The tour guide, as an interpreter, plays an important role in linking the destination and the tourists. Tour quality is affected by the skill and capacity of the tour guide’s expert interpretation, performance and transfer of knowledge. Interpretation is a form of communication in guided tours to express the meanings and interactions between people and destinations (Weiler and Ham 2000).
Heritage interpretation is the art to create a relation between the elements of a heritage site or collection on the one hand and the meaning making and value frame of the visitors on the other. Cognitive and emotional links are created between the visitors and what they can discover in a nature park, a historical site or a museum. Heritage interpretation reveals deeper meanings, relationships and insights from first-hand experience by means of illustrative media, rather than by simple communication of factual information.
- Teacher: Cynthia Henriquez Uley