Description
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a theoretical framework, the holistic mental model
process, with major contextual factors (cultural, situation, cognitive and affective contexts) to help better
understand tourists’ perception and evaluation of intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounters
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Understanding tourists’ perception and evaluation of inter-cultural service encounters: a holistic mental
model process
Defang Zhao Ingrid Y. Lin
Article information:
To cite this document:
Defang Zhao Ingrid Y. Lin , (2014),"Understanding tourists’ perception and evaluation of inter-cultural service encounters: a
holistic mental model process", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 8 Iss 3 pp. 290 - 309
Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJ CTHR-09-2013-0070
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Antónia Correia, Metin Kozak, J oão Ferradeira, (2013),"From tourist motivations to tourist satisfaction", International J ournal
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Klaus Weiermair, (2000),"Tourists’ perceptions towards and satisfaction with service quality in the cross-cultural service
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Understanding tourists’ perception and
evaluation of inter-cultural service
encounters: a holistic mental model
process
Defang Zhao and Ingrid Y. Lin
Defang Zhao is an
Associate Professor
based at Shanghai
Institute of Tourism,
Shanghai Normal
University, Shanghai,
China, and Ingrid Y. Lin
is an Associate Professor
based at School of Travel
Industry Management,
University of Hawaii at
Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii,
USA.
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a theoretical framework, the holistic mental model
process, with major contextual factors (cultural, situation, cognitive and affective contexts) to help better
understand tourists’ perception and evaluation of intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounters.
Design/methodology/approach – Summary tables of an extensive literature review of previous
empirical studies relating to intercultural service encounters, service encounter and service quality to
help derive the holistic mental model process framework are included.
Findings – Gaps fromthe previous literature were identi?ed along with in-depth explanations as to how
a holistic mental model process can be applied to tourists evaluating intercultural tourist–tour guide
service encounters and the service quality of their overall travel experience.
Research limitations/implications – The current conceptual framework of the holistic mental model
process targets speci?cally on the intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounters. More in-depth
empirical studies can be conducted focusing on speci?c variables of the intercultural tourist–tour guide
service encounters and on the factor differences between speci?c cultures.
Practical implications – This research has practical implications for travel agencies and tourism
companies. Travel agencies and tour companies can apply the holistic mental model process
framework to examine and analyze the in?uential variables between tourists and tour guide (i.e. cultural
differences, etiquette, norms and behaviors), thus design better tour guide training programs
accordingly.
Social implications – Service encounter is a social activity that is in?uenced by the social
environment. To achieve the best service quality, all parties, including tourists, tour guide, tour
companies, host community, must understand cultural differences; work together in coordination and
cooperation.
Originality/value – This is the ?rst study that provides an in-depth holistic mental model process by
integrating major contextual factors to examine tourists’ evaluation of intercultural service encounters
between themselves and tour guides.
Keywords Contextual factors, Service encounter, Tourists, Holistic mental model process,
Intercultural, Tour guide
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
This conceptual paper focuses on the previous research on the effects of intercultural
service encounters and service-quality perceptions on tourists’ level of satisfaction. Service
encounters are de?ned as the interactions between service providers and customers
(Zeithaml et al., 2013). Intercultural service encounters are de?ned as the service
exchanges or interactions of two or more parties from two different cultural backgrounds
(Strauss and Mang, 1999). For example, if tourists visiting Japan are Americans and the
tour guide is Japanese, when the American tourists and the Japanese tour guide interact,
it is an intercultural service encounter. Intercultural service encounters have long been an
Received 27 September 2013
Revised 15 December 2013
Accepted 22 March 2014
PAGE 290 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH VOL. 8 NO. 3, 2014, pp. 290-309, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182 DOI 10.1108/IJCTHR-09-2013-0070
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important subject of academic research in management. With the tremendous increase in
the numbers of outbound tourists, many researchers have studied the relationship between
culture and service-quality perceptions and many of these studies shed light on sectors of
the hospitality and tourism industry, such as restaurants, hotels and airlines (Johns et al.,
2004; Mattila, 1999; Reisinger and Turner, 1999; Strauss and Mang, 1999; Tsaur et al.,
2005; Winsted, 1997).
Winsted (1997) found that conversation, civility and personalization are important
contributors to service quality evaluation in a restaurant for both Japanese and Americans.
However, congeniality and authenticity are important for North Americans, and concern
and formality are important for the Japanese. Mattila (1999), who studied Western and
Asian customers in a hotel setting, concluded that customers with a Western cultural
background rely more on tangible cues than do Asian customers; the hedonic dimension
is more important for Westerners than for Asians. Strauss and Mang (1999) studied
Japanese, American and German airline passengers and found that cultural differences
have a signi?cant effect on service evaluation and that culture shock, which leads to
consumer dissatisfaction, occurs when service providers do not meet the culturally
determined expectations of foreign customers. In their study of Asian tourists and
Australian hosts, Reisinger and Turner (1999) found ?ve dimensions that differ between the
two groups: courtesy and responsiveness, competence, interaction, idealism and
communication. Johns et al. (2004) studied US customers in a Cyprus travel agency and
found that promptness, empathy, ef?ciency and servicescape aesthetics were the main
determinants of their satisfaction. Tsaur et al. (2005) used samples of hotel customers from
English-speaking countries, Asia and continental Europe and discovered that perceptions
of a hotel’s tangibles, reliability, assurance and empathy were the highest among
participants with an English heritage in comparison to their Asian or continental European
counterparts.
The studies described above provide limited depth of incorporating and explaining the
various contextual factors with the holistic mental model process of tourists’ perception of
quality and their overall satisfaction during the intercultural service encounter. Therefore, an
advanced conceptual holistic mental model process, as presented in this paper, can help
bridge the gap for future research in the related areas. From what we know, this is the ?rst
study that provides an in-depth holistic mental model process by integrating major
contextual factors to examine tourists’ evaluation of intercultural service encounters
between themselves and tour guides.
We attempt to present a holistic mental model process to answer the following questions:
What contextual factors or variables in?uence the intercultural service encounter?
What are the relationships among these variables?
How do tourists perceive the quality of a tour guide’s service and evaluate their overall
satisfaction with this intercultural service encounter?
Literature review
Three reliable journals in the tourism ?eld were chosen for the initial literature review and
search:
1. Annals of Tourism Research (ATR);
2. Tourism Management (TM); and
3. Journal of Travel Research (JTR).
Three key search terms (service encounter, service quality and satisfaction) were used in
scanning the abstracts to sort out the pertinent articles from 2000 to 2013 (June).
Summaries of the 48 published studies on service quality and satisfaction in the travel
industry are presented in Tables I and II. Some of these studies focused on service quality
VOL. 8 NO. 3 2014 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH PAGE 291
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Table I Summary of articles related to service encounter quality and satisfaction in the travel industry
Service context Author(s) Journal Purpose of the study Findings
Airline Tsaur et al. (2002) TM To apply the fuzzy set theory to evaluate the service
quality of airlines
The aspects of service quality of most concern are tangible
and the aspect of least concern is empathy. The most
important attributes are courtesy, safety and comfort
Airline Gilbert and Wong
(2003)
TM To identify the service dimensions that matter most
to current airline passengers
There are signi?cant differences among passengers from
different ethnic groups/nationalities as well as among
passengers who travel for different purposes. The ?ndings
also indicate that passengers consistently rank
“assurance,905> as the most important service
dimension
Airport Martín-Cejas
(2006)
TM To evaluate the service quality given to tourists,
especially to determine the level of service
established in a check-in service at the airport
Average waiting time and crowding level for airport facilities
are two relevant aspects in tourists’ perception of service
quality when arriving at their destination
Destination Alegre and Garau
(2010)
ATR To determine whether certain negative situations or
characteristics can partially explain overall
satisfaction and the intention to return
Some tourists’ negative or unsatisfactory experiences need
to be de?ned within the speci?c context of evaluation. The
analyses show that dissatisfaction statements have an
obvious bearing on both tourists’ overall satisfaction and
their intention to return
Destination Fuchs and
Weiermair (2004)
JTR To improve benchmarking approaches to studying
guest satisfaction with destination
This article empirically tests two approaches (importance
grid and penalty–reward–contrast) using different sets of
variables from a recent destination benchmarking survey.
Two methods help illuminate the causal nexus between
tourism value-chain domains or tourism service quality
attributes and tourist satisfaction
Destination Joppe et al. (2001) JTR To examine Toronto visitors’ perceptions of products
and services in terms of importance and satisfaction
by visitor origin
Closer analysis of the visitors’ country of origin shows some
important differences in the attributes seen as important as
well as in levels of satisfaction
Event Getz et al. (2001) JTR To study the service quality at events through
service mapping
The service encounters in events is different than in other
services Satisfaction with the event may include different
elements: the site, staff and other elements (souvenir,
crowd behavior, hour of competition, etc.)
Hot springs hotels Hsieh et al. (2008) TM To discover what services must be offered by hot
springs hotels to raise customer satisfaction and to
encourage repeat customers
This research builds an evaluation framework for hot
springs hotels in Taiwan based on the ?ve dimensions of
Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (PZB) service quality
(tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and
empathy) with the concept of the Analytic Hierarchy
Process (AHP) hierarchy
Hotel Briggs et al. (2007) TM To examine service quality across small, medium
and large hotels in Scotland; to establish
management and customers’ current perceptions of
service quality performance
Service is being lost by the focus of the Scottish quality
assurance (QA) scheme on tangibles and there are major
inconsistencies in service quality performance across the
sectors
Rural
accommodation
Carlos et al. (2007) ATR To establish the dimensions for evaluation of service
quality in rural accommodations and to develop an
instrument to measure service quality
Seven dimensions are found: personnel response,
complementary offers, tourist relations, basic demands,
tangible elements, security and empathy
Summer destination Prasnikar et al.
(2010)
ATR To conceptualize a construct of perceived service
quality (PSQ) as a formative latent construct
consisting of potential indicators from the extended
classi?cation of attributes of a tourist destination’s
offer
“Sea, sun and sand” is the persistent prevailing summer
tourist offer that in?uences service quality perceptions.
However, destinations can achieve better PSQ by focusing
on speci?c attributes of their offer
Theoretical analysis Baker and
Crompton (2000)
ATR To focus on the impact of performance quality and
satisfaction on behavioral intentions
Perceived performance quality has a stronger total effect
on behavioral intentions than satisfaction. Results suggest
that evaluation efforts should include assessment of both
performance quality and satisfaction
Theoretical analysis Bosque and Martin
(2008)
ATR To carry out an exploration of an individual’s
cognitive and affective psychological processes
during the pre-experience and post-experience
stages
Preconceived images of the destination in?uence
expectations and tourist loyalty. Additionally, there is
support for the impact of expectations and emotions on
satisfaction
Theoretical analysis Hudson et al
(2004)
JTR To assess four methods for measuring customer
satisfaction (IPA, SERVQUAL, multiply SERVQUAL
by importance, SERVPERF)
Although the rankings of different elements varied, there
was no statistical difference between the four
methodologies
Theoretical analysis Neal and Gursoy
(2008)
JTR To provide empirical evidence that satisfaction with
travel and tourism services is the result of
satisfaction during various stages of the tourism
experience
Tourists’ level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction during
various stages of travel in?uences their overall satisfaction
with travel and tourism services
Tourist farm Rozman et al.
