaining
momentum through its close cooperation with
the IFT in providing new or refresher courses
for member guides and by working closely
with the MGTO to identify solutions for the
problems faced by the guiding profession.

The development of the tour guiding
profession in Macau
MGTO is a government statutory body with
the task of pursuing the overall goals defined
by the tourism sector in Macau. It has five subdivisions, namely Licensing and Inspections
Department, Promotion and Marketing Department, Product Development and Special
Projects Department, Research and Planning
Department, and Administrative and Finance
Division (Macau Government Tourist Office,
2008c). The Licensing and Inspections Department of the MGTO is responsible for the issuing
of Tour Guide Cards and monitoring of any
illegal practices in the guiding profession.
There are strict qualification requirements
stipulated by MGTO, particularly educational
qualifications. For example, prospective Tour
Guide Card applicants must pass the qualifying courses offered by the Institute for Tourism
Studies (IFT) or obtain a diploma or bachelor’s

degree in the field of tourism offered by the IFT
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

METHODOLOGY
This study adopted a qualitative case study
research approach that is rooted in the philosophy of phenomenology, which offers the
opportunity of discovering ‘the reality working
behind the reality’ (Saunders et al., 2000). The
two-phase data collection process included a
first phase of secondary data collection from
various sources including travel and tourism
literature, government reports, tour guide
association websites and newspaper databases
to gain an insight into the current situation
regarding the Macau tourism industry and the
tour guiding profession. The second phase
involved semi-structured in-depth interviews
with authoritative sources from both the Macau
Tour Guide Association and the Macau Government Tourist Office, as well as three practising tour guides in Macau to explore the issues
and problems from multiple insiders’ perspectives. According to Patton (2002, p. 244), ‘there
are no rules for sample size in qualitative
inquiry’. The sample size of qualitative inquiry
is determined not by the number of interviewees but by data saturation, when no new
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 205–218 (2010)
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Service Quality of Tour Guiding

209

information is discovered on the study phenomenon. Considering that the current study
was mainly a pilot investigation with no intention to make generalisation, a small sample
size is adopted. However, it is germane to
point out that the small sample size limits the
generalisability of the findings.
Purposive sampling was used as the sampling procedure in selecting the interviewees,
whose insights would be relevant to the issues
being studied (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). With
purposive sampling, the selection of the sample
can include the most informed respondents in
terms of knowledge of the studied topics and
those most likely to affect change within the
policy realm. Unlike most of the past studies
that investigated the service quality aspects of
tour guides from the perspectives of tourists,
this study is purposely focused on the insiders’
perspectives. It is believed that the underlying
causes of the problems faced by the guiding
profession would be more meaningfully investigated using a multiple insiders’ perspectives
approach involving the monitoring authority/
government, tour guide association and
practising tour guides. Table 2 summarises
the profile of the interviewees.
Given the fact that some of the tour guiding
issues and problems are sensitive, interviewees may be reluctant to discuss them in a group
setting. As such, individual in-depth interview
was considered a more appropriate method to
obtain primary data in this study. All interviewees were assured of confidentiality and
anonymity. The interviews were held in the

beginning of June 2007 and completed by the

end of July 2007. Each of the interviews lasted
on average an hour and a half and all interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed
verbatim into Chinese. The Chinese transcripts
were then translated into English. The English
transcripts were checked and compared with
the Chinese transcripts and the audio recordings in order to ensure accuracy. A total of 53
pages of transcribed data were obtained.
Content analysis was employed as the means
for contextualising the connections between
categories and themes in this study. According
to Maxwell (1996), content analysis is a research
technique for making replicable and valid
inferences from texts to the contexts of their
use. It provides new insights, increases a
researcher’s ability of understanding particular phenomena or informs practical actions.
This research technique enables the researcher
to include large amounts of textual information and systematically identify its properties
by detecting the more important structures of
its communication content. Tree structures
were constructed to identify the themes and
evolving concepts with the aid of the NVivo
computer programme.
Triangulation of sources was used as a means
to add to the credibility by strengthening confidence in conclusions being drawn (Patton,
2002). For example, issues and problems
recounted by the tour guides were validated
by the discourse from the informants from the
monitoring authority, or representatives from

the tour guide associations (Figure 1).
In addition, assistance was sought from
two professional colleagues in the university

Table 2. Profile of the interviewees
No.

Code

Primary organisational
affiliation

1.

MATGA-1

2.

MGTO-1

3.

MOTG-1

The Macau Tourist Guide
Association (MATGA)
The Macau Government
Tourist Office (MGTO)
Macau Tour Guide 1

4.

MOTG-2

Macau Tour Guide 2

5.

MOTG-3

Macau Tour Guide 3

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Tour guiding experience and specialisation

Gender

Not applicable

Female

Not applicable

Male

-Over 33 years guiding experience
-English-/Spanish-speaking tours
-Over 4 years guiding experience
-Mandarin-/Cantonese-speaking tours

-Over 15 years guiding experience
-Japanese-/Mandarin-/Cantonese-speaking tours

Female
Female
Male

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A. H. N. Mak, K. K. F. Wong and R. C. Y. Chang

Figure 1. Triangulation of Data Source.

to serve as peer debriefers in order to identify
any hidden aspects in the transcripts. Member
checking was done during the interview
process in which the researchers asked relevant probing questions so as to assess whether
interviewees’ meanings were interpreted accurately. For instance, if an interviewee acknowledged that conflict between tourists and tour
guides was caused by the unwelcome coercing
into shopping by tour guides, the researchers
would accordingly probe into the ‘unwelcome
coercing into shopping’ variable by asking:
‘Could you tell me more the possible consequences of unwelcome coercing into shopping?’ This iterative process permitted the
researchers to ensure the credibility of interpretation that emerged from the interviews.
These strategies collectively contributed to the
trustworthiness of data, thus enhancing the

rigor of this study (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
The findings are delineated under two themes,
tourist-generating country and host destination,
and four categories: travel agent, tourists, tour
operators and tour guides. Specific factors affecting the service quality of the tour guiding profession in Macau are demarcated under the
following six sub-categories: unhealthy business
practices, domination of market, immaturity of
tourist market, changing tourist behaviour, intense
competition between inbound tour operators and
human resource issues. Figure 2 illustrates the
structure of the categorisation.
Tourist-generating country — travel agents
Unhealthy business practices. The findings reveal
that many of the outbound travel agents in
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

mainland China have adopted unhealthy business practices that have severely affected the
service quality of the guiding profession in
Macau. A number of researchers have previously raised the issue of unhealthy business
practices of travel agents in mainland China
(Ap and Wong, 2001; Wong, 2001; Zhang and
Chow, 2004; King et al., 2006; Zhang et al.,
2009). The findings of this study corroborate
this assertion and at the same time classify the
major unhealthy business practices into the
two categories: below-cost tour fare and belowcost reception fee.
The below-cost tour fare practice is commonly
known as the zero/negative tour fare in the travel
industry. It is found to be a prevalent practice

in the mainland Chinese tourism market. This
practice pertains to the system in which outbound travel agents in mainland China use a
low tour fare that is under their actual cost to
attract tourists to join group tours. On the other
hand, the below-cost reception fee practice, also
known as the zero/negative reception fee. is also
another current unhealthy business practice. It
refers to the situation in which outbound travel
agents in mainland China give a below-cost
reception fee or even none at all for inbound
tour operators (ITOs) in Macau to receive their
tour groups. The findings reveal that the belowcost reception fee practice actually stems from
the below-cost tour fare practice. Because of the
fact that the tour fare received from tourists are
below-cost, outbound travel agents in mainland China must cut costs and logically decline
to offer a proper reception fee to the ITOs in
Macau. In most cases, they allow the ITOs to
‘bid’ for the right to receive incoming group
tours with the lowest possible reception fee. In
some extreme cases, the ITOs even have to pay
out a fee just to ‘bid’ for the right to receive the
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Service Quality of Tour Guiding

