Cultural Mediation in Guided Tour Experiences: a Case Study of Australian Guides of Chinese Tour Groups

This paper addresses the cultural mediating role of tour guides on Chinese group tours in Australia, which emerged as important for this market. Using a case study, the paper reports on an investigation of views of tourism industry representatives, tour guides and Chinese visitors on cultural mediation. The investigation includes respondents' defined meanings of the role of cultural mediator, and their evaluation of tour guides' performance of this role. Consistent with previous studies, both visitors and tourism industry representatives reported that to be a cultural mediator, a tour guide needs to mediate access, information, and encounters, but their elaborations on what these roles entail provide new insight beyond that which has been previously reported in the literature. The case study also provides empirical evidence that cultural mediation by tour guides facilitates and delivers memorable experiences. The paper concludes with several important implications for the tourism industry for training tour guides.