Open AccessOpenings and closings in tourist offices in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
Author(s) -
Els Tobback,
Margot Van den Heede
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
neuphilologische mitteilungen
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2736-9714
DOI - 10.51814/nm.111537
Subject(s) - tourism , situated , closing (real estate) , service (business) , geography , archaeology , business , marketing , computer science , finance , artificial intelligence
This paper deals with openings and closings in 400 service encounters in tourist offices situated in Belgium’s two main language communities, Flanders and Wallonia, in the north of France and the south of the Netherlands. On the basis of a detailed, bottom-up quantitative analysis of the structural properties of the openings and closings, we draw part of the interactional profiles of the tourist office encounters. Differences between the four regions are shown to be related to the degree of volubility and involvement of the interactants and to the degree of ritualisation and efficiency of the opening and the closing section.