ABSTRACT
Introduction Tour guiding has changed considerably in recent decades. Traditional tour guiding, which primarily focuses on helping clients understand destinations, is evolving towards ‘co-created’ tours that also require guides to facilitate intragroup or intrapersonal experiences (Weiler & Black, 2015a, b). Co-creation models of tour guiding highlight the immense potential for guides to enhance, or detract from, tourists’ experiences depending on how they ‘broker’ physical access and encounters. For example, guides can broker physical access to local culture through site selection and group movements, as well as through local food, stories and music choices (Weiler & Yu, 2007). Guides also broker local cultural understandings by translating language and interpreting behaviours (Scherle & Nonnenmann, 2008). In addition, the way in which guides choreograph tours (Beedie, 2003) may broker empathy for local peoples, cultures and natural environments.
