The influence of tour guides’ service quality on tourists' tour guide stigma judgment: An asian perspective

Although the issue of occupational stigma has adverse effects on tour guides in China, there has been minimal scholarly discussion on this topic. This study attempts to analyze the de-stigmatization process to the occupation of tour guides based on the Behaviors from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes Map (BIAS Map) model. We conducted three experiments to investigate the effect of tour guides' service quality on tourists' tour guide stigma judgment and the mediating role of tourists' pro-tour guide tendency and the moderating role of tourists' empathy in the relationship. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) tour guides' service quality can significantly enhance tourists' pro-tour guide tendency and tour guide stigma judgment; (2) tourists' pro-tour guide tendency fully mediates the influence of service quality on tourists' judgment of tour guide stigma; (3) the relationship between tour guides' service quality and tourists' tour guide stigma judgment is moderated by tourists' empathy. Specifically, tour guides’ service quality has a stronger influence on the judgment of tourists with low empathy than on those with high empathy. The above conclusions contribute to the current literature and provide inspiration for de-stigmatizing the occupation of tour guides. Inevitably, some limitations exist in this study, namely the generalization issue resulting from the contextual and scenario-based experiments.