(2009)
TM To address problem of assessing tourist farm
service quality by applying the qualitative multi-
criteria method DEX
The DEXi methodology proved to be very valuable,
appropriate and advantageous when compared with other
means of ranking enterprises
Travel agency Caro and Garcia
(2008)
TM To develop a comprehensive model to measure
service quality in the Spanish travel industry based
on Brady and Cronin’s (2001) conceptualization
Customers’ perceptions of the service quality of travel
agencies consist of three primary dimensions: Personal
interaction, physical environment and outcome
Travel agency Millan and Esteban
(2004)
TM To identify and evaluate those elements and
dimensions that determine client satisfaction through
the service offered by travel agencies
A multiple-item scale for measuring customer satisfaction in
travel agencies services ?nds six dimensions (service
encounter, empathy, reliability, ef?ciency, environment and
additional factors) that in?uence satisfaction formation
Travel agency Bigné et al. (2003) ATR The aim of the research is the analysis of the
reliability and validity of a SERVQUAL scale
adjusted for travel agencies’ services
The reliability dimension has the highest weighting in
importance as well as a positive and signi?cant relationship
with overall quality
PAGE 292 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH VOL. 8 NO. 3 2014
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Table II Variables in?uencing service quality and satisfaction
Service context Authors Variables Journal Purpose of study Findings
Adventure tourism guide Mackenzie and Kerr
(2013)
Stress and emotions TM To provide an extended “insiders’”
perspective of adventure tourism
guiding experiences and to identify
sources of stress and emotions in
the employer–guide relationship
Stress and negative emotions are
caused by misunderstandings and
communication dif?culties caused by
cultural differences, lack of information,
inequality, and lack of trust
Airline passenger Kim and Prideaux
(2003)
Cultural difference ATR To examine cross-cultural
differences among airline
passengers from a ?ight attendant’s
perspective
Airline passengers from different
nationalities and cultural backgrounds
have different expectations and service
perceptions
Alpine ski area Matzler et al. (2008) Personal, situational
factor
JTR To study the relationship of personal,
situational, and product factors with
overall satisfaction using Alpine ski
resorts
Personal, situational, and product
factors moderate the
attribute–performance–satisfaction
relationship
Asian and Western
tourists
Tsang and Ap
(2007)
Cultural difference JTR To identify the difference between
Asian and Western tourists’
perceptions of relational quality
provided by guest-contact
employees
The quality of interpersonal
relationships was a key factor in
determining the Asian customers’
service-encounter evaluations, while
Western customers placed emphasis
on goal completion, ef?ciency, and
time savings
Australian host and Asian
tourists
Reisinger and Turner
(2002)
Cultural difference JTR To support the hypothesis that the
cultural differences between Asian
tourists and Australian hosts
determine tourist–host interactions
and satisfaction with the interactions
Cultural values, rules of social
behavior, and perceptions of service
are important tourism constructs
in?uencing and explaining tourist-host
social contact and satisfaction. Cultural
models of the cultural differences
between Asian tourists and Australian
hosts are developed
British/Ger-man tourists Kozak (2001) Cultural difference TM To determine whether there are
differences in satisfaction levels
between two nationalities visiting the
same destination
British tourists were more likely to be
satis?ed with almost all individual
attributes than German tourists
Casino visitors Wong and Dioko
(2013)
Customer
expectations
TM To understand the alternative
conceptualizations of customer
expectations in the customer
satisfaction (CS) model and whether
customer expectations can better
explain CS through its (expectation)
moderating effect
Customer expectations moderate the
mediating effect of perceived value
while perceived value fully mediates
the moderating effect of customer
expectations. The results suggest both
moderated mediation and mediated
moderation
Cruise vacationers Huang and Hsu
(2010)
Customer-to-customer
interaction
JTR To examine interactions between
tourists on cruise vacations and their
impact on the cruise experience and
vacation satisfaction
The quality of C2C interaction has a
direct, positive impact on the cruise
experience as well as indirect effects on
vacation satisfaction, mediated by cruise
experience. Moreover, the quality of C2C
interaction has suppressor effects on the
quantity of customer to customer (C2C)
interactions
Cruise vacationer Sirakaya et al. (2004) Mood ATR To examine the effect of consumers’
mood on service evaluations of a
tourism product using a sample of
cruise vacationers
Mood moderates tourists’ overall
satisfaction levels
Golf players Petrick and
Backman (2002)
Comprehensive JTR To investigate the determinants of
golf travelers’ overall satisfaction
Information satisfaction is an
antecedent to attribute satisfaction.
Attributes related to the resort
experience had more in?uence on
overall satisfaction than attributes
related to information provided and
gol?ng experiences
Hedonic holiday
destination
Hosany and Gilbert
(2010)
Emotion JTR To answer two questions: ?rst, what
types of emotional responses do
tourists associate with destinations?
Second, how should these emotional
responses be measured?
Three salient dimensions represent the
Destination Emotion Scale: joy, love,
and positive surprise. In addition,
tourists’ emotional experiences are
related to satisfaction, which in turn
has a signi?cant in?uence on
behavioral intentions
Hong Kong tourists Song et al. (2012) Comprehensive ATR To develop a universal system of
tourism service evaluation from the
consumer’s point of view–a tourist
satisfaction index system
The model is able to address and
evaluate the links between
performance measures and strategic
outcomes related to tourist satisfaction
for all of the service sectors
considered. The satisfaction index
includes factors expectation, perceived
performance, value, loyalty, and
intention to complain
(continued)
VOL. 8 NO. 3 2014 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH PAGE 293
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Table II
Service context Authors Variables Journal Purpose of study Findings
International tourism Harrison (2011) Cultural difference ATR To demonstrate the importance of
culture and the need for sensitivity in
tourism
The third and fourth parts of this book
review introduce the in?uence of
cultural factors on tourists behavior,
psychological features, and guest-host
interactions
Japanese tourists Hasegawa (2010) Comprehensive TM To consider the multivariate ordered
probit model using the Markov Chain
Monte Carlo (MCMC) method to
analyze tourists’ satisfaction
Satisfaction derived from the scenery
and meals has the largest in?uence on
the overall satisfaction
Korean service providers
in travel industry
Sohn and Lee (2012) Personality and
emotion
TM To explore to what extent service
providers’ emotional labor is affected
by personality, to analyze the effect
of emotional labor on the
performance of required emotional
display rules and to investigate
differences in emotional labor
depending on providers’
demographic features
Four HEXACO personality factors were
found to have a positive in?uence on
emotional labor. Deep acting has a
positive in?uence on the requirement to
display positive emotions and a
negative in?uence on the requirement
to hide negative emotions.
Demographic variables generally do
not affect emotional labor
Long-haul inclusive tours Bowen (2001) Comprehensive TM To check the theory against the
reality of a business situation from
the tourist industry
It is possible to have a reality check on
theories of antecedents of consumer
satisfaction and dissatisfaction;
performance is the core and in?uences
other factors
Package tour service Wang et al., (2007) Comprehensive TM To develop and empirically validate
an instrument (scale) which
measures the group package tour
service
Through an instrument development
process, six factors were identi?ed:
hotel, transportation, shopping
arrangements, optional tours, tour
leader, and local guide
Taiwanese tourists in
Queensland
Master and Prideaux
(2000)
Cultural difference TM To examine the role of material
culture in determining visitor
satisfaction among Taiwanese
tourists
Most Taiwanese respondents believed
that culture did not play a major role in
determining their satisfaction levels and
they expressed a high level of
satisfaction with their visit
Taiwanese tourists to
foreign areas
Wu (2007) Customer -to-
customer interaction
TM To investigate the relationship
between customer-to-customer
interactions, customer homogeneity,
and customer satisfaction
“Malcontent incidents” have a
signi?cantly negative impact on
customer satisfaction. “Evaluation of
fellow customers” has a positive
in?uence on customer satisfaction
Theme park visitors Bigne et al (2005) Emotion TM To analyze how visitor emotions in a
theme park environment in?uence
satisfaction and behavioral intentions
The cognitive theory of emotions better
explains the effect of pleasure on
satisfaction and loyalty
Theme park visitors Dong and Siu (2013) Servicescape,
customer
predisposition
TM To test how servicescape elements
and customer predispositions
explain customers’ evaluations of a
service experience
A link was found between the
servicescape and tourist evaluations
through the moderating effects of
customer predispositions
Tour guide Min (2011) Emotion ATR To provide an emotional intelligence-
based training program focusing on
tour guides’ strengths and
weaknesses
The emotional intelligence of Taiwan
tour guides needs to be improved. The
?ndings have implications for emotional
learning and teaching
Tour guide Min (2012) Emotion TM To generate and evaluate an
emotional skills assessment process-
condensed version instrument for
tour guides
The reliable and valid 35-item version
(ESAP-CV-35), reduced from 104
items, captures the multidimensional
nature of Emotional Intelligence in six
subscales
Tour guide service in
Hong Kong
Zhang and Chow
(2004)
Comprehensive TM To explore the importance and
performance of tour guides in Hong
Kong as perceived by mainland
Chinese visitors
Hong Kong’s tour guides performed
well in attributes such as professional
skills, reliability, and language ability,
while the problem-solving ability needs
to be improved
Tourist information center
staff
Wong and
McKercher (2011)
Comprehensive ATR To examine the exchange process,
the level of information gate keeping
and the role of tourist information
center (TIC) staff as knowledge
brokers
Body language, perception of
customers’ demands and attitude have
much greater in?uence on the quality
of the information exchange process
than information exchanged
Tourists visiting attraction Bigné and Andreu
(2004)
emotion ATR To detect emotional-based
segments and analyze which one is
the most satis?ed and loyal toward
the leisure and tourism service
Those experiencing greater pleasure
and arousal showed an increased level
of satisfaction as well as more
favorable behavioral intentions,
meaning loyalty and willingness to pay
more
Travel agency Bosque et al. (2006) expectation TM To provide empirical evidence about
the formation of expectations and
the relation between expectations,
satisfaction and consumer loyalty
Results demonstrate the importance of
‘image’ in the expectations formulation
process. Perceived image of a travel
agency is the most important factor
generating the expectation of a future
encounter with the service
(continued)
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and satisfaction in speci?c travel sectors, such as airlines, hotels and destination and travel
agencies (see Table I). Most of these studies focused on various factors in?uencing service
quality evaluations and satisfaction in different service contexts: mood, emotion, culture,
personal features, expectations, customer-to-customer interactions and the service
environment (see Table II).
Wong and McKercher (2011) conducted a qualitative study of service encounters in the
Macau Tourist information Center. They found that body language, perception of tourist
requirements and the attitude of the center staff are more important than the information
exchanged. Other scholars have analyzed the effect of emotion and mood on tourists’
service quality perceptions. Bigne et al. (2005) studied the important role of pleasure and
arousal on service quality perception at a theme park and found that active arousal
in?uences positive cognitive difference and pleasure, thus supporting the cognitive theory
of emotions. Some studies have examined intercultural factors in tourists’ quality perception
and evaluation. Tsang and Ap (2007) analyzed differences between Asian tourists and
Western tourists in the perception of relational quality service and found that relational
quality is a crucial factor for Asian tourists in evaluating service encounters, while Western
tourists focus more on achievement of the goal, ef?ciency and time spent. Dong and Siu
(2013), using theme-park visitors as samples, studied the in?uence of servicescape and
customer predisposition on quality perception. They found a link between the servicescape
and tourist evaluation through the moderating effects of customer predispositions. Wong
and Dioko (2013) found that customer expectations moderate the mediating effect of
perceived value and satisfaction, while the perceived value fully mediates the moderating
effect of customer expectations and customer satisfaction.
Based on the previous literature, service encounters between tourists and service
providers are an important element of perceived service quality and satisfaction formation.
Among the 48 articles, only ?ve papers examined the topic of tour guides. Two studies
focus on the service quality perception of tourists and tour guide interactions. Wang et al.
(2007) identi?ed six factors in the service quality perceptions of group package tourists:
hotel, transportation, shopping arrangements, optional tours, tour leader and local guides.
Professional ability, friendliness, good presentation ability, skillful group leadership, a
sense of responsibility, and good coordination skills of the tour leader and local guides are
important attributes of good service. Zhang and Chow (2004) analyzed the important
factors in mainland Chinese tourists’ perception of the service quality of their Hong Kong
tour guide and found the following attributes: professional skill, reliability, linguistic ability,
knowledge, politeness, friendliness, honesty, communication competence and a neat and
clean appearance.
Three papers focus on the emotions of tour guides. Min (2011, 2012) focused on the
signi?cance of the emotional intelligence of tour guides and providing emotional
intelligence training programs for tour guides and developed a short-form measure for
assessment of tour guides’ emotional intelligence. Mayer and Salovey (1993) were the ?rst
Table II
Service context Authors Variables Journal Purpose of study Findings
Travel agency customers Grissemann and
Sauer (2012)
Customer co-creation
of service
TM To develop a conceptual model of
customer co-creation of tourism
services and empirically test this
model in a travel agency context
The degree of co-creation further
positively affects customer satisfaction
with the service company, customer
loyalty, and service expenditures.
Customers who are satis?ed with their
co-creation activities spend more on
their travel arrangements, but are less
satis?ed with the company
Visitors in heritage
context
Rojas and Camarero
(2008)
Emotion, mood TM To examine how expectations,
experiences and satisfaction are
related in the context of cultural
tourism service
The perceived quality is a direct
determinant of satisfaction, as are
emotions. Visitors’ mood states
moderate the cognitive path as
generator of visitor satisfaction
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to introduce the term “emotional intelligence”; it is de?ned as the ability to deal with
emotional ?uctuations. Mackenzie and Kerr (2013) took an adventure tourism guide as a
case study and explored the guide’s stress and emotions resulting from employer–guide
interactions. They found that stress and negative emotions are caused by
misunderstandings and communication dif?culties stemming from cultural differences, lack
of information, inequality and lack of trust. Though these papers have no direct relation to
the perception of quality, their discussions of emotional intelligence or the stress of the tour
guide demonstrates the importance of emotion and its in?uence on tourist–tour guide
interactions.
Our review of the literature suggests that the topic of service encounters between tourist
and tour guide has been under-researched. The position of tour guide is very popular, and
tour guides are an important segment of the service within the travel and tourism industry
in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. More importantly, the tour guide is an important
factor in tourists’ perception of service quality and their satisfaction; the service encounter
between the tourist and the tour guide deserves more in-depth attention and research
especially for those countries or destinations that rely on tour guides to enhance travelers’
interest. This paper helps to ?ll this gap by creating a conceptual framework to better
explain the notion of intercultural service encounters between tourists and tour guides.