211

Figure 2. Factors Affecting the Service Quality of the Tour Guiding Profession in Macau.

tour groups. Consequently, the ITOs will incur
expenses even before the tour groups arrive.
To cut costs, they tend to shift the financial
pressure to the tour guides, for instance, by
setting a ‘shopping quota’ per tourist for the
tour guides to meet. The comment of a Macau
tour guide duly reflects the seriousness of this
problem:
As the reception fee is low or even negative, the tour operators have the [financial] pressure, and tour guides have the
[financial] pressure too [sic]. As such,
service quality of the tour guide is bound
to decline, and this is a critical issue faced
by the guiding profession. (MOTG-2)
Under the aforementioned circumstances,
the tour guides will inevitably have to bring
tourists to visit various designated shops to
coerce them to purchase or join optional tours
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

to cope with the financial pressure laid by the
ITOs. Hence, instead of focusing on delivering
the ‘core services’ (Heung, 2008), the guides
are forced to shift their focus to that of the
‘salesperson’ role. This practice inevitably
downgrades the quality of the tour and is likely
to be detrimental to both tourist satisfaction
and the perceived service quality of the tour
guides.
Domination of the market. The findings further

reveal that many travel agents in China do not
directly deal with the ITOs in Macau. Instead,
they make their deals through wholesale travel
agents (WTAs) which are mostly located in
Shenzhen or Guangzhou. This is because these
WTAs have a long-established wide network
to receive tourists from all over China and can
usually obtain air or train tickets at a relatively
lower price. For those provinces whose residents are still required to travel to Macau in
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212
tour groups and not as individual travellers, it
would be much more efficient in terms of logistics for the travel agents in these provinces to
send the tour groups to Macau via the WTAs
in Shenzhen or Guangzhou. Aside from this,
China is a country with a large geographic
span covering 9.6 million square kilometres,
many of the travel agents scattered all over
China do not have the staff or resources to deal
with the ITOs in Macau directly. These travel
agents would usually sell the tour groups to
the WTAs in Shenzhen or Guangzhou, as they
would benefit from the economies of scales
and efficiency in outbound logistics. Likewise,
it would be uneconomical for individual ITOs
in Macau to recruit tours directly from the
many provinces in mainland China by themselves. Consequently, these practices have led

to the situation in which the mainland Chinese
outbound market to Macau is largely dominated by a few large WTAs in Shenzhen and
Guangzhou. The account made by a veteran
Macau tour guide stresses the problem:
Wholesale travel agents in Mainland
China serve as intermediaries. They
receive tours from all over China and sell
them to ITOs. In fact, there are many
intermediaries involved, and everyone
has to earn a profit. However, tourists are
not aware of this. They paid for a high
tour fare but eventually did not receive
the service quality they would have
expected. Unfortunately, there are not
much monitoring measures adopted by
the mainland Chinese government.
(MOTG-3)
This market domination by the WTAs has
given them the advantages of hefty profit-taking
and misrepresentation of tour quality, which are
at the expense of the ITOs and the tour guides
in Macau. It is found that very often a large
part of the tour fare is taken by the WTAs as
intermediary fee, and most often the tour itineraries and components presented by the travel
agents in mainland China to the tourists are of
a higher quality. Another tour guide offered
explication on the situation:
. . . For instance, if it is stated in the itinerary that a seafood meal will be arranged,
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A. H. N. Mak, K. K. F. Wong and R. C. Y. Chang
when they reached us, it will become an
ordinary meal, and the difference had
been taken by WTAs in Shenzhen. And
if there should not be shopping in the
itinerary, when they reached us, shopping will be included. (MOTG-2)
In many cases, the tour itineraries and components are often not what the tourists would
have expected. Because ‘deliver service promised in itinerary’ is considered an important
‘core service’ by many tourists (Zhang and
Chow, 2004; Heung, 2008), this situation often
leads to arguments and conflicts between the
tour guides and the tourists, causing much
dissatisfaction on the service quality of the
tour guide.

Tourist-generating country — tourists
Immaturity of tourist market. The immaturity of
the tourist market in mainland China is found
to be a factor that indirectly affects the service
quality and healthy development of the guiding
profession in Macau. The China tourism market,
especially the outbound market, is relatively
immature compared with the other welldeveloped markets. One of the main problems
that arise from this is that tourists tend to be
overly-concerned about the tour fare instead of the
quality of the tour itself. The immaturity of the
tourism market in mainland China is largely
attributable to its relatively short history. It was
only in 1984 that the Chinese government permitted Chinese citizens to visit their relatives in
Macau. Eventually in 1990, China began to relax

its policies on outbound trave, and Chinese citizens were allowed to join group tours to visit
some Southeast Asian countries for tourism
purposes (Wen and Tisdell, 2001). The insight
of an authoritative source from MATGA reflects
this phenomenon:
As the outbound market in Mainland
China is immature, tourism bureaus in
China must monitor their tour operators,
in particular, their way of doing business,
so that unhealthy and unethical practices
can be eliminated. Or else, there is
not much we can do on our side.
(MATGA-1)
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Service Quality of Tour Guiding
As pointed out by King et al. (2006), China’s
travellers will typically only accept low prices
which are not compatible with the input costs.
The findings of this study appear to corroborate this phenomenon and further reveal the
fact that tourists are overly concerned with
tour fares instead of the quality of the tour
components. Hence, travel agents in mainland
China emphasise low prices to attract tourists,
and as a result the tour fare is forced to be
below-cost. Coupled with the profit-taking
and price dictation practices by the WTAs, the
reception fee being paid to the ITOs in Macau

is often minimal if not below-cost. Consequently, the ITOs are not able to afford highly
skilled guides and even guide fees, causing
much grievance to the tour guiding profession.
Without appropriate remuneration, the tour
guides are forced to coerce tourists into making
as many purchases as possible in a desperate
attempt to meet the shopping quota and to
secure their personal earnings. This inevitably
results in the neglect of their ‘core services’
(Heung, 2008). Accordingly, both tour quality
and the tour guides’ performance are unavoidably perceived as downgraded, thus further
fostering the consumers’ unwillingness to
pay high package prices. These events form a
vicious circle.
Changing tourist behaviour. Another factor
found to have an indirect adverse effect on the
service quality of the tour guides in Macau is
the changing tourist behaviour in the touristgenerating country. More specifically, the
changing tourist behaviour identified in this
study relates to the tourists’ spending attitude
and purchasing power. Because of the relaxation
of travel restrictions in mainland China, more
and more mainland Chinese tourists have
visited Macau. Their spending attitude has been
increasingly prudent along with the increased
travel experience and increased understanding
and knowledge about Macau, either obtained
first-hand or through friends and relatives.
Furthermore, the extension of the Individual
Visit Scheme (IVS) by the mainland Chinese

government to more cities has resulted in a
rapid growth in the number of Chinese residents who are allowed to visit Macau as individual travellers. The findings reveal that there
are an increasing number of Chinese tourists
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

213
who travel on the IVS, especially among
the repeat visitors. For those who travel in
tour groups, their demographic profiles have
changed, and they have a relatively lower
spending power compared with the tour group
members in previous times. The comment of a
Macau tour guide corroborates this trend:
Nowadays, those who join tour groups
are mostly elderly, retirees, women
and children. They usually travel during
summer vacation, and have a relatively
lower spending power. Those with higher
spending power would not be first time
traveller to visit Macau, and they do not
need to join tour groups and will usually
travel as individual travellers. So, the
spending powers of Mainland Chinese
group tourists are very different as compared with previous years. (MOTG-2)
Nonetheless, the below-cost tour fare and
below-cost reception fee practices have remained
unchanged. Therefore, the ITOs still face a
great financial pressure to recover costs, and
the tour guides still need to meet the shopping
quota preset by the ITOs. Because of these

changes in tourist behaviour, it becomes more
difficult to meet the shopping quota, and the
incomes earned by the tour guides have
declined compared with the previous times.
Consequently, the changes in tourists’ spending
attitude and purchasing power have become one
of the sources of conflict between the tour
guides and tourists.

