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Tourist guides, risk and trust: An analysis of the indicators of trustworthiness in Irish tourist guides
 

Researchers: Dr Conor McTiernan, Ciara Quinlan and Dr Ciaran O’hAnnrachain

From the visitor perspective, the tourist guide acts as their intercultural mediator and through frequency of interactions, social capital can ensue and ultimately the tourist can develop trust in the tourist guide. The purpose of this research is to identify the key indicators of trustworthiness that inform the tourists overall trust of a tourist guide in a living-with-Covid Irish tourism context. Tourism activities can incur real and perceived risks to tourists due to uncertainty, ambiguity and gaps in tacit knowledge. Tourism managers and stakeholders can reduce the threat of such risks through the introduction and development of trust between the tourist and the organisations and individuals they are in contact with. An established agent of risk reduction is the tourist guide.