The role of a tour guide
A tour guide may be the ?rst and most frequent frontline staff that tourists encounter during
their trip. One of the main tasks of a tour guide is to ensure tourist satisfaction with the
services provided. According to the International Association of Tour Managers, the role of
a tour guide is to guide groups of individual visitors to major attractions; to interpret the
cultural and natural heritage and environment in an entertaining manner by using the
language of the visitor’s choice (Wong et al., 1998). A tour guide is an information provider,
source of knowledge, a culture broker (Reisinger and Steiner, 2006), an intercultural
mediator (Nonnenmann and Scherle, 2008), a social facilitator, people mover, safety
of?cer, company representative, entertainer, problem solver and counselor (Rabotic,
2010). Tour guides act as intermediaries between tourists and the unknown environment,
arranging transportation, interpreting, handling problems, insulating travelers from
dif?culties and making the environment safe for tourists (Pearce, 1982; Schmidt, 1979). The
role of tour guides and the tour guides’ quality of services provided to the tourists are
essential to the success of the tourism industry and to the reputation and image of the
destination as well as travel agencies.
Intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounter
We have developed a holistic mental model process of intercultural service encounter
between tourists and tour guides (shown in Figure 1) from the basis of integrating and
extending from previously established concepts: tourism culture (TC) (Weiermair, 2000),
service encounter (Klaus, 1985) and pragmatics (Verschueren, 1999). Weiermair (2000)
introduced and explained the formation of tourism culture. TC encompasses both the
tourist’s national or regional cultural setting and subculture (i.e. socioeconomic) and the
host’s (e.g. a tour guide’s) national or regional cultural setting and organizational culture of
the tourism enterprise that the tour guide works for (Weiermair, 2000).
Klaus (1985) presented a model emphasizing the importance of the interactive process of
face-to-face service encounter from both the internal factors (i.e. personality and
characteristics of participants) and external factors (i.e. cultural and social environment)
that in?uence the quality of service encounter. Further, from the linguistics literature of
pragmatics (Verschueren, 1999), it provides a theoretical framework on the notion of
interaction and serves as an important theory that helps to explain our current holistic
mental model research framework regarding the interactive effects of cognition and
emotions under different situational contexts (Verschueren, 1999). Verschueren’s (1999)
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study will be discussed more in detail in the next section. Together, the above three
concepts described, enable us to extend the literature and further develop the concept of
a holistic mental model process of the intercultural service encounter.
The service encounter between tour guide and tourists is ?rst characterized by some basic
procedural elements: task-orientation, instrumental behaviors conditioned by the standard
operating procedures of the travel industry and role differences (Czepiel et al., 1985).
During their encounter, tourists (T) (with different personal values, personalities,
experiences, expectations and emotions) and tour guides (G) (with different personalities,
skills and emotions) interact in certain situational contexts (S). Tourists from different
national cultures (e.g. national culture B) and subcultures are guided by their social and
cultural values during each service interaction with the tour guide. The tour guide, coming
from a different culture (e.g. national culture A), is guided both by his own culture and by
the culture of his enterprise while performing his role. When the two parties meet, a special
culture forms called TC which guides their mood and even perception of this intercultural
encounter. All these factors (social, cultural, situational, personal, psychological) form the
overall context of this encounter. Through the perceptual and cognitive apparatus of the
participants, the behaviors and contextual elements are transformed into subjective
experiences and behaviors of participants, in?uencing the progress of the interaction.
Contexts in?uencing the intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounter
Context is a concept originally from pragmatics. It refers to various factors that in?uence the
participants’ understanding and formation of utterances to keep the communication going
smoothly. The most comprehensive explanation of context derives from Verschueren
(1999), a Belgian linguist. His communicative context includes both the utterer and
interpreter and their mental world, social world and physical world. All these factors are
activated through the cognitive mechanisms of interlocutors (participants in the
communication) and work together to in?uence the interaction. According to Verschueren
(1999), the mental world refers to psychological factors, including the interlocutor’s
personality, emotions, intention and expectations. It consists of cognitive and affective
factors. Cognitive factors include expectations, knowledge of the society, hypotheses,
beliefs and cognitive ability. Affective factors refer to the interlocutor’s emotional state and
mood during the interaction. The social world refers to the rules and norms of interaction
required by social and cultural conventions. The physical world includes time and space/
place and the interlocutor’s non-verbal features, such as gestures, posture, eye contact,
appearance and physiological characteristics. Verschueren’s (1999) concept of context is
suitable for analyzing the service encounter between tourist and tour guide because
tourists and tour guides typically communicate interactively throughout the travel
experience.
Figure 1 Intercultural service encounter between tourists and tour guide
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Based on Verschueren’s (1999) concept of context and the nature of the interactions
between tourists and tour guides, this paper classi?es four different contexts of intercultural
service encounters:
1. the cultural context, also known as the tourism culture;
2. the situational context, which includes the interaction between the physical
environment, tourists and tour guide;
3. the cognitive context; and
4. the affective context, which emphasizes the psychological perception of service
quality.
Cultural context
Many scholars have af?rmed the role of cultural variables in service quality evaluation. It is
generally accepted that culture shapes consumers’ perceptions by providing a frame of
reference through which the world is observed (McCracken, 1986). Culture provides norms
for thinking, feeling and acting that are rooted in common values and societal conventions
(Nakata and Sivakumar, 2001). Culture also provides cues regarding the rules of social
conduct and expectations relative to the encounter and serves as a frame of reference
(Hartman et al., 2009). What is de?ned as “good” service is culturally bound (Zeithaml et al.,
2013). Quality can be de?ned and generalized only within a certain cultural context. Three
sets of variables, namely, personal values, national cultural orientations and social
demographics, seem to explain the variation in criteria that customers use in evaluating
service quality in different cultures (Raajpoot, 2004).
In addition to their general cultural background, tourists may also belong to a multitude of
possible subcultures (i.e. they may be from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds or belong
to an interest group, such as hikers or photographers) which in?uence or explain individual
behavior. These factors condition tourists’ perception of service encounters and thus
contribute to the tourism culture. TC can also refer to touristhood or a state of mind (Jafari,
1987). While away from home, tourists may hide their real identity and take on a touristic
mood. In such a state of disconnectedness, they may begin to peel away the homebound
cultural layers and playfully take on any role they choose. Tourists may ignore not only the
cultural norms of home but also those of the destination. They live in a cultural mix of the
host culture, their heterogeneous residual cultures and the homogenous tourism culture.
The tour guide also works in a mix of two important cultures:
1. the cultural norms of his host country (e.g. the Chinese culture of a Chinese tour guide)
and
2. the organizational culture of his enterprise.
In addition, the tour guide has to use the language of the visitors’ choice to interpret the
heritage and different attractions. Therefore, the guide has to consider the national culture
and subcultures of the tourists in selecting the best way to ful?ll service-related tasks. It is
evident that tour guides live in a cultural margin where the guest culture, the host culture
and various subcultures meet and work together to condition and control their behavior.
Tour guides are also in?uenced by the organizational culture of the company, which may
affect their eagerness to serve customers (Bellou, 2007) and in turn, in?uence tourists’
satisfaction.
How do tourists interpret and perceive tour-guide service in such a complicated cultural
context? It is reasonable to propose that tourists (for example, Americans) will perceive and
evaluate the quality of, for example, a Chinese tour guide’s service, based on their own
(American) culture. The tourists probably have little knowledge of the host (i.e. Chinese)
culture and rely on their own culture as the basis for evaluating a tour guide’s overall
service. In the playful touristhood state of mind, it is hard to measure how much or to what
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extent tourists depend on their own culture in service perception. Therefore, we propose
that tourists’ cultural orientation will in?uence their perception of a tour guide’s service.
Likewise, a tour guide’s cultural orientation will in?uence tourists’ expectations, experiences
and evaluations of the services he or she provides.
Different cultures have different features. Each culture enjoys its own cultural service
personality (Zhang et al., 2008). For example, tourists from Western individualistic cultures
have a high expectation from the overall service quality. They expect a friendly, assured,
reliable and responsive tour guide. They focus on meeting their own needs and therefore
cannot tolerate poor service (Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Laroche et al., 2005). On the other
hand, tourists from a collectivist culture have lower expectations from the responsiveness
and reliability of the service staff and can tolerate poor service (Donthu and Yoo, 1998).
Tourists’ cultural orientation can also in?uence the relationship between expectation and
satisfaction. Tourists from collectivist cultures pay more attention to the ideas of the whole
group than that of their own expectations, thus reducing the relationship between
expectation and satisfaction (Spreng and Chiou, 2002). Tourists from individualistic
cultures, however, pay more attention to their own ideas and feelings, thus strengthening
the relationship between expectation and satisfaction. The low-context cultures of the West
and the high-context cultures of the East also have a great effect on service perception and
satisfaction (Hall, 1966). For example, in low-context cultures, cognition is very important in
the service quality perception process, while in high-context cultures, cognition and
emotion are both important (Hall, 1966; Samli, 1985).
Situational context
The situational context refers to the setting for the interaction, including the appearance
and body language of the participants and the physical environment. It sets constraints and
conditions for the interactions. The personality traits and the appearance of a tour guide
play an important role in this context. Zhang and Chow (2004) found that a neat and tidy
appearance is one of the attributes of Chinese tourists’ perception that Hong Kong tour
guides provide good service. Previous research shows that good-looking tour guides
enhance tourists’ perception of service quality (Luoha and Tsaur, 2009). In any situation,
the appearance of a tour guide affects tourists’ perception of service quality in terms of
responsiveness and reliability (Luoha and Tsaur, 2009). The gender of a tour guide also
in?uences tourists’ perception of service quality (Fischer and Gainer, 1997; Luoha and
Tsaur, 2009). If the service provider is male, tourists may focus on the formality and
reliability dimensions of service quality. If the service provider is female, tourists may focus
more on the trust, honesty and assurance dimensions of service quality (Raajpoot, 2004).
Non-verbal behaviors, such as posture, gestures, eye contact, body health and facial
expressions, also belong to the situational context in?uencing tourist perception of service.
Leclerca and Martin (2004) found that for American tourists, non-verbal behaviors, such as
eye contact, smiling, nodding the head and leaning forward are attributes of a tour guide’s
perceived good service. Wong and McKercher (2011) found through their qualitative study
that body language and the attitude of the staff have a much greater in?uence on guests’
perception of service quality than the information exchanged.
Situational variables also include the physical environment. The in?uence of the physical
environment on service quality perception has attracted the attention of numerous scholars.
Mattila (1999) found that customers with a Western cultural background are more likely than
their Asian counterparts to rely on tangible cues from the physical environment to evaluate
service quality. Tsaur et al. (2002) found that the service quality aspects of most concern
in airlines are tangible and the attributes of most concern are the politeness of the service
staff and the cleanliness and comfort of the seats. Caro and Garcia (2008) found that the
physical environment is one of the three dimensions in which customers perceive the
service quality of a travel agency. Lin and Mattila (2010), who studied the effects of service
encounter and servicescape of a restaurant, found that consumers evaluate consumption
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experiences in a holistic manner; consequently, service providers have to make sure that
the customer positively evaluates both the physical environment and the service encounter
and delivery process. Encounters between tourists and tour guides occur in many different
physical environments, such as crowded restaurants or hotels or beautiful scenic spots
surrounding the restaurant or hotel. Interactions in various situational contexts make up the
overall service experience of tourists.
Cognitive context
The cognitive context is built upon the cultural and situational contexts. It is a psychological
construct based on knowledge, beliefs, personal values, individual past experiences,
individual cognitive abilities and the physical setting of the interaction. As rational people,
called cognitive information processors, tourists may process the exterior information
according to their beliefs, knowledge and prior travel experience to form their judgments.
The cognitive role in quality perception has been supported by several scholars (Oliver,
1980; Bosque and Martin, 2008; Van Dolen et al., 2004).
During the cognitive psychological process, tourists’ cultural orientation, personal values,
personality and other characteristics are all integrated into their perception of service
quality. For example, tourists with an openness-to-experience personality trait prefer to
have new experiences. Tourists with a self-enhancement value consider reliability and
personalization as the core service (Raajpoot, 2004). The role of tourists’ prior experience
in quality perception has been examined by Assael (1987), O’Neill and Palmer (2003) and
Raajpoot (2004).
Tourists coming from different cultures have different cultural values and beliefs, thus
having different cognitive perceptions. Even when they share the same national culture,
they are not totally the same in their cognitive ability, previous travel experience, personal
values and personalities. Thus, each tourist has his or her own unique psychological
perception of the same service delivered by a tour guide. Lin (2004) also postulated that
individual perception serves as a cognitive schema; an individual’s cognitive perceptions
stimulate his or her emotional responses. The cognitive context plays a very important role
because even in the same situational context, tourists coming from the same cultural
context may have different cognitive perceptions of the service due to their personal
characteristics. Therefore, tourists’ past experience, personal values, knowledge, cultural
context and cognitive perceptions are all very important in tourists’ cumulative perception
of the service quality of the tour guide.
