Beyond duty of care: providing psychological safety at Kakum national park

Abstract

There are two dimensions to safety: the physical and psychological. However, studies on tourism safety have primarily focused on the physical dimension, with little attention paid to the psychological safety. Using Kakum National Park (KNP) as a case study, this study assessed the provision of psychological safety focusing on the institutional arrangements for psychological safety, employees' perspectives on psychological safety, psychological safety practices provided, the factors that shape its provision and visitors experience of psychological safety onsite. In-depth interviews were conducted with forty-three (43) visitors, ten (10) tour guides, and three (3) managers. The managers were purposively sampled; visitors were conveniently sampled; while a census was conducted for tour guides. MaxQDA was used for thematic data analysis. The study principally found that KNP provides some form of psychological safety to visitors. To be specific, employees were found to hold a positive perspective towards providing psychological safety to visitors, despite being motivated primarily by self-interest. Onsite, eight (8) psychological safety practices were identified. However, these practices were shaped by ten factors. These notwithstanding, KNP’s institutional arrangements for psychological safety were found to be informal and weak. Also, findings on visitors' psychological safety experience were inconclusive. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that KNP erratically provides psychological safety to its visitors. The study recommends that psychological safety needs to be redefining and streamlined in order to demarginalize it as a dimension of safety. Furthermore, government agencies tasked with planning and developing Ghana's tourism must help to institutionalize psychological safety by incorporating it into their general agenda for attraction sites safety.