Storytelling: a way for winter adventure guides to manage emotional labour

ABSTRACT

The study draws upon the conceptualisation of storytelling in order to explore the emotional labour of adventure guides. Adventure guides lead organised excursions and often spend several days with groups of tourists, sometimes in challenging contexts, which increase the possibility of their experiencing a mismatch between felt and expressed emotions. This can create stress, which, in turn, can influence tourists’ creation of value. This study proposes that storytelling can create a connection between the emotions felt by a guide and those they have to express, providing a means to reduce stress. In order to investigate this thesis, 10 in-depth interviews were conducted with northern lights guides offering various winter adventure activities in Alta (a small city in the northernmost part of Norway). In addition, the researcher participated in four northern lights activities in order attain first-hand observations of storytelling by experienced guides. It was shown that guides employed different stories in order to facilitate emotional labour using both surface and deep acting. More importantly, stories anchored in personal interests and/or experiences enabled guides to access their own feelings and adjust their emotional expressions to match accordingly.

KEYWORDS:

• Adventure tourism
• adventure guides
• storytelling
• emotional labour
• value

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.