Affective context
According to Winkielman et al. (2007), affect is an umbrella term covering one’s personal
psychological states, such as personal feelings, mood and categories of emotions. In this
paper, the affective context mainly refers to the affective state of tourists, such as emotion
and mood. Wirtz et al. (2000a and 2000b) conclude that the inclusion of affect into the
conceptualizations of consumer satisfaction is particularly important regarding services
due to their experiential nature. Wirtz et al. (2000a and 2000b), Yu and Dean (2001), Lin
(2004) and Gountas and Gountas (2007) have demonstrated the importance of emotions in
in?uencing tourists’ service quality perceptions. Bosque and Martin (2008) suggest that
emotions play an important role in travel because individuals’ enjoyment is based on their
own experiences. During the intercultural service encounter, both tourists and tour guides
are in a state of mind that is different fromtheir ordinary daily life. Tourists, in this touristhood
state of mind, may travel for the purpose of pleasure and relaxation, but feel a bit insecure
about the new environment. They may experience positive and negative emotions during
the same stay because they have multiple interactions with the resources in place. These
emotions in?uence their service perception and the formation of their ?nal tour satisfaction.
Bagozzi et al. (1999) suggest that mood may in?uence customers’ cognitive and emotional
formation processes and thus have signi?cant in?uence on information retrieval and
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information encoding, producing an asymmetric mood effect. Forgas and Bower (1987)
found that tourists in a good mood have a better memory of previous knowledge and
information than tourists in a bad or neutral mood. They tend to spend more time
interpreting positive information; they remember the information effectively and are
therefore more likely to have a positive interpretation of the stimuli. Thus, a good mood can
stimulate positive memories and resist negative memories. Sirakaya et al. (2004) also found
that mood moderates tourists’ overall satisfaction level. Tourists with lower mood
evaluations tend to have lower satisfaction levels. Lower levels of satisfaction were related
to bad mood. Mood and the emotions of tour guides have signi?cant impact on the
tourists–tour guide service encounter.
Sohn and Lee (2012) conclude that the personalities of the working staff can affect their
active emotions, thus improving tourists’ perception of service quality. Carvelzani et al.
(2003) and Min (2011, 2012) point out that the tour guide’s task is to induce positive
emotions in tourists because the mood and feelings of tourists in special situations are
important factors in their overall perception of service quality. Carvelzani et al. (2003)
suggest that tourism professionals (i.e. tour guides) should possess appropriate emotional
intelligence skills in that they should have the ability to manage and control their emotions.
The holistic mental model process
The purpose of introducing the holistic mental model process is to answer the following
questions:
What are the relationships among the contextual variables?
How do tourists perceive service quality and evaluate their overall satisfaction with the
intercultural service encounters with a tour guide?
As explained in the previous paragraphs, cultural, situational, cognitive and affective
factors work together to in?uence the service encounter between tourists and tour guides.
How do they work together to in?uence tourists’ perception of this encounter? The mental
model theory provides a good theoretical framework.
The concept of mental model originated froma British psychologist, Kenneth Craik, in 1943.
Later, it was developed into a cognitive way of inference (Johnson-Laird, 1980). The mental
model is a representation of external reality hypothesized to play a major role in proposition,
inference and interpretation. This model is built on the basis of the information derived from
the interaction and relevant knowledge from either long-term memory or short-term memory
for humans to predict, infer and interpret the events. The model is an abstract knowledge
system composed of many different knowledge groups bound by features of proximity or
similarity; the appearance of one can arouse people to think of the other, thus making the
whole event a predictable, understandable and interpretable network.
There are mental models of problemsolving and of social situations. Of particular relevance
for this article is the mental model of social interactions. According to Boven and Thompson
(2003), people are thought to have mental models of social groups to guide social behavior
and perceptions of social situations. The mental model of social interaction is the
knowledge system of one’s sense and memory of social information formed during social
interactions (i.e. service encounters); it is based on one’s experience and expectation and
plays an important role of guiding one’s behavior, organizing one’s thinking and in?uencing
the interpretation of information in different social contexts (Boven and Thompson, 2003).
For example, the mental models of social interaction have been applied in teaching and
pragmatics to explain how readers understand what they are reading and how interlocutors
infer the implication of utterances.
Translating the mental model concept into the tourist–tour guide encounter, the process of
tourists’ formation of quality perception is a holistic mental model process. This process is
determined by the knowledge of the tourists and the contextual factors of the interaction
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between tourists and tour guides. When interpreting the service of a tour guide, tourists
may undergo a mental process in which their knowledge of the social norms, the prior
experience in their memories, their expectations and cultural values and what they see and
hear may all work together to build a model to infer an evaluation result. Considering all
these factors/variables, tourists perceive the service quality of the encounter through a
holistic mental model process.
How do the cultural, situational, cognitive and affective variables work in this mental model
process? First, culture has been viewed as the “pattern of taken-for-granted assumptions
about how a given collection of people think, act and feel as they go about their daily
affairs” (Hall, 1976, p. 16); “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the
members of one human group from another” (Hofstede, 1984, p. 21) and “the accumulation
of shared meanings, rituals, norms and traditions among the members of an organisation
or society”(Solomon, 1996, p. 539). As members of a cultural group, they (tourists) can do
nothing but to follow their home culture, rituals, norms and traditions to form their own
values and beliefs guiding their behaviors. Therefore, it is reasonable to argue that the
cultural context can be considered the objective factor because individuals do not have
control over their cultural background; it determines the interpretation of the other three
contexts (situational, cognitive and affective). Tourists’ cultural orientation determines their
beliefs and cultural values; it also in?uences their behavior, the way they interpret the other
contextual factors (McCracken, 1986; Reisinger and Turner, 2002; Kim and Prideaux, 2003;
Hartman et al., 2009; Harrison, 2011) and the role of emotions in service perception. For
instance, as noted above, in Western low-context cultures, cognition is more important in
service-quality perception, while in high-context cultures, cognition and emotion are both
important (Samli, 1985).
Second, the situational context refers to the speci?c scenes or environment in which
tourists and tour guides interact. It is these factors and their actual interactions that tourists
interpret through their own holistic mental model process to form speci?c service quality
perceptions. Finally, cognitive and affective contexts are individual psychological factors
that are considered subjective. Oliver (1997) states that cognition and affective responses
to a product stimulus mold consumers’ evaluative judgments. In the holistic mental model
perception process, cognitive systems and affective states play different roles in the
service quality perception. The higher mental processes of understanding and evaluation
are performed by the cognitive system, whereas affects are related to the individual’s
feelings toward the service (Van Dolen et al., 2004).
Russell and Pratt (1980) suggest that affect is the mediating variable among stimuli, the
cognitive process and response behavior. Lazarus (1999) said that cognitive activities take
place before emotional activities, in the early stage of the psychological process, whereas
the later stage of cognitive activities is in?uenced by emotional activities. Forgas (1995)
describes ways in which affect may in?uence satisfaction through affect infusion (or affect
transfer), suggesting that positive emotions in?uence judgments by shaping what it
noticed, encoded and retrieved in the judgment process. Alternatively, individuals may use
their affective state as a shortcut to infer their overall attitude to an object. The roles of
cognition and emotion in service quality perception in tourism encounters have attracted
the attention of a number of scholars. Oliver (1989) and Lee and Lee (2005) found that both
positive and negative emotions may moderate tourists’ cognitive judgment of satisfaction.
According to Bosque and Martin (2008, p. 566), “Cognitions contribute to the formation of
emotions; and satisfaction is in?uenced by emotions during the stay”.
As a result, consumer emotions could mediate the impact of cognitive judgments on
satisfaction (Bosque and Martin, 2008). Homburg et al. (2006) state that with the
accumulation of experience, the impact of affective factors on customer satisfaction
decreases while the impact of cognitive factors on customer satisfaction increases. Affect
has a greater impact on the satisfaction judgments in earlier stages of the satisfaction
development process, when judgments require a higher degree of constructive processing
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(Homburg et al., 2006). Rojas and Camarero (2008) also state that experience is the
determinant of affective states. However, experience is one variable of an individual’s
cognitive psychographics; hence, we argue that cognition plays a leading and decisive
role prior to affect.
From the above analysis, we can see a clear picture of the holistic mental model process
(Figure 2) and the role that the four contextual variables play during tourists’ evaluation
process. Tourists perceive intercultural service encounters (including both the interaction
and the actual situational context), through a psychological process. However, cultural
factors play a determinant role in tourists’ cognition. Then comes the most important
cognitive process (all the cognitive contextual factors may work together to interpret what
the tourist is experiencing). Finally, affective factors play a moderating role in the
relationship between cognition and the satisfaction evaluation.
Discussion
This paper contributes to and helps to advance the current literature relating to intercultural
service encounters with the development of a holistic mental model process that takes into
account four contextual factors: culture, situation, cognition and affects. The relationships
among these variables are also discussed. The holistic mental model process gives us a
clear picture of the way in which tourists perceive the quality of tourist–tour guide
encounters. Tourists, under the integrated in?uence of these variables, build models
unconsciously to form their evaluation of the service encounter. Differences in cultural
backgrounds between the tourists and the tour guide in?uence tourists’ expectations,
experiences and evaluation of a tour guide’s services. Hence, for tourists to form a positive
impression of the intercultural service encounter, it is recommended that tour guides
understand not only their own host culture but also various different cultural norms and
etiquette depending on the targeted tourists.
Tourists and tour guides interact in a speci?c situation. The physical environment, body
language and appearance of tour guides can in?uence individuals’ perceived service
quality. The cognitive context is the most important element in the mental process. Tourists’
expectations, prior experiences, personal values and cognitive abilities work together in a
cognitive process to form their perceptions. In this process, tourists play a moderating role
between cognition and satisfaction. Thus, the emotional intelligence of the tour guide is
crucial to improving tourists’ emotional state and therefore their satisfaction.
Managerial implications
Travel agencies and tourism companies should conduct regular research and apply the
holistic mental model process framework to analyzing the variables that in?uence tourists’
perception of service quality and their satisfaction level. An in-depth understanding of
Figure 2 Tourists’ holistic mental model process of service perception and its
in?uencing variables
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tourists’ holistic mental model processing may help guide tourism companies to design
better tour-guide training programs. The determinant role of cultural variables requires that
tourism companies increase their tour guides’ awareness of different cultures and their
ability to understand tourists’ cultural orientation preferences in service modes and the
different cultural service personalities of tourists. At the same time, another important way
for tourism companies to improve service quality is to optimize their enterprise culture to
improve their employees’ motivation and positive emotions during service exchange or
delivery. The moderating role of emotions suggests that emotional intelligence training is
very important in helping tour guides enhance tourists’ positive emotions and/or reduce
negative emotions and thus increasing tourists’ overall positive evaluation.
Future research
More research is needed on tourist and tour-guide service encounters; for example, the
effect of tourists’ cultural orientation, tour guide’s cultural orientation and the
culture-speci?c personality or etiquette on their overall perception and evaluation of their
travel experience. Moderating and mediating variables, such as mood and emotions, can
also be included in future research models. For the bene?t of tourists, tour guides and the
travel industry, research relating to tourists and tour guides in different cultural contexts
deserves more attention, as very few studies have attempted to empirically test this
relationship.
Future research should continue to expand and improve the rigor of research into
intercultural service encounters and the holistic mental model process. Researchers should
create speci?c scales to facilitate more in-depth understanding of the effect of the
intercultural service encounter on tourists’ perception and evaluation of tour guides. More
?eld research is also encouraged for more in-depth realistic examination. Examining
tourists’ perceptions and evaluation on a temporal continuum would also help to advance
this area of research because tourists’ emotions and cognitive processes are not always
?xed throughout their travel experience.
Conclusion
The continual growth of the international travel and tourism industry underscores the
importance of understanding factors in?uencing intercultural service encounters and
tourists’ perceptions of and satisfaction with their traveling experience. As more and more
tourists join group tours in traveling abroad, intercultural tourism service encounters are
becoming more common and important in tourists’ evaluation of their travel tour. Among the
multiple intercultural service encounters, encounters between tourists and tour guides are
considered the most typical and frequent, in particular when the tourist purchased a
package group tour. Thus, this intercultural service encounter serves as an important role
in in?uencing tourists’ satisfaction with their overall travel experience and the holistic mental
model process helps to dissect how tourists go about in evaluating their overall travel
experience.
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Across the Firm (6th ed.). McGraw-Hill, Boston, MA.
Zhang, H.Q. and Chow, I. (2004), “Application of importance-performance model in tour guides’
performance: Evidence from mainland Chinese outbound visitors in Hong Kong”, Tourism
Management, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 81-91.
Zhang, J., Beatty, S. and Walsh, G. (2008), “Review and future directions of cross-cultural consumer
services research”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 61 No. 3, pp. 211-224.
About the authors
Defang Zhao is Associate Professor at Shanghai Institute of Tourism, Shanghai Normal
University, Shanghai, China. Her research interests focus on intercultural service encounter
and cross-cultural communications. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Beijing
Second Foreign Language University, Tourism Forum, Journal of Shanghai Normal
University, Tourism Review, Tourism Science and other refereed journals and conference
proceedings. Defang Zhao is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
[email protected]
Ingrid Y. Lin is Associate Professor at the School of Travel Industry Management, University
of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, the USA. Her research interests focus on services
marketing and consumer behavior – servicescapes, cross-cultural studies on switching
behavior, sensation and perception. Her articles have appeared in Journal of Services
Marketing, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Hospitality and
Tourism Research, Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management and other refereed
journals and conference proceedings.