Host destination — tour operators
Intense competition between inbound tour operators. As a result of the prevailing below-cost tour
fare practice in mainland China, the ITOs in
Macau have to compete against each other to
offer the lowest possible reception fee or even
pay out a certain amount to ‘bid’ for the incoming tours. The intense competition among ITOs
is found to have led to a number of problems
affecting the guiding profession, namely diminution of guide fee, ‘mai tou’ fee practice, shopping
quota and prepayment of tour expenses.
Among these problems, the diminution of
guide fee is found to have a severe damaging
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 205–218 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


214
impact on the performance of the tour guides.
As a result of the intense competition to ‘bid’
for the incoming tours, the ITOs do not receive
a proper reception fee to cover all the necessary expenses for conducting the tour. A
number of them have resorted to lowering or

even removing the ‘guide fee’ (the fee paid to
a tour guide as a service fee for conducting the
tour) to save costs. The findings further suggest
that even if there is no guide fee for mainland
Chinese tours, many tour guides are still
willing to receive the tour because they have
to earn a living. It is not surprising then that as
the incomes of the tour guides are affected,
their service quality fall accordingly.
The intense competition has also brought
about the practice of the ITOs asking the tour
guides to pay a fee, usually accordingly to the
number of tourists in the tour group, to ‘buy’
for the right to receive the group. This is commonly known as the ‘mai tou’ (literally meaning
‘buy head’) fee in the industry. As the tour
guides pay a fee to ‘buy’ the tour groups, tourists become analogous to ‘commodities’ serving
as a means to help them recover the fee they
have paid and to make money. Consequently,
the ‘mai tou’ fee practice has led to an undesirable opportunistic and money-oriented mentality (Ap and Wong, 2001) in the guiding
profession that severely impairs the service
quality of the tour guides.
The findings also indicate that in order to
shift the financial pressure to the tour guides,
many ITOs require them to meet a preset
shopping quota per tourist. This statement from
an authoritative source from the MATGA
discloses the details of this practice:
Some tour operators would set a quota on
how much each tourist must spend. In
this circumstance, the tour guide must

bring the tourists to go for shopping
and meet the quota, or else the tour guide
will have to pay for a fine to the tour
operator. (MAGTA-1)
The observation of another Macau tour guide
provides further substantiation on the issue:
Nowadays, the financial pressure on the
tour guides is getting higher as the shopping quota is being set. And the negative
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A. H. N. Mak, K. K. F. Wong and R. C. Y. Chang
tour fare [practice] is getting more
severe . . . the reception fee received by
tour operators is low, and tour guides
have to bear the financial pressure. For
example, some tour operators stipulated
that it is only when the shopping quota is
met, the tour guides can get the tips. . . .
it is common that there will be no tips,
or tips will be deducted if the quota was
not met. (MOTG-3)
Obviously, if the quota is not met, the tour
guides will face the consequences of paying a
fine or their tips being deducted. It is also
found that in many cases, the ITOs in Macau
require the tour guides to pre-pay tour expenses
such as meals, accommodations or other
expenses on behalf of the company. This way,
a great deal of the financial risk is shifted to the
tour guides, adding on to their financial

pressure. Current practice suggests that the
tour guides may claim these expenses from the
company, but in many cases, they will only be
reimbursed at least half a year later. This unfair
loading of the financial burden on the tour
guides has caused much dismay and grievance
among those in the tour guiding profession.

Host destination — tour guides
Human resource issues. The study findings indicate that a number of human resource issues
are besetting the guiding profession in Macau,
namely lack of recognition of the tour guide by the
employer, low and unstable income, lack of commitment by tour guides, high turnover rate of guides
and new immigrant tour guides.
The findings uncover that the lack of recognition of the tour guide by the employer is a crucial
issue affecting the service quality of the tour
guides. It is found that many ITOs do not
render enough recognition to the serving
guides. They are generally unwilling to offer
them competitive remuneration, resulting in
the tour guides being forced to be treated like
part-time or freelance employees, although
most of them in reality work as full-time
employees. In addition, because of the belowcost tour fare practices prevalent in the mainland Chinese inbound market, the ITOs tend
to employ exploitative means to cut costs and
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 205–218 (2010)
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Service Quality of Tour Guiding

shift the financial pressure to the tour guides.
This has further diminished the recognition
given to them. As such, the tour guides’
employment status, benefits and interests lack
protection.
Low and unstable income, as one of the ensuing
consequences of the lack of recognition by the
employer, is found to be another key factor that
can severely affect the service quality of the
tour guides. It is found that there is no basic
salary for the tour guides in Macau, and most
of the time they have to prepay part of the tour
expenses out of their own pockets. The latter
is largely attributable to the fact that the ITOs
in Macau do not receive sufficient reception
fees from mainland Chinese travel agents.
The opinion of a veteran tour guide in Macau
provides insight on this issue:
Low income is one of the major factors
that would affect a tour guide’s service
quality and professionalism. In Macau,
casinos often offer a high salary, and
many tour guides prefer to join the gambling industry instead. As income would
affect motivation, if the salary of tour
guides cannot be raised to an acceptable
level, it would be very difficult to attract
new tour guides to join the profession, or
experienced guides would choose not to
stay in the profession. (MOTG-1)
As articulated by this veteran tour guide,

‘income would affect motivation’, it is not surprising that the motivation of the tour guides
are negatively affected by the low and unstable
income. This situation is further exacerbated
by the fact that there are an overwhelming
number of tour guides who are on a part-time
or freelance employment basis. As a result,
there is a general lack of commitment within the
tour guiding profession, causing a prevailing
despondent sentiment among the tour guides
that the guiding profession is beleaguered and
lacks a promising future.
Altogether, the above issues have led to a
high turnover rate in the guiding profession.
Many tour guides have been attracted to join
other industries if the pay and working conditions are much more favourable. The account
of an authoritative figure in the MATGA
describes the high turnover situation:
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

