Doctoral Dissertation Research: Mediating the Divide: Israeli Guides on Christian Tours to Jerusalem

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This dissertation research investigates the interrelationships among tourists, tour guides, and the historical sites in Jerusalem. The principal focus is on the role of tour guides who mediate the tourist experience for a variety of groups who come to the site with different expectations. The guides also have to manage the logistic difficulties in a city with repeated conflict. In-depth interviews and participant observation are used to build a description of how the tour guides manage the often competing relationships with the government, the citizens, and the tourist groups. The results are expected to modify conventional views of tourism that tourists simply consume the products offered by the tourist sites; rather the tourist experience is a product of complex mediation by tour guides and their social relations with several different actors.