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
VOL. 8 NO. 3 2014 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH PAGE 309
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This article has been cited by:
1. Hye Eun Lee, Joyce Hyunjoo Hwang, Keri Bennett. 2015. Understanding culture on the effectiveness of restaurant servers’
check-back style. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 27:8, 1905-1926. [Abstract] [Full Text]
[PDF]
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doc_430469805.pdf
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a theoretical framework, the holistic mental model
process, with major contextual factors (cultural, situation, cognitive and affective contexts) to help better
understand tourists’ perception and evaluation of intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounters
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Understanding tourists’ perception and evaluation of inter-cultural service encounters: a holistic mental
model process
Defang Zhao Ingrid Y. Lin
Article information:
To cite this document:
Defang Zhao Ingrid Y. Lin , (2014),"Understanding tourists’ perception and evaluation of inter-cultural service encounters: a
holistic mental model process", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 8 Iss 3 pp. 290 - 309
Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJ CTHR-09-2013-0070
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Understanding tourists’ perception and
evaluation of inter-cultural service
encounters: a holistic mental model
process
Defang Zhao and Ingrid Y. Lin
Defang Zhao is an
Associate Professor
based at Shanghai
Institute of Tourism,
Shanghai Normal
University, Shanghai,
China, and Ingrid Y. Lin
is an Associate Professor
based at School of Travel
Industry Management,
University of Hawaii at
Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii,
USA.
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a theoretical framework, the holistic mental model
process, with major contextual factors (cultural, situation, cognitive and affective contexts) to help better
understand tourists’ perception and evaluation of intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounters.
Design/methodology/approach – Summary tables of an extensive literature review of previous
empirical studies relating to intercultural service encounters, service encounter and service quality to
help derive the holistic mental model process framework are included.
Findings – Gaps fromthe previous literature were identi?ed along with in-depth explanations as to how
a holistic mental model process can be applied to tourists evaluating intercultural tourist–tour guide
service encounters and the service quality of their overall travel experience.
Research limitations/implications – The current conceptual framework of the holistic mental model
process targets speci?cally on the intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounters. More in-depth
empirical studies can be conducted focusing on speci?c variables of the intercultural tourist–tour guide
service encounters and on the factor differences between speci?c cultures.
Practical implications – This research has practical implications for travel agencies and tourism
companies. Travel agencies and tour companies can apply the holistic mental model process
framework to examine and analyze the in?uential variables between tourists and tour guide (i.e. cultural
differences, etiquette, norms and behaviors), thus design better tour guide training programs
accordingly.
Social implications – Service encounter is a social activity that is in?uenced by the social
environment. To achieve the best service quality, all parties, including tourists, tour guide, tour
companies, host community, must understand cultural differences; work together in coordination and
cooperation.
Originality/value – This is the ?rst study that provides an in-depth holistic mental model process by
integrating major contextual factors to examine tourists’ evaluation of intercultural service encounters
between themselves and tour guides.
Keywords Contextual factors, Service encounter, Tourists, Holistic mental model process,
Intercultural, Tour guide
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
This conceptual paper focuses on the previous research on the effects of intercultural
service encounters and service-quality perceptions on tourists’ level of satisfaction. Service
encounters are de?ned as the interactions between service providers and customers
(Zeithaml et al., 2013). Intercultural service encounters are de?ned as the service
exchanges or interactions of two or more parties from two different cultural backgrounds
(Strauss and Mang, 1999). For example, if tourists visiting Japan are Americans and the
tour guide is Japanese, when the American tourists and the Japanese tour guide interact,
it is an intercultural service encounter. Intercultural service encounters have long been an
Received 27 September 2013
Revised 15 December 2013
Accepted 22 March 2014
PAGE 290 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH VOL. 8 NO. 3, 2014, pp. 290-309, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182 DOI 10.1108/IJCTHR-09-2013-0070
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important subject of academic research in management. With the tremendous increase in
the numbers of outbound tourists, many researchers have studied the relationship between
culture and service-quality perceptions and many of these studies shed light on sectors of
the hospitality and tourism industry, such as restaurants, hotels and airlines (Johns et al.,
2004; Mattila, 1999; Reisinger and Turner, 1999; Strauss and Mang, 1999; Tsaur et al.,
2005; Winsted, 1997).
Winsted (1997) found that conversation, civility and personalization are important
contributors to service quality evaluation in a restaurant for both Japanese and Americans.
However, congeniality and authenticity are important for North Americans, and concern
and formality are important for the Japanese. Mattila (1999), who studied Western and
Asian customers in a hotel setting, concluded that customers with a Western cultural
background rely more on tangible cues than do Asian customers; the hedonic dimension
is more important for Westerners than for Asians. Strauss and Mang (1999) studied
Japanese, American and German airline passengers and found that cultural differences
have a signi?cant effect on service evaluation and that culture shock, which leads to
consumer dissatisfaction, occurs when service providers do not meet the culturally
determined expectations of foreign customers. In their study of Asian tourists and
Australian hosts, Reisinger and Turner (1999) found ?ve dimensions that differ between the
two groups: courtesy and responsiveness, competence, interaction, idealism and
communication. Johns et al. (2004) studied US customers in a Cyprus travel agency and
found that promptness, empathy, ef?ciency and servicescape aesthetics were the main
determinants of their satisfaction. Tsaur et al. (2005) used samples of hotel customers from
English-speaking countries, Asia and continental Europe and discovered that perceptions
of a hotel’s tangibles, reliability, assurance and empathy were the highest among
participants with an English heritage in comparison to their Asian or continental European
counterparts.
The studies described above provide limited depth of incorporating and explaining the
various contextual factors with the holistic mental model process of tourists’ perception of
quality and their overall satisfaction during the intercultural service encounter. Therefore, an
advanced conceptual holistic mental model process, as presented in this paper, can help
bridge the gap for future research in the related areas. From what we know, this is the ?rst
study that provides an in-depth holistic mental model process by integrating major
contextual factors to examine tourists’ evaluation of intercultural service encounters
between themselves and tour guides.
We attempt to present a holistic mental model process to answer the following questions:
What contextual factors or variables in?uence the intercultural service encounter?
What are the relationships among these variables?
How do tourists perceive the quality of a tour guide’s service and evaluate their overall
satisfaction with this intercultural service encounter?
Literature review
Three reliable journals in the tourism ?eld were chosen for the initial literature review and
search:
1. Annals of Tourism Research (ATR);
2. Tourism Management (TM); and
3. Journal of Travel Research (JTR).
Three key search terms (service encounter, service quality and satisfaction) were used in
scanning the abstracts to sort out the pertinent articles from 2000 to 2013 (June).
Summaries of the 48 published studies on service quality and satisfaction in the travel
industry are presented in Tables I and II. Some of these studies focused on service quality
VOL. 8 NO. 3 2014 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH PAGE 291
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Table I Summary of articles related to service encounter quality and satisfaction in the travel industry
Service context Author(s) Journal Purpose of the study Findings
Airline Tsaur et al. (2002) TM To apply the fuzzy set theory to evaluate the service
quality of airlines
The aspects of service quality of most concern are tangible
and the aspect of least concern is empathy. The most
important attributes are courtesy, safety and comfort
Airline Gilbert and Wong
(2003)
TM To identify the service dimensions that matter most
to current airline passengers
There are signi?cant differences among passengers from
different ethnic groups/nationalities as well as among
passengers who travel for different purposes. The ?ndings
also indicate that passengers consistently rank
“assurance,905> as the most important service
dimension
Airport Martín-Cejas
(2006)
TM To evaluate the service quality given to tourists,
especially to determine the level of service
established in a check-in service at the airport
Average waiting time and crowding level for airport facilities
are two relevant aspects in tourists’ perception of service
quality when arriving at their destination
Destination Alegre and Garau
(2010)
ATR To determine whether certain negative situations or
characteristics can partially explain overall
satisfaction and the intention to return
Some tourists’ negative or unsatisfactory experiences need
to be de?ned within the speci?c context of evaluation. The
analyses show that dissatisfaction statements have an
obvious bearing on both tourists’ overall satisfaction and
their intention to return
Destination Fuchs and
Weiermair (2004)
JTR To improve benchmarking approaches to studying
guest satisfaction with destination
This article empirically tests two approaches (importance
grid and penalty–reward–contrast) using different sets of
variables from a recent destination benchmarking survey.
Two methods help illuminate the causal nexus between
tourism value-chain domains or tourism service quality
attributes and tourist satisfaction
Destination Joppe et al. (2001) JTR To examine Toronto visitors’ perceptions of products
and services in terms of importance and satisfaction
by visitor origin
Closer analysis of the visitors’ country of origin shows some
important differences in the attributes seen as important as
well as in levels of satisfaction
Event Getz et al. (2001) JTR To study the service quality at events through
service mapping
The service encounters in events is different than in other
services Satisfaction with the event may include different
elements: the site, staff and other elements (souvenir,
crowd behavior, hour of competition, etc.)
Hot springs hotels Hsieh et al. (2008) TM To discover what services must be offered by hot
springs hotels to raise customer satisfaction and to
encourage repeat customers
This research builds an evaluation framework for hot
springs hotels in Taiwan based on the ?ve dimensions of
Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (PZB) service quality
(tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and
empathy) with the concept of the Analytic Hierarchy
Process (AHP) hierarchy
Hotel Briggs et al. (2007) TM To examine service quality across small, medium
and large hotels in Scotland; to establish
management and customers’ current perceptions of
service quality performance
Service is being lost by the focus of the Scottish quality
assurance (QA) scheme on tangibles and there are major
inconsistencies in service quality performance across the
sectors
Rural
accommodation
Carlos et al. (2007) ATR To establish the dimensions for evaluation of service
quality in rural accommodations and to develop an
instrument to measure service quality
Seven dimensions are found: personnel response,
complementary offers, tourist relations, basic demands,
tangible elements, security and empathy
Summer destination Prasnikar et al.
(2010)
ATR To conceptualize a construct of perceived service
quality (PSQ) as a formative latent construct
consisting of potential indicators from the extended
classi?cation of attributes of a tourist destination’s
offer
“Sea, sun and sand” is the persistent prevailing summer
tourist offer that in?uences service quality perceptions.
However, destinations can achieve better PSQ by focusing
on speci?c attributes of their offer
Theoretical analysis Baker and
Crompton (2000)
ATR To focus on the impact of performance quality and
satisfaction on behavioral intentions
Perceived performance quality has a stronger total effect
on behavioral intentions than satisfaction. Results suggest
that evaluation efforts should include assessment of both
performance quality and satisfaction
Theoretical analysis Bosque and Martin
(2008)
ATR To carry out an exploration of an individual’s
cognitive and affective psychological processes
during the pre-experience and post-experience
stages
Preconceived images of the destination in?uence
expectations and tourist loyalty. Additionally, there is
support for the impact of expectations and emotions on
satisfaction
Theoretical analysis Hudson et al
(2004)
JTR To assess four methods for measuring customer
satisfaction (IPA, SERVQUAL, multiply SERVQUAL
by importance, SERVPERF)
Although the rankings of different elements varied, there
was no statistical difference between the four
methodologies
Theoretical analysis Neal and Gursoy
(2008)
JTR To provide empirical evidence that satisfaction with
travel and tourism services is the result of
satisfaction during various stages of the tourism
experience
Tourists’ level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction during
various stages of travel in?uences their overall satisfaction
with travel and tourism services
Tourist farm Rozman et al.