215
The turnover rate of the tour guides in
Macau is very high. Many tour guides,
especially those who have higher education background or are proficient in
foreign languages have changed jobs.
Many of them have joined casinos or
hotels as a receptionist or PR officer. The
working conditions and pay are much
better. Among those who stayed, 60% are
new immigrant tour guides, or those who
are over 45 years of age whom would

not like to change jobs due to their age.
(MATGA-1)
As revealed by the statement, the problem is
further worsened by the acute labour shortage
in many professions in Macau (Kale and De,
2006), as the territory is developing rapidly as
a multipurpose destination and has a high
demand for personnel for many industries.
With a low and unstable income, and a lack of
recognition by the employer, the travel industry
is facing great challenges in recruiting quality
new guides and retaining skilled and experienced guides in the workforce.
On the other hand, the statement also reflects
that the emergence of new immigrant tour guides
is another issue besetting the tour guiding profession in Macau. The new immigrant tour
guides refers to the new immigrants from
mainland China who have joined the Macau
tour guiding workforce. The new immigrant
tour guides have dominated the guiding workforce in Macau in recent years. According to
the MATGA informant, ‘new immigrant tour
guides constitute 60% of the guiding workforce in Macau’. The service quality of the
guiding profession has been more difficult to
control and monitor because of this trend.
There are a number of reasons attributable to
this. First, because of the need to minimise
operating costs, tour operators hire relatively
inexperienced new immigrant tour guides.
Because they are inexperienced, their service
quality and professionalism varies greatly.
Second, the findings suggest that even if the

new immigrant tour guides have obtained the
Tour Guide Card, they may not be able to
introduce or interpret Macau in depth, especially in relation to cultural aspects. Third,
because they have received their education in
mainland China and have a strong mainland
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 205–218 (2010)
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216

A. H. N. Mak, K. K. F. Wong and R. C. Y. Chang

Chinese cultural influence, they tend to be
more ready to accept the ‘group mentality’
commonly shared by the mainland Chinesebased tour operators. This ‘group mentality’
includes unhealthy practices such as the tour
guides paying tour operators a ‘mai tou’ fee to
be able to receive tour groups, the tour guides
paying tour operators a deposit and others as
common ‘norms’ in the industry. The new
immigrant tour guides’ ready acceptance of
these ‘norms’ has further reinforced these
unhealthy practices within the industry.
Fourth, as new immigrant tour guides share a
different mentality and culture with the existing local tour guides, they often try to form
their own circle, union or association that could
lead to fragmentation of the guiding profession. Consequently, if the service quality of the
new immigrant tour guides are not monitored
and controlled effectively, it may have detrimental effects on the whole quality of the

guiding profession.

should consider liaising with the tourism
authorities in mainland China to establish a
‘minimum price’ for receiving tour group,
thereby eliminating the root of the many
unhealthy practices currently prevailing in
the mainland China travel industry. Second, to
protect tourists from possible misrepresentation of tour quality caused by the WTAs in
mainland China, it is essential for the tourism
authorities in mainland China to work cooperatively with Macau to require all outbound
travel agents, intermediaries and the ITOs to
strictly follow a contract system for the
tour itinerary. Third, tourism authorities in
mainland China should provide education to
Chinese tourists to foster a more appropriate
attitude and to reduce excessive emphasis on
tour fares as a priority. The current practice of
focusing on the sale of an extremely low tour
fare must be publicised to raise the tourists’
general awareness, as it is incompatible with
the input costs and puts subsequent pressure
on tourists to make a substantial amount of
purchases. Fourth, Macau tour operators
should be encouraged to recognise the tour
guides’ real contribution by providing them
with a proper level of remuneration and
employment status. The Macau government
should work with the tour guiding industry to
enforce a minimum level of remuneration for

the tour guides. If the guiding profession has
a more reasonable and stable income that does
not rely completely on commissions, then their
financial pressure will be relieved, allowing
them to focus on their core and essential
guiding roles. Finally, new immigrant tour
guides should be encouraged to ‘acculturate’
into the Macau tour guiding culture and the
way of practice to enhance the cohesion of the
guiding profession, for instance, by providing
additional training if necessary. This can be
achieved by the concerted efforts from the tour
guide association with the support of the travel
industry and the government.
This study identifies a number of critical
issues affecting the guiding profession in Macau.
Most importantly, it reveals that a number of
these problems actually stem from the unhealthy
business practices of the tourist-generating
country, namely mainland China in the current
study. Despite the well-recognised growing
importance of the Chinese outbound tourism

RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
The development of a sustainable tourism
market relies on the concerted efforts of its
various stakeholders, especially the tour
guides, as they are one of the most visible and
critical players in the tourism industry. The
recognition of their importance and the effort

in raising their level of proficiency and professionalism will benefit the tourism industry
with greater potential for higher profits and
greater efficiency. Accordingly, a number of
recommendations are suggested for the policymakers and industry practitioners attempting
to maintain or improve the service quality of
the tour guiding profession in Macau.
First, the below-cost tour fare and belowcost reception fee practices should be outlawed.
Despite the crackdown on the below-cost tour
fare practices by Chinese tourism authorities
around 2000 (Zhang et al., 2009), these practices are still in existence. As Zhang et al. (2009,
p. 371) has recently pointed out, these practices
are ‘flagrant breaches of consumer rights and
business ethics, and they should be eliminated
to ensure the healthy development of both the
Chinese outbound tourism and other similar
travel markets’. Consequently, the respective
authorities and industry members in Macau
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 205–218 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


Service Quality of Tour Guiding
market (UNWTO, 2003), there is a general lack
of study on the prevalence of unhealthy business practices in the tourism sector in mainland
China, particularly to what extent those
unhealthy practices have affected the travel
industry and guiding profession in the host destination. This study scrutinises the consequences
of these unhealthy practices, thus, adding to the

body of knowledge in this domain and providing a basis for further research.
Finally, this present qualitative study with
its limited sample size aimed to contribute to
the literature mainly as a pilot investigation
without the intention of making any generalisations. In addition, it focused on Macau as
a single case study due to time and resource
constraints. Future research could undertake a
larger-scale comparative study to explore more
deeply the issues and problems faced by the
tour guiding profession in other destinations
to allow for comparisons, and perhaps, generalisability to benefit the guiding profession
and the tourism industry as a whole. In fact,
the researchers are currently extending their
research to investigate the issues in the tour
guiding professions in other Asian regions,
thus the issues and problems affecting the
broader guiding profession can be examined
from diverse perspectives.
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DOI: 10.1002/jtr

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 219–236 (2010)
Published online 5 August 2009 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.747

Managing the Wildlife Tourism
Experience: The Importance of
Tour Leaders
Susanna Curtin*
School of Services Management, Bournemouth University, Poole, UK
ABSTRACT
This paper is based on a small ethnographic
study of serious wildlife tourists. It focuses
on three important aspects of this type of
travel. First, the tangible benefits of the
tourist experience; second, the importance
of the tour leader as the interface between
the product and the tourist; and finally,
tourist perceptions of their potential
environmental and social impacts. The
findings reveal participants’ environmental
sensibilities and the desire to avoid
disturbance, the social benefits of organised
tours and how the tour leader is critical to
both the success of the holiday and the
responsible behaviour of the group.
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 2 December 2008; Revised 23 June 2009; Accepted 29

