Are you for real? An evaluation of the relationship between emotional labour and visitor outcomes

Emotional labour is the management of emotional display to satisfy organisational expectations and can be performed by faking emotions (surface acting) or by managing felt emotion to be ‘authentic’ (deep acting). Despite an assumed positive relationship between deep acting and a range of organisationally-desired visitor outcomes, no previous research has examined the relationship between the types of acting and those outcomes. The present study assessed this relationship in contrast to the effectiveness of surface acting. Drawing upon a sample of 688 visitors and 66 guided tours, the results of hierarchical linear modelling found no statistically significant relationship between guide-reported acting and visitor perceptions of acting. Visitor perceptions of deep and surface acting were related to visitor outcomes in the expected direction. Implications of the findings suggest tourism organisations should focus on managing perceptions of emotional authenticity to enhance visitor outcomes.