(2009)
TM To address problem of assessing tourist farm
service quality by applying the qualitative multi-
criteria method DEX
The DEXi methodology proved to be very valuable,
appropriate and advantageous when compared with other
means of ranking enterprises
Travel agency Caro and Garcia
(2008)
TM To develop a comprehensive model to measure
service quality in the Spanish travel industry based
on Brady and Cronin’s (2001) conceptualization
Customers’ perceptions of the service quality of travel
agencies consist of three primary dimensions: Personal
interaction, physical environment and outcome
Travel agency Millan and Esteban
(2004)
TM To identify and evaluate those elements and
dimensions that determine client satisfaction through
the service offered by travel agencies
A multiple-item scale for measuring customer satisfaction in
travel agencies services ?nds six dimensions (service
encounter, empathy, reliability, ef?ciency, environment and
additional factors) that in?uence satisfaction formation
Travel agency Bigné et al. (2003) ATR The aim of the research is the analysis of the
reliability and validity of a SERVQUAL scale
adjusted for travel agencies’ services
The reliability dimension has the highest weighting in
importance as well as a positive and signi?cant relationship
with overall quality
PAGE 292 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH VOL. 8 NO. 3 2014
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Table II Variables in?uencing service quality and satisfaction
Service context Authors Variables Journal Purpose of study Findings
Adventure tourism guide Mackenzie and Kerr
(2013)
Stress and emotions TM To provide an extended “insiders’”
perspective of adventure tourism
guiding experiences and to identify
sources of stress and emotions in
the employer–guide relationship
Stress and negative emotions are
caused by misunderstandings and
communication dif?culties caused by
cultural differences, lack of information,
inequality, and lack of trust
Airline passenger Kim and Prideaux
(2003)
Cultural difference ATR To examine cross-cultural
differences among airline
passengers from a ?ight attendant’s
perspective
Airline passengers from different
nationalities and cultural backgrounds
have different expectations and service
perceptions
Alpine ski area Matzler et al. (2008) Personal, situational
factor
JTR To study the relationship of personal,
situational, and product factors with
overall satisfaction using Alpine ski
resorts
Personal, situational, and product
factors moderate the
attribute–performance–satisfaction
relationship
Asian and Western
tourists
Tsang and Ap
(2007)
Cultural difference JTR To identify the difference between
Asian and Western tourists’
perceptions of relational quality
provided by guest-contact
employees
The quality of interpersonal
relationships was a key factor in
determining the Asian customers’
service-encounter evaluations, while
Western customers placed emphasis
on goal completion, ef?ciency, and
time savings
Australian host and Asian
tourists
Reisinger and Turner
(2002)
Cultural difference JTR To support the hypothesis that the
cultural differences between Asian
tourists and Australian hosts
determine tourist–host interactions
and satisfaction with the interactions
Cultural values, rules of social
behavior, and perceptions of service
are important tourism constructs
in?uencing and explaining tourist-host
social contact and satisfaction. Cultural
models of the cultural differences
between Asian tourists and Australian
hosts are developed
British/Ger-man tourists Kozak (2001) Cultural difference TM To determine whether there are
differences in satisfaction levels
between two nationalities visiting the
same destination
British tourists were more likely to be
satis?ed with almost all individual
attributes than German tourists
Casino visitors Wong and Dioko
(2013)
Customer
expectations
TM To understand the alternative
conceptualizations of customer
expectations in the customer
satisfaction (CS) model and whether
customer expectations can better
explain CS through its (expectation)
moderating effect
Customer expectations moderate the
mediating effect of perceived value
while perceived value fully mediates
the moderating effect of customer
expectations. The results suggest both
moderated mediation and mediated
moderation
Cruise vacationers Huang and Hsu
(2010)
Customer-to-customer
interaction
JTR To examine interactions between
tourists on cruise vacations and their
impact on the cruise experience and
vacation satisfaction
The quality of C2C interaction has a
direct, positive impact on the cruise
experience as well as indirect effects on
vacation satisfaction, mediated by cruise
experience. Moreover, the quality of C2C
interaction has suppressor effects on the
quantity of customer to customer (C2C)
interactions
Cruise vacationer Sirakaya et al. (2004) Mood ATR To examine the effect of consumers’
mood on service evaluations of a
tourism product using a sample of
cruise vacationers
Mood moderates tourists’ overall
satisfaction levels
Golf players Petrick and
Backman (2002)
Comprehensive JTR To investigate the determinants of
golf travelers’ overall satisfaction
Information satisfaction is an
antecedent to attribute satisfaction.
Attributes related to the resort
experience had more in?uence on
overall satisfaction than attributes
related to information provided and
gol?ng experiences
Hedonic holiday
destination
Hosany and Gilbert
(2010)
Emotion JTR To answer two questions: ?rst, what
types of emotional responses do
tourists associate with destinations?
Second, how should these emotional
responses be measured?
Three salient dimensions represent the
Destination Emotion Scale: joy, love,
and positive surprise. In addition,
tourists’ emotional experiences are
related to satisfaction, which in turn
has a signi?cant in?uence on
behavioral intentions
Hong Kong tourists Song et al. (2012) Comprehensive ATR To develop a universal system of
tourism service evaluation from the
consumer’s point of view–a tourist
satisfaction index system
The model is able to address and
evaluate the links between
performance measures and strategic
outcomes related to tourist satisfaction
for all of the service sectors
considered. The satisfaction index
includes factors expectation, perceived
performance, value, loyalty, and
intention to complain
(continued)
VOL. 8 NO. 3 2014 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH PAGE 293
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Table II
Service context Authors Variables Journal Purpose of study Findings
International tourism Harrison (2011) Cultural difference ATR To demonstrate the importance of
culture and the need for sensitivity in
tourism
The third and fourth parts of this book
review introduce the in?uence of
cultural factors on tourists behavior,
psychological features, and guest-host
interactions
Japanese tourists Hasegawa (2010) Comprehensive TM To consider the multivariate ordered
probit model using the Markov Chain
Monte Carlo (MCMC) method to
analyze tourists’ satisfaction
Satisfaction derived from the scenery
and meals has the largest in?uence on
the overall satisfaction
Korean service providers
in travel industry
Sohn and Lee (2012) Personality and
emotion
TM To explore to what extent service
providers’ emotional labor is affected
by personality, to analyze the effect
of emotional labor on the
performance of required emotional
display rules and to investigate
differences in emotional labor
depending on providers’
demographic features
Four HEXACO personality factors were
found to have a positive in?uence on
emotional labor. Deep acting has a
positive in?uence on the requirement to
display positive emotions and a
negative in?uence on the requirement
to hide negative emotions.
Demographic variables generally do
not affect emotional labor
Long-haul inclusive tours Bowen (2001) Comprehensive TM To check the theory against the
reality of a business situation from
the tourist industry
It is possible to have a reality check on
theories of antecedents of consumer
satisfaction and dissatisfaction;
performance is the core and in?uences
other factors
Package tour service Wang et al., (2007) Comprehensive TM To develop and empirically validate
an instrument (scale) which
measures the group package tour
service
Through an instrument development
process, six factors were identi?ed:
hotel, transportation, shopping
arrangements, optional tours, tour
leader, and local guide
Taiwanese tourists in
Queensland
Master and Prideaux
(2000)
Cultural difference TM To examine the role of material
culture in determining visitor
satisfaction among Taiwanese
tourists
Most Taiwanese respondents believed
that culture did not play a major role in
determining their satisfaction levels and
they expressed a high level of
satisfaction with their visit
Taiwanese tourists to
foreign areas
Wu (2007) Customer -to-
customer interaction
TM To investigate the relationship
between customer-to-customer
interactions, customer homogeneity,
and customer satisfaction
“Malcontent incidents” have a
signi?cantly negative impact on
customer satisfaction. “Evaluation of
fellow customers” has a positive
in?uence on customer satisfaction
Theme park visitors Bigne et al (2005) Emotion TM To analyze how visitor emotions in a
theme park environment in?uence
satisfaction and behavioral intentions
The cognitive theory of emotions better
explains the effect of pleasure on
satisfaction and loyalty
Theme park visitors Dong and Siu (2013) Servicescape,
customer
predisposition
TM To test how servicescape elements
and customer predispositions
explain customers’ evaluations of a
service experience
A link was found between the
servicescape and tourist evaluations
through the moderating effects of
customer predispositions
Tour guide Min (2011) Emotion ATR To provide an emotional intelligence-
based training program focusing on
tour guides’ strengths and
weaknesses
The emotional intelligence of Taiwan
tour guides needs to be improved. The
?ndings have implications for emotional
learning and teaching
Tour guide Min (2012) Emotion TM To generate and evaluate an
emotional skills assessment process-
condensed version instrument for
tour guides
The reliable and valid 35-item version
(ESAP-CV-35), reduced from 104
items, captures the multidimensional
nature of Emotional Intelligence in six
subscales
Tour guide service in
Hong Kong
Zhang and Chow
(2004)
Comprehensive TM To explore the importance and
performance of tour guides in Hong
Kong as perceived by mainland
Chinese visitors
Hong Kong’s tour guides performed
well in attributes such as professional
skills, reliability, and language ability,
while the problem-solving ability needs
to be improved
Tourist information center
staff
Wong and
McKercher (2011)
Comprehensive ATR To examine the exchange process,
the level of information gate keeping
and the role of tourist information
center (TIC) staff as knowledge
brokers
Body language, perception of
customers’ demands and attitude have
much greater in?uence on the quality
of the information exchange process
than information exchanged
Tourists visiting attraction Bigné and Andreu
(2004)
emotion ATR To detect emotional-based
segments and analyze which one is
the most satis?ed and loyal toward
the leisure and tourism service
Those experiencing greater pleasure
and arousal showed an increased level
of satisfaction as well as more
favorable behavioral intentions,
meaning loyalty and willingness to pay
more
Travel agency Bosque et al. (2006) expectation TM To provide empirical evidence about
the formation of expectations and
the relation between expectations,
satisfaction and consumer loyalty
Results demonstrate the importance of
‘image’ in the expectations formulation
process. Perceived image of a travel
agency is the most important factor
generating the expectation of a future
encounter with the service
(continued)
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and satisfaction in speci?c travel sectors, such as airlines, hotels and destination and travel
agencies (see Table I). Most of these studies focused on various factors in?uencing service
quality evaluations and satisfaction in different service contexts: mood, emotion, culture,
personal features, expectations, customer-to-customer interactions and the service
environment (see Table II).
Wong and McKercher (2011) conducted a qualitative study of service encounters in the
Macau Tourist information Center. They found that body language, perception of tourist
requirements and the attitude of the center staff are more important than the information
exchanged. Other scholars have analyzed the effect of emotion and mood on tourists’
service quality perceptions. Bigne et al. (2005) studied the important role of pleasure and
arousal on service quality perception at a theme park and found that active arousal
in?uences positive cognitive difference and pleasure, thus supporting the cognitive theory
of emotions. Some studies have examined intercultural factors in tourists’ quality perception
and evaluation. Tsang and Ap (2007) analyzed differences between Asian tourists and
Western tourists in the perception of relational quality service and found that relational
quality is a crucial factor for Asian tourists in evaluating service encounters, while Western
tourists focus more on achievement of the goal, ef?ciency and time spent. Dong and Siu
(2013), using theme-park visitors as samples, studied the in?uence of servicescape and
customer predisposition on quality perception. They found a link between the servicescape
and tourist evaluation through the moderating effects of customer predispositions. Wong
and Dioko (2013) found that customer expectations moderate the mediating effect of
perceived value and satisfaction, while the perceived value fully mediates the moderating
effect of customer expectations and customer satisfaction.
Based on the previous literature, service encounters between tourists and service
providers are an important element of perceived service quality and satisfaction formation.
Among the 48 articles, only ?ve papers examined the topic of tour guides. Two studies
focus on the service quality perception of tourists and tour guide interactions. Wang et al.
(2007) identi?ed six factors in the service quality perceptions of group package tourists:
hotel, transportation, shopping arrangements, optional tours, tour leader and local guides.
Professional ability, friendliness, good presentation ability, skillful group leadership, a
sense of responsibility, and good coordination skills of the tour leader and local guides are
important attributes of good service. Zhang and Chow (2004) analyzed the important
factors in mainland Chinese tourists’ perception of the service quality of their Hong Kong
tour guide and found the following attributes: professional skill, reliability, linguistic ability,
knowledge, politeness, friendliness, honesty, communication competence and a neat and
clean appearance.
Three papers focus on the emotions of tour guides. Min (2011, 2012) focused on the
signi?cance of the emotional intelligence of tour guides and providing emotional
intelligence training programs for tour guides and developed a short-form measure for
assessment of tour guides’ emotional intelligence. Mayer and Salovey (1993) were the ?rst
Table II
Service context Authors Variables Journal Purpose of study Findings
Travel agency customers Grissemann and
Sauer (2012)
Customer co-creation
of service
TM To develop a conceptual model of
customer co-creation of tourism
services and empirically test this
model in a travel agency context
The degree of co-creation further
positively affects customer satisfaction
with the service company, customer
loyalty, and service expenditures.
Customers who are satis?ed with their
co-creation activities spend more on
their travel arrangements, but are less
satis?ed with the company
Visitors in heritage
context
Rojas and Camarero
(2008)
Emotion, mood TM To examine how expectations,
experiences and satisfaction are
related in the context of cultural
tourism service
The perceived quality is a direct
determinant of satisfaction, as are
emotions. Visitors’ mood states
moderate the cognitive path as
generator of visitor satisfaction
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to introduce the term “emotional intelligence”; it is de?ned as the ability to deal with
emotional ?uctuations. Mackenzie and Kerr (2013) took an adventure tourism guide as a
case study and explored the guide’s stress and emotions resulting from employer–guide
interactions. They found that stress and negative emotions are caused by
misunderstandings and communication dif?culties stemming from cultural differences, lack
of information, inequality and lack of trust. Though these papers have no direct relation to
the perception of quality, their discussions of emotional intelligence or the stress of the tour
guide demonstrates the importance of emotion and its in?uence on tourist–tour guide
interactions.
Our review of the literature suggests that the topic of service encounters between tourist
and tour guide has been under-researched. The position of tour guide is very popular, and
tour guides are an important segment of the service within the travel and tourism industry
in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. More importantly, the tour guide is an important
factor in tourists’ perception of service quality and their satisfaction; the service encounter
between the tourist and the tour guide deserves more in-depth attention and research
especially for those countries or destinations that rely on tour guides to enhance travelers’
interest. This paper helps to ?ll this gap by creating a conceptual framework to better
explain the notion of intercultural service encounters between tourists and tour guides.