June 2009

Keywords: wildlife tourism; tour leaders;
disturbance.
INTRODUCTION

T

he United Nations Environment Programme/Convention on Migratory
Species (2006) claims that the demand
for nature experiences is growing worldwide
at a faster rate than tourism in general. The
global market size of wildlife tourism today is
an estimated 12 million trips annually, currently growing at 10% per annum (Mintel,
2008). Rather than being homogenous, the
*Correspondence to: Dr. S. Curtin, School of Services
Management, Bournemouth University, Dorset House,
Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, PH12-5BB, Poole, UK.
E-mail:

wildlife tourism market can be segmented
according to tourists’ motivations and the
sought after focal species (Moscardo and
Saltzer, 2004; Newsome et al., 2005). It can
include activities such as whale and dolphin
tourism, birdwatching, safari tours, butterfly
watching holidays, polar bear viewing and
general nature-orientated tours to encompass
reptiles, insects and plants.
Wildlife tourists can be further defined by

their level of involvement (whether they are
serious or casual wildlife enthusiasts (Cole and
Scott, 1999; Curtin, 2009)) and their knowledge
(whether it is specialist — i.e. interested in one
genre of wildlife — or generalist — interested
in wildlife per se (Duffus and Dearden, 1990;
Kim et al., 1997; Higham, 1998; Connell, 2009)).
In recent years, the products offered by both
mass and specialist wildlife tour operators
have evolved to meet a changing tourist profile
and a shift from single-species, usually birdwatching tours, to a generalist market which is
characterised by clients who have a general
and wide interest in nature (Curtin and Wilkes,
2005; Newsome et al., 2005). General naturalists are primarily vacationers who enjoy
combining a love of wildlife with a holiday
experience (Mintel, 2008). They can be classified as ‘serious’ wildlife tourists as their level
of involvement is greater than those who experience wildlife tourism as a day trip or a oneoff tourist attraction (Stebbins, 2007; Curtin,
2009).
Based on an ethnographic study of serious
wildlife tourists, this paper focuses on three
important aspects of this type of travel. First,
the tangible benefits of the tourist experience;
second, the importance of the tour leader as
the interface between the product and the
tourist; and finally, tourist perceptions of their
potential environmental and social impacts.
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


220

The paper ends by highlighting the implications for tour leaders and the companies they
represent. While much has been written about
wildlife tourism policies, planning and sustainable management, the role of the tour
leader has been relatively overlooked; yet for
the dedicated wildlife holiday sector, tour
leaders are at the forefront of product development, client satisfaction and responsible
wildlife watching.
An all-inclusive wildlife holiday is a particular type of wildlife travel whereby specialist
(and some mass) tour operators devise an
itinerary which is based on seeing as many
different bird, animal and plant species that
is possible. Tours are comprised of a small
number of participants (usually between four
and 16) and are accompanied by freelance tour
leaders who are professional naturalists. A list
is compiled every day of the number and type
of species that are seen which is later posted
on the company’s websites to promote the
tour. Tours can vary considerably depending
on their focus and pace: broad or narrow,
intense or relaxed. Itineraries are located in the
countries and places renowned for wildlife but
can also include trips to remote and unique
locations which are at the forefront of tourism
development (UNEP/CMS, 2006; Curtin and
Wilkes, 2005).
Like other tourism sectors, wildlife tourism
is coming under greater scrutiny by conservation agencies or non-governmental organisations who ask operators to exhibit responsible
tourism policies and implement the positive
benefits to developing economies, conservation efforts and to tourists whose attitudes and

behaviour may change as a direct result of
seeing fauna and flora in its natural setting
(Orams, 1997; Mayes et al., 2004; Zeppel and
Muloin, 2007). The ‘general naturalists’ market
tend to be well educated and well travelled,
with a high level of disposable income (Mintel,
2008). They are inclined to shun the contrived
spaces of mass tourism and instead seek an
authentic, successful and somewhat educative
tourism experience (Curtin and Wilkes, 2005).
While these motivations have resonance with
small scale, sustainable tourism, the literature
alludes to the potentially consumptive use of
wildlife in wildlife tourism based upon the
assumption that any human presence impacts
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

S. Curtin
upon the habitat and its wild inhabitants. Just
being there has a direct impact on the wildlife
(Reynolds and Braithwaite, 2001; Tremblay,
2001; Green and Giese, 2004). Therefore, any
research which reveals important management
implications is a welcome addition to the
field.
Orams (1996) argues that management
techniques fall into three main categories.
First, physical controls that ‘harden’ the natural
environment, such as barriers, boardwalks,
paths and carefully placed tourist facilities.

These influence visitor behaviour and reduce
visitor impacts by physically separating
visitors from the natural environment or by
influencing the spatial distribution of visitors.
Second, direct controls such as rules, regulations, permits and charges to prohibit or restrict
detrimental human behaviour (e.g. banning
certain activities, setting speed limits, ensuring
operators are licensed, closing areas and
enforcing controls with fines, forced removal,
arrests and prosecutions). Finally, indirect
mechanisms are used to seek appropriate
behaviour on a voluntary basis via environmental education programmes (Orams, 1997).
These three management techniques can be
compressed into ‘ecological’ and ‘human’
categories (Reynolds and Braithwaite, 2001).
There are several management policies which
may be adopted to control the human dimension of wildlife watching. For example, the
number of people using the site or watching
wildlife can be restricted to cause the minimal
amount of disturbance as possible. Equally
important as visitor numbers is the spatial and
temporal distribution of visitors (Higginbottom
et al., 2003). Tourism activity can be reduced or
restricted during sensitive phases of an animal’s
life-cycle, at breeding sites, haul-out sites and at
feeding, watering and resting stations. Moreover, visitor behaviour can be modified through
direct instruction and supervision by a tour
leader; particularly aspects such as noise, proximity, disturbance, flushing, feeding, spotlighting and flash photography (Boren et al., 2009).
This has led to a number of voluntary guidelines and codes of conduct within the wildlife
watching industry (Garrod et al., 2000;

Halpenny, 2002; Higham and Luck, 2007).
While codes of conduct tend to be site and
species specific, Newsome et al. (2005, p. 189)
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221

1.

Adhere to management actions and stay out of sanctuary areas - i.e. keep to marked trails.

2.

Avoid areas that are important for wildlife in terms of resting, feeding and parental care.

3.

Observe animals from a safe distance.

4.

In the case of birds remain well back from nests, roosts and display areas.

5.

View wildlife from observation areas.

6.

Use binoculars and telescopes for close-up views.

7.

Move slowly in the presence of wildlife.

8.

Do not block an animal’s line of travel or escape route.

9.

Do not attempt to make the animal do something (let the animal be itself).

10.

Never chase or harass wildlife.

11.

Do not use calls or food to attract wildlife

12.

Do not feed wild animals.

13.

Limit the time you spend watching an animal (use the animal’s behaviour as a guide).

14.

Respect others who are viewing.

15.

Be aware of the cumulative effects of human presence (reduce group size and excessive noise).

16.

Avoid animals that behave aggressively.

17.

Document and report unethical behaviour by other visitors.

18.

Learn as much as you can about the wildlife that you are observing and / or photographing.

