Humour in supplier-customer interactions: the views of Australian tourism operators

Abstract

Much of the existing literature on the tourism-humour relationship focuses on the perceptions of tourists. Little research exists on the views of tourism operators. This study aims to gain a better understanding of the perceptions of tourism operators when deliberately including humour into interactions with customers. The research is based on three workshops with tourism industry stakeholders in North Queensland. Three interactive workshops were delivered by the author from May to July 2017 with the purpose of informing tourism industry stakeholder on how to use humour effectively in interactions with customers. Twenty-three (23) participants joined the humour workshops. The findings of this study explore what tourism operators’ perspectives and concerns are when using humour with customers as a strategic tool for customer engagement.