Becoming an informal female guide? From a gender performativity perspective

Abstract

Informal tour guides, particularly female ones, constitute a significant segment of informal employment in the tourism industry, yet they receive scant research attention. Butler's theory of gender performativity offers valuable insights into understanding how rural women become informal tour guides. Through interviews conducted in the rural tourism destination of Yangshuo, China, we discover that informal female guides undergo simultaneous transformations of two identities: to be an informal tour guide through taking on professional roles (pathfinders, information providers, and brokers) and further to become an informal female guide by assuming gender roles (fashion icons, persuaders, tourists' followers, and emotional providers). As these rural women ageing, both their professional and gender roles evolve. By exploring the identity formation process of informal female tour guides, our study not only enriches the existing body of literature on tour guide research but also develop gender performativity theory within the context of tourism.