Figure 1. Wildlife watching etiquette (Newsome et al., 2005, p. 189).

highlight the core aspects of ‘wildlife watching
etiquette’ which can be applied to most types
of wildlife watching. These are outlined in
Figure 1. Clearly these are easier to enforce in
highly regulated and directly managed forms

of wildlife tourism such as on organised wildlife tours led by an experienced tour leader.
In reality, the management of the consumer
experience, or the ‘human dynamic’, based
upon cognitive, affective and behavioural attributes, is often the most challenging aspect of
managing wildlife tourism in the field because
of the highly varied nature of visitors (Ritchie,
1998; Orams, 2002). A high range of motivation
creates demand for a broad spectrum of activities and behaviours that can dramatically affect
the environmental consequences of their
visits.
Marion and Rogers (1994) claim that educational approaches can be very effective when
destructive behaviour is a product of ignorance
or carelessness. Managers (and tour leaders)
have an opportunity to reduce impacts substantially by informing visitors of management
concerns and by teaching them about the
focal species and about low-impact behaviour
through visitor interpretation (Armstrong and
Weiler, 2002). Education also has an important
role in terms of communicating the reasons
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

behind management actions to visitors so that
visitors are more likely to support management strategies; especially those that restrict
their activities (Chin et al., 2000; Curtin et al.,
2009).
Indeed, there have been occasional studies
which indicate that there is notable visitor
support for management actions including
both educational and regulatory strategies
such as controlling visitor numbers, their

behaviour and access (Davis et al., 1997; Chin
et al., 2000; Lewis and Newsome, 2003; Curtin
et al., 2009). This again points to the need for a
critical understanding of the wildlife tourism
experience and tourist expectations, as well as
a revised study of how wildlife tourism is
interpreted by tour leaders, particularly how
they can use their expertise, knowledge and
experience in promoting appropriate tourist
behaviour.
RESEARCH APPROACH
In order to get an inside understanding of the
culture, benefits, expectations and perceptions
of this tourism sector, the author joined two
tour groups within the dedicated (serious)
wildlife tourism market: one seven-day birdwatching tour to Andalucía, Southern Spain to
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 219–236 (2010)
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222

S. Curtin

watch the Autumn migration and one 10-day
whale- and bird-watching tour on the Sea of
Cortez, Baja, California, Mexico. These tours
were undertaken with a specialist wildlife tour
operator based in the UK, whose main market
are tourists with a more relaxed and general

interest in wildlife but for whom ‘serious’
wildlife watching is still the primary motivation (see Curtin and Wilkes, 2005). While the
primary focus of these two trips was different
(i.e. one was predominantly birdwatching,
while the other was predominantly whalewatching), the bird-watching tour participants
had previously been on whale-watching trips
and the whalewatchers had previously been
on bird-watching trips; thus, they represented
a very similar market segment. There were
eight tour participants and two guides on each
tour group. Both groups comprised a mixture
of couples and single holidaymakers either
retired or without dependent children living at
home. Women slightly outnumbered men.
During the tour, field diaries were kept to
record the days’ events, participant’s responses
to wildlife and their own observations of the
tourist experience. These diaries were coupled
with semi-structured in-depth interviews of

tour participants while on tour (including the
tour leaders) and were later followed by additional in-depth interviews with people who
had recently (within the last six months) taken
a wildlife holiday. These additional interviews
were sourced from a wildlife tour operator’s
client database and represent the same market
segment. They too were carefully selected
based on the criteria that they regularly go on
wildlife holidays, had taken at least two dedicated wildlife holidays within the last two
years and their gender, in order to have an

even number of male and female participants.
This is a standard, purposive sampling method
adopted by qualitative researchers who aim to
select participants who have the knowledge
and experience to answer the research questions (Rubins and Rubins, 1995; Patton, 1990).
The participants’ profile is outlined in Table 1.
Names have been changed to protect
anonymity.
In all, 20 qualitative interviews were conducted, recorded and transcribed allowing a
systematic approach to data reduction based
on the clustering of invariant meaning units
into themes (Moustakas, 1994; Hammersley
and Atkinson, 1983). Through the analysis of

Table 1. Participant profiles
Name
Mark
Ian
Simon
Peter
Rebecca
Dawn
Sophie
Marie
Tanya
Michelle
Joe
Linda
Carol
Michael

Penny
Matthew
David
James
Edward
Diane

Source

Gender

Age

Occupation

Tour 1: Andalucía
Tour 1: Andalucía
Tour 1: Andalucía
Tour 1: Andalucía
Tour 1: Andalucía
Tour 2: Baja, California
Tour 2: Baja, California
Tour 2: Baja, California
Tour 2: Baja, California
Tour 2: Baja, California
Tour 2: Baja, California
Client database
Client database
Client database
Client database

Client database
Client database
Client database
Client database
Client database

Male
Male
Male
Male
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Male
Female
Female
Male
Female
Male
Male
Male
Male
Female

Mid 30s
Mid 50s
Mid 30s

Early 70s
Late 50s
Mid 40s
Early 60s
Late 50s
Late 40s
Mid 60s
Mid 60s
Late 50s
Early 60s
Early 60s
Late 60s
Early 60s
Early 50s
Early 50s
Mid 60s
Early 50s

Tour leader
Software engineer
Accountant
Retired accountant
Educational welfare officer
NHS worker
Retired headmistress
Retired
Nursing administrator
Retired headmistress
Marine biologist
Retired

Retired
Retired farmer
Retired
Administrator
Tour leader
Vicar
Geologist
Administrator

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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223

The tangible expectations and benefits of wildlife holidays and perceptions of
environmental and social impacts
A priori questions

What do you hope
for when you book
a wildlife tour?
What are the
benefits of
travelling on an
organised tour like

this?

Emergent themes

Knowing where to go to see as many
species as possible
Access to knowledgeable guides
Sharing with others
Meeting new (like-minded) people
Managing expectations and group
dynamics

What potential
impacts do you
think arise from
taking wildlife
holidays?

Disturbance: tape recordings, food
provisioning and close proximity
Awareness of impacts
Changing attitudes towards
conservation

Figure 2. Thematic framework.

participants’ transcripts, the author’s travel
diaries and the contextual literature, several
themes with regard to benefits of organised
tours and management implications emerged.

This enabled the production of a major thematic framework which comprises the major
themes (or categories) as section headings of
the results and discussion section (see Figure
2). This framework is derived from the a priori
research questions and the in vivo or emergent
themes derived from the data, i.e. participants’
actual words or invariant meaning as perceived by the author.
The research has internal validity as it accurately portrays the multiple social realities of
those participating in it, but as with all qualitative studies, the results may not be transferable
or applicable to other wildlife tourist populations. However, the depth of qualitative
enquiry enables insight into some core experiCopyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

ences and themes, therefore external validity
may be later explored by the testing of these
key themes in a wider population.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Figure 2 displays the major themes to emerge
from the ethnography. These are used as subheadings under which the text is organised. As
is customary in qualitative research where the
theory is grounded in the data, the results and
discussion are presented simultaneously. They
are divided into two major sections: first, the
benefits and sought after expectations of an
organised wildlife holiday including the role
of the tour leader; and second, how tourists
perceive the environmental and social impacts
of this type of travel. The paper then concludes
with a set of implications for tour leaders and
operators.
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224
THE TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE
BENEFITS OF ORGANISED,
ALL-INCLUSIVE WILDLIFE TOURS
Knowing where to go
For these ‘serious’ general naturalists, there are
two primary motivations for travelling: first, to
see a number of, or as many, different species
as possible; and second, to experience and
appreciate a specific country or place. Whilst
wildlife sometimes frequents populated places
(for example, along migratory routes or in
unique industrial habitats), a greater abundance and diversity of flora and fauna tend to
be found in more remote places which often
require considerable planning to reach. Moreover, knowing where particular species can be
seen requires considerable knowledge of, and
relationship with, a place. For some participants, the basic decision on whether to travel
independently or with a tour operator can
depend on these two factors:
How difficult a place is to get to and how
much we want to see as many birds as we can.
They know where to take you to and certainly
you see a lot more than you would otherwise.
(Linda)
The joy about this whale-watching trip is that
they know exactly where to take you, where
the migratory routes are. It would be very

difficult to organise a trip like this yourself.
(Dawn, Baja California)
While seeing wildlife is the primary pullfactor, the experience is much broader than
just ‘racing around and ticking things off’ (Michelle,
Baja, California). There is a strong desire to see
and experience places off of the beaten track
and as Michelle explains: ‘these tours do get you
out in the countryside of a country. You do see a
little bit more about how people live. I couldn’t for
the life of me do the tourist enclave bit’. Getting
away from the contrived tourist spaces and
seeing animals in their natural setting is an
essential component for this dedicated wildlife
holiday market. The ability to offer this depends
entirely on the skill of the tour leader who can
locate all the sought after species while simultaneously meeting the groups’ wider expectations. For this reason, the employment and
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

