Different Relationships Between Local Tourism Employees’ Shared Beliefs and Their Emotional Solidarity Toward Tourists by Contact Levels

Emotional understanding between tourists and local residents has been one of the new research approaches in community-based tourism. This study analyzed tourism employees’ emotional solidarity (ES) toward tourists, focusing on the hypothesized interaction effects of ES between tourism employees’ shared beliefs (SB) about the local tourism destination and the two different levels of interaction with tourists. Empirically significant differences were identified between tourism employees (the high customer contact group) who directly encountered tourists in Old Bagan (a cultural tourism destination famous for 2,300 Buddhist temples) in Myanmar and those (the low customer contact group) who worked in general hospitality service industries outside of the Old Bagan area. The high customer contact group exhibited higher sympathetic understanding and emotional closeness toward tourists, but the low customer contact group showed higher welcoming nature than the other group. This result implies that tourism employees who have direct contact with customers within cultural heritage sites tend to communicate their emotional intimacy with tourists. On the other hand, tourism employees engaged in low contact tend to appreciate tourists because of the economic benefits from having them in the area. Therefore, educational and consulting support are needed to guide employees to understand tourists sympathetically and build emotional closeness.