Emotional labour, quality of work life, and life satisfaction of tour guides: The mediating role of burnout and the moderating role of organizational support

One of the most prominent features of tour guiding services is the intense face-to-face interaction at all stages of the service consumption process. Smiling and showing friendliness under all conditions may require additional effort. Emotional labor resulting from this additional effort can result in some unfavorable outcome for employees including stress, burnout and turnover intention. Understanding the emotional labor of tour guides is particularly important since they play an important role in generating positive tourist experiences. Interestingly, however, it appears that research into the well-being of tour guides is limited. Drawing on emotional labor and well-being theories, the present study proposes a theoretical model examining the relationships between emotional dissonance, emotional effort, organizational support, burnout, quality of work life, life satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intention using data from 301 Turkish tour guides. The study also evaluated the mediating role of burnout and the moderating role of organizational support. The study findings reveal that while emotional dissonance increases burnout and turnover intention and decreases quality of work life, emotional effort is associated with decreased burnout and enhanced quality of work life and life satisfaction. The study confirms the mediating role of burnout on the relationship between emotional dissonance and quality of work life, as well as the relationship between emotional dissonance and life satisfaction. However, the study results fail to confirm the moderating role of organizational support on the relationship emotional dissonance and burnout. The study makes several theoretical contributions and suggests implications for different stakeholders.