S. Curtin
retention of knowledgeable and personable
leaders is central to the tour operators’
success.
Tour leaders have been described as information providers, sources of knowledge,
mentors, surrogate parents, pathfinders,
leaders, mediators, culture brokers and entertainers (McKean, 1976; De Kadt, 1979; Schuchat,
1983; Cohen, 1985). Alongside these numerous
roles, leaders provide four major functions:
instrumental, social, interactionary and communicative (Cohen, 1985). A number of writers
have studied the role of the eco-tour guide
(Ballantyne and Hughes, 2001; Weiler and

Ham, 2001; Haig and McIntyre, 2002), paying
particular attention to the communication and
interpretation of the natural (and cultural)
environment (see Tilden, 1957 for a definition
of interpretation) not only in terms of identification and explanation of focal species, but
also with regard to the sustainable management of wildlife/tourist interactions, conservation and the modification of behaviour
(Moscardo, 1996; Orams, 1997; Moscardo et al.,
2004).
Other studies, however, are less optimistic
about tour guiding, suggesting that their traditional role is largely superfluous in authentic
and independent forms of tourism where the
emphasis is on individual experience and
interpretations of reality rather than the reliance on tour leaders to provide meaning in
what tourists see (Almagor, 1985; Reisinger
and Steiner, 2006). While this may indeed be
true for some forms of guiding, particularly
cultural tours, little attention has been paid to
the dedicated wildlife tourism guide or tour
leader, as they are most frequently referred to,
where the leader is in the company of their
clients for the whole duration of the trip as
opposed to the on-site interpretative leaders to
be found in many ecotourism attractions or
destinations.
On the contrary, the participants in this
exploratory study reveal that wildlife tour
leaders are central to the tourist experience
and are a fundamental component of the trip:
so much so that it is common for tours to be
bought based upon who is leading them and

where customer loyalty can be as much to do
with the tour leader as the tour operator. Their
reputation goes before them and participants
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Wildlife Tour Leaders
frequently recommend them to friends. There
are a number of key attributes that a guide
must have: versatility, excellent field skills,
sound local knowledge, reputation (many
write natural history guide books) and good
administrative and organisational skills.
Although itineraries are generally laid out
in the tour brochures, once at the destination,
tours are often dynamic. Itineraries may change
according to the weather, recent sightings, new
opportunities to see passing wildlife or group
decisions, and so leaders must always have
contingency plans based upon local knowledge. It can take leaders a long time to ‘scout
out’ the wildlife and climatic idiosyncrasies in
their territory, and they can become very protective of both their geographical area and
their knowledge: ‘If I’m on my own patch which
is Central Spain and Extremadura, I am very
cautious about who I tell what wildlife can be
seen where; particularly other tour leaders who are
leading for professional companies because that’s
like trade secrets effectively’ (Mark, tour leader,
Andalucía).

At the simplest level, the tour leader, often
in unison with local guides, escort the tourists
to prime locations where focal species can be
seen. They will have researched the area well,
will know what has recently been sighted and
the best places from which to view the wildlife.
They are experienced naturalists who can identify wildlife by their calls, their tracks and even
their distant silhouettes. Because of these field
skills, tour participants will encounter ‘a lot
more species’ than they would if they were
travelling independently as Ian exclaims:
‘I saw birds that I wouldn’t have seen even if I’d
stayed there all day’ (Andalucía).
In addition to the knowledgeable tour
leaders, participants themselves can be good
spotters and identifiers and may even be
experts in their own field of natural history.
Quite often they have a particular skill or experience which can add value to the group and
can enhance the trip for other members. While
tour leaders are generally expected to be interested in everything and to have at least one
specialism, they are not necessarily expected to
know about all the flora and fauna, therefore
they tend to welcome and involve people
who have complementary skills and who can
enhance the experience for everyone:
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

225
A big plus of these tours is you’ll find the
birders will be scanning the skies and

trees and the flower and mammal people
will be heads to the ground and so you
get to see a lot of different things.
(Edward)
When group dynamics work well, it facilitates the sharing of experiences with likeminded individuals which has the potential to
augment the wildlife encounter particularly if
the experience is shared with ‘significant
others’.
Sharing with others
The desire to share experiences is frequently
mentioned in the tourism literature (Fredrickson and Anderson, 1999; Haig and McIntyre,
2002; Smith et al., 2006). In this study, responses
could be positioned along a continuum, with
sharing wildlife encounters being of paramount importance for some, to wildlife encounters being equally enjoyable if you were by
yourself for others. However, for most, sharing
wildlife encounters definitely enhances the
holiday experience. The human tendency to
want to share experiences is best illustrated by
the tour leader who admitted that:
. . . the more that I tour lead the less I go
out birding on my own. Keith (a colleague) does exactly the same. He doesn’t
pick up a pair of bins (binoculars) now if
he is not on tour because if I can’t share
it with someone, it’s a waste of time. I
really don’t enjoy it that much. (Mark,
tour leader, Andalucía)
The desire to share can be more complex
than merely the emotional fulfilment sharing
can elicit. It can also be more functional, such
as the desire to help fellow travellers make a

sighting, to share knowledge and skills, for
confirmation of a sighting and for the laying
down of shared memories:
Shared experiences are very important. If
one of you see something interesting and
then the other sees it- that is great. Also
it can confirm it for you. If they don’t see
it, then you think that perhaps I didn’t
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226
see it and I was imagining it! So it’s much
better if we both see things together and
later we can recall the moment and discuss
it. (Marie, Baja, California)
The counter-argument to the need to share
was less apparent but for a few participants,
communal with wildlife can be a highly reflective and personal experience. This heightened
experience can ‘lose something when you have got
a number of people with you no matter how close
they may be to you’ (Tanya, Baja, California).
Meeting new people
One of the key findings to emerge from this
study is that wildlife holidays like these are
attractive to single people as ‘everything is
organised and I know I’ve got a group of “friends”
waiting to have dinner tonight so I don’t have to
worry about going to a restaurant on my own so

there is a social aspect of it as well as the wildlife’.
(Ian, Andalucía)
The tour leaders reiterated that they tended
to attract a lot of widows or widowers and that
often their clients formed long-term relationships and friendships after meeting on one of
their wildlife holidays. As the recent Social
Trends survey depicts, British society is becoming more lonely and insular (ONS, 2006). There
are higher incidences of divorce and of single
occupancy housing. Working hours, new
technology, the gradual erosion of the typical
nuclear family and longer life expectancy point
towards a demand for holidays which can
easily be taken by the single person. Human
beings are social creatures who often feel more
comfortable in groups and who seek out
the company of like-minded individuals with
whom they can share holiday experiences
(Carstensen, 1992). Furthermore, animal sightings and encounters act as good social lubricants, talking points which can bring people
together (Hunt et al., 1992). Fundamentally,
the attraction of nature and wildlife can be
mutually participated in and enjoyed:
It’s nice to go on holiday with like-minded
people. It’s pleasant company. You might
only meet people over dinner one evening
but you can have some very interesting
exchanges. (Michelle, Baja, California)
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

S. Curtin
Meeting new people also has a utilitarian

benefit in the way of knowledge exchange.
Stories and experiences unfold over mealtimes
and in-between wildlife watching, particularly
with regard to destinations, itineraries, companies and tour leaders, and this knowledge is
used to reinforce future trip decision-making,
thus exemplifying the importance of ‘word-ofmouth’ marketing.