The role of a tour guide
A tour guide may be the ?rst and most frequent frontline staff that tourists encounter during
their trip. One of the main tasks of a tour guide is to ensure tourist satisfaction with the
services provided. According to the International Association of Tour Managers, the role of
a tour guide is to guide groups of individual visitors to major attractions; to interpret the
cultural and natural heritage and environment in an entertaining manner by using the
language of the visitor’s choice (Wong et al., 1998). A tour guide is an information provider,
source of knowledge, a culture broker (Reisinger and Steiner, 2006), an intercultural
mediator (Nonnenmann and Scherle, 2008), a social facilitator, people mover, safety
of?cer, company representative, entertainer, problem solver and counselor (Rabotic,
2010). Tour guides act as intermediaries between tourists and the unknown environment,
arranging transportation, interpreting, handling problems, insulating travelers from
dif?culties and making the environment safe for tourists (Pearce, 1982; Schmidt, 1979). The
role of tour guides and the tour guides’ quality of services provided to the tourists are
essential to the success of the tourism industry and to the reputation and image of the
destination as well as travel agencies.
Intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounter
We have developed a holistic mental model process of intercultural service encounter
between tourists and tour guides (shown in Figure 1) from the basis of integrating and
extending from previously established concepts: tourism culture (TC) (Weiermair, 2000),
service encounter (Klaus, 1985) and pragmatics (Verschueren, 1999). Weiermair (2000)
introduced and explained the formation of tourism culture. TC encompasses both the
tourist’s national or regional cultural setting and subculture (i.e. socioeconomic) and the
host’s (e.g. a tour guide’s) national or regional cultural setting and organizational culture of
the tourism enterprise that the tour guide works for (Weiermair, 2000).
Klaus (1985) presented a model emphasizing the importance of the interactive process of
face-to-face service encounter from both the internal factors (i.e. personality and
characteristics of participants) and external factors (i.e. cultural and social environment)
that in?uence the quality of service encounter. Further, from the linguistics literature of
pragmatics (Verschueren, 1999), it provides a theoretical framework on the notion of
interaction and serves as an important theory that helps to explain our current holistic
mental model research framework regarding the interactive effects of cognition and
emotions under different situational contexts (Verschueren, 1999). Verschueren’s (1999)
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study will be discussed more in detail in the next section. Together, the above three
concepts described, enable us to extend the literature and further develop the concept of
a holistic mental model process of the intercultural service encounter.
The service encounter between tour guide and tourists is ?rst characterized by some basic
procedural elements: task-orientation, instrumental behaviors conditioned by the standard
operating procedures of the travel industry and role differences (Czepiel et al., 1985).
During their encounter, tourists (T) (with different personal values, personalities,
experiences, expectations and emotions) and tour guides (G) (with different personalities,
skills and emotions) interact in certain situational contexts (S). Tourists from different
national cultures (e.g. national culture B) and subcultures are guided by their social and
cultural values during each service interaction with the tour guide. The tour guide, coming
from a different culture (e.g. national culture A), is guided both by his own culture and by
the culture of his enterprise while performing his role. When the two parties meet, a special
culture forms called TC which guides their mood and even perception of this intercultural
encounter. All these factors (social, cultural, situational, personal, psychological) form the
overall context of this encounter. Through the perceptual and cognitive apparatus of the
participants, the behaviors and contextual elements are transformed into subjective
experiences and behaviors of participants, in?uencing the progress of the interaction.
Contexts in?uencing the intercultural tourists–tour guide service encounter
Context is a concept originally from pragmatics. It refers to various factors that in?uence the
participants’ understanding and formation of utterances to keep the communication going
smoothly. The most comprehensive explanation of context derives from Verschueren
(1999), a Belgian linguist. His communicative context includes both the utterer and
interpreter and their mental world, social world and physical world. All these factors are
activated through the cognitive mechanisms of interlocutors (participants in the
communication) and work together to in?uence the interaction. According to Verschueren
(1999), the mental world refers to psychological factors, including the interlocutor’s
personality, emotions, intention and expectations. It consists of cognitive and affective
factors. Cognitive factors include expectations, knowledge of the society, hypotheses,
beliefs and cognitive ability. Affective factors refer to the interlocutor’s emotional state and
mood during the interaction. The social world refers to the rules and norms of interaction
required by social and cultural conventions. The physical world includes time and space/
place and the interlocutor’s non-verbal features, such as gestures, posture, eye contact,
appearance and physiological characteristics. Verschueren’s (1999) concept of context is
suitable for analyzing the service encounter between tourist and tour guide because
tourists and tour guides typically communicate interactively throughout the travel
experience.
Figure 1 Intercultural service encounter between tourists and tour guide
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Based on Verschueren’s (1999) concept of context and the nature of the interactions
between tourists and tour guides, this paper classi?es four different contexts of intercultural
service encounters:
1. the cultural context, also known as the tourism culture;
2. the situational context, which includes the interaction between the physical
environment, tourists and tour guide;
3. the cognitive context; and
4. the affective context, which emphasizes the psychological perception of service
quality.
Cultural context
Many scholars have af?rmed the role of cultural variables in service quality evaluation. It is
generally accepted that culture shapes consumers’ perceptions by providing a frame of
reference through which the world is observed (McCracken, 1986). Culture provides norms
for thinking, feeling and acting that are rooted in common values and societal conventions
(Nakata and Sivakumar, 2001). Culture also provides cues regarding the rules of social
conduct and expectations relative to the encounter and serves as a frame of reference
(Hartman et al., 2009). What is de?ned as “good” service is culturally bound (Zeithaml et al.,
2013). Quality can be de?ned and generalized only within a certain cultural context. Three
sets of variables, namely, personal values, national cultural orientations and social
demographics, seem to explain the variation in criteria that customers use in evaluating
service quality in different cultures (Raajpoot, 2004).
In addition to their general cultural background, tourists may also belong to a multitude of
possible subcultures (i.e. they may be from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds or belong
to an interest group, such as hikers or photographers) which in?uence or explain individual
behavior. These factors condition tourists’ perception of service encounters and thus
contribute to the tourism culture. TC can also refer to touristhood or a state of mind (Jafari,
1987). While away from home, tourists may hide their real identity and take on a touristic
mood. In such a state of disconnectedness, they may begin to peel away the homebound
cultural layers and playfully take on any role they choose. Tourists may ignore not only the
cultural norms of home but also those of the destination. They live in a cultural mix of the
host culture, their heterogeneous residual cultures and the homogenous tourism culture.
The tour guide also works in a mix of two important cultures:
1. the cultural norms of his host country (e.g. the Chinese culture of a Chinese tour guide)
and
2. the organizational culture of his enterprise.
In addition, the tour guide has to use the language of the visitors’ choice to interpret the
heritage and different attractions. Therefore, the guide has to consider the national culture
and subcultures of the tourists in selecting the best way to ful?ll service-related tasks. It is
evident that tour guides live in a cultural margin where the guest culture, the host culture
and various subcultures meet and work together to condition and control their behavior.
Tour guides are also in?uenced by the organizational culture of the company, which may
affect their eagerness to serve customers (Bellou, 2007) and in turn, in?uence tourists’
satisfaction.
How do tourists interpret and perceive tour-guide service in such a complicated cultural
context? It is reasonable to propose that tourists (for example, Americans) will perceive and
evaluate the quality of, for example, a Chinese tour guide’s service, based on their own
(American) culture. The tourists probably have little knowledge of the host (i.e. Chinese)
culture and rely on their own culture as the basis for evaluating a tour guide’s overall
service. In the playful touristhood state of mind, it is hard to measure how much or to what
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extent tourists depend on their own culture in service perception. Therefore, we propose
that tourists’ cultural orientation will in?uence their perception of a tour guide’s service.
Likewise, a tour guide’s cultural orientation will in?uence tourists’ expectations, experiences
and evaluations of the services he or she provides.
Different cultures have different features. Each culture enjoys its own cultural service
personality (Zhang et al., 2008). For example, tourists from Western individualistic cultures
have a high expectation from the overall service quality. They expect a friendly, assured,
reliable and responsive tour guide. They focus on meeting their own needs and therefore
cannot tolerate poor service (Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Laroche et al., 2005). On the other
hand, tourists from a collectivist culture have lower expectations from the responsiveness
and reliability of the service staff and can tolerate poor service (Donthu and Yoo, 1998).
Tourists’ cultural orientation can also in?uence the relationship between expectation and
satisfaction. Tourists from collectivist cultures pay more attention to the ideas of the whole
group than that of their own expectations, thus reducing the relationship between
expectation and satisfaction (Spreng and Chiou, 2002). Tourists from individualistic
cultures, however, pay more attention to their own ideas and feelings, thus strengthening
the relationship between expectation and satisfaction. The low-context cultures of the West
and the high-context cultures of the East also have a great effect on service perception and
satisfaction (Hall, 1966). For example, in low-context cultures, cognition is very important in
the service quality perception process, while in high-context cultures, cognition and
emotion are both important (Hall, 1966; Samli, 1985).
Situational context
The situational context refers to the setting for the interaction, including the appearance
and body language of the participants and the physical environment. It sets constraints and
conditions for the interactions. The personality traits and the appearance of a tour guide
play an important role in this context. Zhang and Chow (2004) found that a neat and tidy
appearance is one of the attributes of Chinese tourists’ perception that Hong Kong tour
guides provide good service. Previous research shows that good-looking tour guides
enhance tourists’ perception of service quality (Luoha and Tsaur, 2009). In any situation,
the appearance of a tour guide affects tourists’ perception of service quality in terms of
responsiveness and reliability (Luoha and Tsaur, 2009). The gender of a tour guide also
in?uences tourists’ perception of service quality (Fischer and Gainer, 1997; Luoha and
Tsaur, 2009). If the service provider is male, tourists may focus on the formality and
reliability dimensions of service quality. If the service provider is female, tourists may focus
more on the trust, honesty and assurance dimensions of service quality (Raajpoot, 2004).
Non-verbal behaviors, such as posture, gestures, eye contact, body health and facial
expressions, also belong to the situational context in?uencing tourist perception of service.
Leclerca and Martin (2004) found that for American tourists, non-verbal behaviors, such as
eye contact, smiling, nodding the head and leaning forward are attributes of a tour guide’s
perceived good service. Wong and McKercher (2011) found through their qualitative study
that body language and the attitude of the staff have a much greater in?uence on guests’
perception of service quality than the information exchanged.
Situational variables also include the physical environment. The in?uence of the physical
environment on service quality perception has attracted the attention of numerous scholars.
Mattila (1999) found that customers with a Western cultural background are more likely than
their Asian counterparts to rely on tangible cues from the physical environment to evaluate
service quality. Tsaur et al. (2002) found that the service quality aspects of most concern
in airlines are tangible and the attributes of most concern are the politeness of the service
staff and the cleanliness and comfort of the seats. Caro and Garcia (2008) found that the
physical environment is one of the three dimensions in which customers perceive the
service quality of a travel agency. Lin and Mattila (2010), who studied the effects of service
encounter and servicescape of a restaurant, found that consumers evaluate consumption
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experiences in a holistic manner; consequently, service providers have to make sure that
the customer positively evaluates both the physical environment and the service encounter
and delivery process. Encounters between tourists and tour guides occur in many different
physical environments, such as crowded restaurants or hotels or beautiful scenic spots
surrounding the restaurant or hotel. Interactions in various situational contexts make up the
overall service experience of tourists.
Cognitive context
The cognitive context is built upon the cultural and situational contexts. It is a psychological
construct based on knowledge, beliefs, personal values, individual past experiences,
individual cognitive abilities and the physical setting of the interaction. As rational people,
called cognitive information processors, tourists may process the exterior information
according to their beliefs, knowledge and prior travel experience to form their judgments.
The cognitive role in quality perception has been supported by several scholars (Oliver,
1980; Bosque and Martin, 2008; Van Dolen et al., 2004).
During the cognitive psychological process, tourists’ cultural orientation, personal values,
personality and other characteristics are all integrated into their perception of service
quality. For example, tourists with an openness-to-experience personality trait prefer to
have new experiences. Tourists with a self-enhancement value consider reliability and
personalization as the core service (Raajpoot, 2004). The role of tourists’ prior experience
in quality perception has been examined by Assael (1987), O’Neill and Palmer (2003) and
Raajpoot (2004).
Tourists coming from different cultures have different cultural values and beliefs, thus
having different cognitive perceptions. Even when they share the same national culture,
they are not totally the same in their cognitive ability, previous travel experience, personal
values and personalities. Thus, each tourist has his or her own unique psychological
perception of the same service delivered by a tour guide. Lin (2004) also postulated that
individual perception serves as a cognitive schema; an individual’s cognitive perceptions
stimulate his or her emotional responses. The cognitive context plays a very important role
because even in the same situational context, tourists coming from the same cultural
context may have different cognitive perceptions of the service due to their personal
characteristics. Therefore, tourists’ past experience, personal values, knowledge, cultural
context and cognitive perceptions are all very important in tourists’ cumulative perception
of the service quality of the tour guide.
Affective context
According to Winkielman et al. (2007), affect is an umbrella term covering one’s personal
psychological states, such as personal feelings, mood and categories of emotions. In this
paper, the affective context mainly refers to the affective state of tourists, such as emotion
and mood. Wirtz et al. (2000a and 2000b) conclude that the inclusion of affect into the
conceptualizations of consumer satisfaction is particularly important regarding services
due to their experiential nature. Wirtz et al. (2000a and 2000b), Yu and Dean (2001), Lin
(2004) and Gountas and Gountas (2007) have demonstrated the importance of emotions in
in?uencing tourists’ service quality perceptions. Bosque and Martin (2008) suggest that
emotions play an important role in travel because individuals’ enjoyment is based on their
own experiences. During the intercultural service encounter, both tourists and tour guides
are in a state of mind that is different fromtheir ordinary daily life. Tourists, in this touristhood
state of mind, may travel for the purpose of pleasure and relaxation, but feel a bit insecure
about the new environment. They may experience positive and negative emotions during
the same stay because they have multiple interactions with the resources in place. These
emotions in?uence their service perception and the formation of their ?nal tour satisfaction.
Bagozzi et al. (1999) suggest that mood may in?uence customers’ cognitive and emotional
formation processes and thus have signi?cant in?uence on information retrieval and
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information encoding, producing an asymmetric mood effect. Forgas and Bower (1987)
found that tourists in a good mood have a better memory of previous knowledge and
information than tourists in a bad or neutral mood. They tend to spend more time
interpreting positive information; they remember the information effectively and are
therefore more likely to have a positive interpretation of the stimuli. Thus, a good mood can
stimulate positive memories and resist negative memories. Sirakaya et al. (2004) also found
that mood moderates tourists’ overall satisfaction level. Tourists with lower mood
evaluations tend to have lower satisfaction levels. Lower levels of satisfaction were related
to bad mood. Mood and the emotions of tour guides have signi?cant impact on the
tourists–tour guide service encounter.
Sohn and Lee (2012) conclude that the personalities of the working staff can affect their
active emotions, thus improving tourists’ perception of service quality. Carvelzani et al.
(2003) and Min (2011, 2012) point out that the tour guide’s task is to induce positive
emotions in tourists because the mood and feelings of tourists in special situations are
important factors in their overall perception of service quality. Carvelzani et al. (2003)
suggest that tourism professionals (i.e. tour guides) should possess appropriate emotional
intelligence skills in that they should have the ability to manage and control their emotions.
The holistic mental model process
The purpose of introducing the holistic mental model process is to answer the following
questions:
What are the relationships among the contextual variables?
How do tourists perceive service quality and evaluate their overall satisfaction with the
intercultural service encounters with a tour guide?
As explained in the previous paragraphs, cultural, situational, cognitive and affective
factors work together to in?uence the service encounter between tourists and tour guides.
How do they work together to in?uence tourists’ perception of this encounter? The mental
model theory provides a good theoretical framework.
The concept of mental model originated froma British psychologist, Kenneth Craik, in 1943.
Later, it was developed into a cognitive way of inference (Johnson-Laird, 1980). The mental
model is a representation of external reality hypothesized to play a major role in proposition,
inference and interpretation. This model is built on the basis of the information derived from
the interaction and relevant knowledge from either long-term memory or short-term memory
for humans to predict, infer and interpret the events. The model is an abstract knowledge
system composed of many different knowledge groups bound by features of proximity or
similarity; the appearance of one can arouse people to think of the other, thus making the
whole event a predictable, understandable and interpretable network.
There are mental models of problemsolving and of social situations. Of particular relevance
for this article is the mental model of social interactions. According to Boven and Thompson
(2003), people are thought to have mental models of social groups to guide social behavior
and perceptions of social situations. The mental model of social interaction is the
knowledge system of one’s sense and memory of social information formed during social
interactions (i.e. service encounters); it is based on one’s experience and expectation and
plays an important role of guiding one’s behavior, organizing one’s thinking and in?uencing
the interpretation of information in different social contexts (Boven and Thompson, 2003).
For example, the mental models of social interaction have been applied in teaching and
pragmatics to explain how readers understand what they are reading and how interlocutors
infer the implication of utterances.
Translating the mental model concept into the tourist–tour guide encounter, the process of
tourists’ formation of quality perception is a holistic mental model process. This process is
determined by the knowledge of the tourists and the contextual factors of the interaction
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between tourists and tour guides. When interpreting the service of a tour guide, tourists
may undergo a mental process in which their knowledge of the social norms, the prior
experience in their memories, their expectations and cultural values and what they see and
hear may all work together to build a model to infer an evaluation result. Considering all
these factors/variables, tourists perceive the service quality of the encounter through a
holistic mental model process.
How do the cultural, situational, cognitive and affective variables work in this mental model
process? First, culture has been viewed as the “pattern of taken-for-granted assumptions
about how a given collection of people think, act and feel as they go about their daily
affairs” (Hall, 1976, p. 16); “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the
members of one human group from another” (Hofstede, 1984, p. 21) and “the accumulation
of shared meanings, rituals, norms and traditions among the members of an organisation
or society”(Solomon, 1996, p. 539). As members of a cultural group, they (tourists) can do
nothing but to follow their home culture, rituals, norms and traditions to form their own
values and beliefs guiding their behaviors. Therefore, it is reasonable to argue that the
cultural context can be considered the objective factor because individuals do not have
control over their cultural background; it determines the interpretation of the other three
contexts (situational, cognitive and affective). Tourists’ cultural orientation determines their
beliefs and cultural values; it also in?uences their behavior, the way they interpret the other
contextual factors (McCracken, 1986; Reisinger and Turner, 2002; Kim and Prideaux, 2003;
Hartman et al., 2009; Harrison, 2011) and the role of emotions in service perception. For
instance, as noted above, in Western low-context cultures, cognition is more important in
service-quality perception, while in high-context cultures, cognition and emotion are both
important (Samli, 1985).
Second, the situational context refers to the speci?c scenes or environment in which
tourists and tour guides interact. It is these factors and their actual interactions that tourists
interpret through their own holistic mental model process to form speci?c service quality
perceptions. Finally, cognitive and affective contexts are individual psychological factors
that are considered subjective. Oliver (1997) states that cognition and affective responses
to a product stimulus mold consumers’ evaluative judgments. In the holistic mental model
perception process, cognitive systems and affective states play different roles in the
service quality perception. The higher mental processes of understanding and evaluation
are performed by the cognitive system, whereas affects are related to the individual’s
feelings toward the service (Van Dolen et al., 2004).
Russell and Pratt (1980) suggest that affect is the mediating variable among stimuli, the
cognitive process and response behavior. Lazarus (1999) said that cognitive activities take
place before emotional activities, in the early stage of the psychological process, whereas
the later stage of cognitive activities is in?uenced by emotional activities. Forgas (1995)
describes ways in which affect may in?uence satisfaction through affect infusion (or affect
transfer), suggesting that positive emotions in?uence judgments by shaping what it
noticed, encoded and retrieved in the judgment process. Alternatively, individuals may use
their affective state as a shortcut to infer their overall attitude to an object. The roles of
cognition and emotion in service quality perception in tourism encounters have attracted
the attention of a number of scholars. Oliver (1989) and Lee and Lee (2005) found that both
positive and negative emotions may moderate tourists’ cognitive judgment of satisfaction.
According to Bosque and Martin (2008, p. 566), “Cognitions contribute to the formation of
emotions; and satisfaction is in?uenced by emotions during the stay”.
As a result, consumer emotions could mediate the impact of cognitive judgments on
satisfaction (Bosque and Martin, 2008). Homburg et al. (2006) state that with the
accumulation of experience, the impact of affective factors on customer satisfaction
decreases while the impact of cognitive factors on customer satisfaction increases. Affect
has a greater impact on the satisfaction judgments in earlier stages of the satisfaction
development process, when judgments require a higher degree of constructive processing
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(Homburg et al., 2006). Rojas and Camarero (2008) also state that experience is the
determinant of affective states. However, experience is one variable of an individual’s
cognitive psychographics; hence, we argue that cognition plays a leading and decisive
role prior to affect.
From the above analysis, we can see a clear picture of the holistic mental model process
(Figure 2) and the role that the four contextual variables play during tourists’ evaluation
process. Tourists perceive intercultural service encounters (including both the interaction
and the actual situational context), through a psychological process. However, cultural
factors play a determinant role in tourists’ cognition. Then comes the most important
cognitive process (all the cognitive contextual factors may work together to interpret what
the tourist is experiencing). Finally, affective factors play a moderating role in the
relationship between cognition and the satisfaction evaluation.
Discussion
This paper contributes to and helps to advance the current literature relating to intercultural
service encounters with the development of a holistic mental model process that takes into
account four contextual factors: culture, situation, cognition and affects. The relationships
among these variables are also discussed. The holistic mental model process gives us a
clear picture of the way in which tourists perceive the quality of tourist–tour guide
encounters. Tourists, under the integrated in?uence of these variables, build models
unconsciously to form their evaluation of the service encounter. Differences in cultural
backgrounds between the tourists and the tour guide in?uence tourists’ expectations,
experiences and evaluation of a tour guide’s services. Hence, for tourists to form a positive
impression of the intercultural service encounter, it is recommended that tour guides
understand not only their own host culture but also various different cultural norms and
etiquette depending on the targeted tourists.
Tourists and tour guides interact in a speci?c situation. The physical environment, body
language and appearance of tour guides can in?uence individuals’ perceived service
quality. The cognitive context is the most important element in the mental process. Tourists’
expectations, prior experiences, personal values and cognitive abilities work together in a
cognitive process to form their perceptions. In this process, tourists play a moderating role
between cognition and satisfaction. Thus, the emotional intelligence of the tour guide is
crucial to improving tourists’ emotional state and therefore their satisfaction.
Managerial implications
Travel agencies and tourism companies should conduct regular research and apply the
holistic mental model process framework to analyzing the variables that in?uence tourists’
perception of service quality and their satisfaction level. An in-depth understanding of
Figure 2 Tourists’ holistic mental model process of service perception and its
in?uencing variables
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tourists’ holistic mental model processing may help guide tourism companies to design
better tour-guide training programs. The determinant role of cultural variables requires that
tourism companies increase their tour guides’ awareness of different cultures and their
ability to understand tourists’ cultural orientation preferences in service modes and the
different cultural service personalities of tourists. At the same time, another important way
for tourism companies to improve service quality is to optimize their enterprise culture to
improve their employees’ motivation and positive emotions during service exchange or
delivery. The moderating role of emotions suggests that emotional intelligence training is
very important in helping tour guides enhance tourists’ positive emotions and/or reduce
negative emotions and thus increasing tourists’ overall positive evaluation.
Future research
More research is needed on tourist and tour-guide service encounters; for example, the
effect of tourists’ cultural orientation, tour guide’s cultural orientation and the
culture-speci?c personality or etiquette on their overall perception and evaluation of their
travel experience. Moderating and mediating variables, such as mood and emotions, can
also be included in future research models. For the bene?t of tourists, tour guides and the
travel industry, research relating to tourists and tour guides in different cultural contexts
deserves more attention, as very few studies have attempted to empirically test this
relationship.
Future research should continue to expand and improve the rigor of research into
intercultural service encounters and the holistic mental model process. Researchers should
create speci?c scales to facilitate more in-depth understanding of the effect of the
intercultural service encounter on tourists’ perception and evaluation of tour guides. More
?eld research is also encouraged for more in-depth realistic examination. Examining
tourists’ perceptions and evaluation on a temporal continuum would also help to advance
this area of research because tourists’ emotions and cognitive processes are not always
?xed throughout their travel experience.
Conclusion
The continual growth of the international travel and tourism industry underscores the
importance of understanding factors in?uencing intercultural service encounters and
tourists’ perceptions of and satisfaction with their traveling experience. As more and more
tourists join group tours in traveling abroad, intercultural tourism service encounters are
becoming more common and important in tourists’ evaluation of their travel tour. Among the
multiple intercultural service encounters, encounters between tourists and tour guides are
considered the most typical and frequent, in particular when the tourist purchased a
package group tour. Thus, this intercultural service encounter serves as an important role
in in?uencing tourists’ satisfaction with their overall travel experience and the holistic mental
model process helps to dissect how tourists go about in evaluating their overall travel
experience.
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About the authors
Defang Zhao is Associate Professor at Shanghai Institute of Tourism, Shanghai Normal
University, Shanghai, China. Her research interests focus on intercultural service encounter
and cross-cultural communications. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Beijing
Second Foreign Language University, Tourism Forum, Journal of Shanghai Normal
University, Tourism Review, Tourism Science and other refereed journals and conference
proceedings. Defang Zhao is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
[email protected]
Ingrid Y. Lin is Associate Professor at the School of Travel Industry Management, University
of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, the USA. Her research interests focus on services
marketing and consumer behavior – servicescapes, cross-cultural studies on switching
behavior, sensation and perception. Her articles have appeared in Journal of Services
Marketing, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Hospitality and
Tourism Research, Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management and other refereed
journals and conference proceedings.
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
VOL. 8 NO. 3 2014 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH PAGE 309
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