Tour group dynamics
Participant observation allowed an insight
into the group dynamics and culture of dedicated wildlife watching tours. Through experience and discussions, it became apparent
that there are elements of luck and leadership
involved as to how a group bonds: Michelle
and Tanya had both encountered groups
where awkward individuals had dominated
or manipulated the wildlife agenda. Handling difficult participants and situations is
seen to be the responsibility of the tour
leader whose role as social facilitator is also
well documented in the literature (Schuchat,
1983; Cohen, 1985). Cohen, (1985) refers to
this as an interactionary function, i.e. facilitating interaction between tourists, being
friendly and approachable, listening to and
respecting preferences. Tour leaders take this
role very seriously as it can make or mar the
experience for everyone. As Mark (Andalucía) reiterates: ‘It’s often about finding common
ground. I am the focal point for the group. Everybody can inter-relate to everyone and everything
else but the binding people in the group are the
leaders’.
This is illustrated in Figure 3 below which
highlights the multi-skills inherent in the two
major functions of tour leading, i.e. both field

skills and social facilitating. According to the
tour leaders and the tour operators who participated in this study, there is always a lot of
interest in becoming a wildlife guide from
people with a wide knowledge of fauna and
flora. In reality, for the general naturalist
market, leading a tour requires a leader to
know more about people than about wildlife,
particularly with regard to ensuring group
congruity as the social skills often outweigh
the field skills.
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Wildlife Tour Leaders

227
Tour leader is the focal point
for the group

Field function

Social (interactionary)
function

FIELD
INTERPRETATION
SKILLS

SOCIAL SKILLS

Habitat awareness

Entertainer

Hearing

Animator

Spotting

Facilitator of social
bonding

Informer

Identification

Problem solver

Information on
habitats, behaviour
and how to identify

Decision maker
Organiser

Wildlife

Information exchange / joint experiences

Group members

Figure 3. The multiplicity of tour leading skills.

Managing expectations
While the participants did not accompany the
tour with a wish list, there is a sense that it may
still be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see
a particular focal species. This desire, however,
has to be carefully balanced in order to please
everyone. Leaders must be flexible enough to
appreciate when the desire to see something in
particular is not shared by the majority. Sometimes the desire to see particular species is
driven more by the tour leader than the
participants:
I am not too disappointed if I don’t get to
see all the birds they list in the trip spec.
There were several days where obviously
our leader wanted us to see particular
birds which were endemic. We spent a lot
of time looking for a certain duck and it
was no big deal, but you know it was
obviously bigger for them than it was for
us. (Linda)
You can’t possibly expect to see all the
whales and dolphins listed in the trip
spec as wildlife doesn’t perform to
order . . . but then it is wonderful if you
do . . . like the Blue whale we saw yesterCopyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

day . . . that was a wonderful surprise.
(Tanya, Baja California)
According to the tour leaders, they feel
‘inadequate or unprofessional’ if they cannot,
or do not, produce all the species in the trip
specification as advertised in the trip reports
on the company website. There is the immediacy of not seeing it on tour plus the double
exposure of it not being published to attract
new and perspective clients. These anxieties
can be communicated to clients who are well
aware of the pressures some leaders may be
under.
One participant, Penny, had been on a
dedicated bird-watching holiday to Madagascar. The trip was chosen for its destination,
itinerary and timing. Her narrative below
provides an insight into a ‘bird listing’ experience by someone whose interests are much
broader. It illustrates why clients have to be
very careful which tour operator they book
with:
They were definitely ‘listers’ (bird watchers who develop lifelong lists) and they
were ticking off as many endemic birds as
they could find. As soon as we had seen
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228
this bird, we were whipped off to
the next thing without even watching

it . . . you know . . . without having enough
time to enjoy them before ticking off the
next thing.
This obsessive desire to tick off a wish list can
also cause considerable stress to the tour leaders
especially if they are more used to a different
type of clientele. More often than not, tour
leaders are freelance and guide for a number of
different tour operators, each with their own
unique mix of client expectations. Some tours
are clearly more pressured than others as: ‘some
clients can go from dawn until dusk and beat you
into the ground to get to try and see everything
possible’ (Mark, tour leader, Andalucía).
PERCEIVED IMPACTS OF WILDLIFE
TOURISM
Using tape recorder/food provisioning/
managing closeness and disturbance
The desire to see focal species coupled with the
tour leaders’ predisposition to satisfy clients’
wishes can encourage controversial management policies such as the use of tape recorders
(I. Peters, personal communication, 2007), the
provision of food (see Lewis and Newsome,
2003; Chin et al., 2000; Green and Higginbottom,
2001; Orams, 2001) and the propensity to seek
close encounters with wildlife.
Participant attitudes towards these methods
were explored with a number of questions to
see if they had encountered the methods while
on tour and how they felt about their adoption.

The use of tape recordings of bird song produced the most cognitive dissonance. Some
enjoyed the experience at the time as they got
to see the birds they wanted but later felt that
the practice was questionable as it lured the
bird out of its normal territory. Moreover, it
mars the feeling of spontaneity and authenticity of the experience and there is frequent reference to it as ‘cheating!’ (Carol). The following
responses reflect the participants’ concerns:
I don’t agree with it because it is an artificial situation probably at the end of the
day it doesn’t do the bird much good.
(Ian, Andalucía)
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

S. Curtin
Well I did enjoy it at the time because
I saw the bird, but then afterwards I
thought if everybody did that that bird
would probably breakdown. (Simon,
Andalucía)
You know it could be very disruptive
pulling the males outside of their territory and disrupting them from feeding
their young or their courtship or whatever. (Matthew)
Flushing out birds is another modus operandi
which can be used to enable a sighting by the
less reputable leaders. This was not experienced first hand by the author as the tour
leaders were very careful not to cause disturbance wherever possible. However, some participants had experienced ‘flushing’ and it had
caused them concern. Responsible tour leaders
have softer methods to locate birds, usually by
hearing their call, and are very aware of the
potential negative impacts of disturbance:
My feeling is that you have to respect

what’s there and if you want to go
back and see the same again, you
mustn’t disturb it. (Mark, tour leader,
Andalucía)
The provisioning of food to enable wildlife
sightings is also a highly debatable subject area
(Shackley, 1998; Chin et al., 2000; Curry et al.,
2001; Green and Higginbottom, 2001; Orams,
2002; Lewis and Newsome, 2003). Many people
in the UK feed the wildlife that frequents their
garden and bird feeders; nest boxes and bird
food have gradually taken up more floor space
in garden centres and built wildlife attractions
(RSPB, personal communication, 2007). Therefore, the provisioning of food at various accommodation outlets to encourage birds and animals
is not seen to be outside of ‘normal, everyday’
behaviour and was therefore not perceived as a
problem or impact of wildlife watching.
On the contrary, it was often seen as something to be encouraged particularly if, by
attracting wildlife to the vicinity, people would
begin to be interested in it.
I think that you should. I have always
tried to get people interested in wildlife
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