The Tourism Literacy Impact of Tour Guides on the Satisfaction of Tourists

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Corresponding Author), Assistant Professor, Department of Business Administration, Payame Noor University, PO Box 4697-19394, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor at Payame Noor University of Alborz

3 Master of Business Administration

4 Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Urban Planning, Payame Noor University, PO Box 4697-19394, Tehran, Iran,

Abstract

Introduction
Tour guides are considered as representatives of a country that interact directly with tourists. The abilities and expertise of tour guides, especially their geographic literacy, are one of great importance factor for the satisfaction of tourists. Tour guide Provide detailed information about destination for tourists, Tour guide is very important especially for European tourists who travel for the first time to Iran's tourism destination, in this research, the effect of tourism geographic literacy of tour guide on tourism satisfaction has been studied. Geographic literacy indicate to knowledge and skills related to the use of geographic information geographic literacy of tour guide is ability to understand, process, and utilize geospatial data such as locations and place attributes. Geographic literacy can improve our world understanding. Geographic skills allow tour guide to organize tour itinerary effectively. Geographic literacy of tour guide is a systematic view toward tourism destination, tourism attraction, events, situations, and places which turns understanding and comprehension of knowledge into skills. Tour geographic literacy is an important and indispensable ability for tourists when traveling. Tour guide with good geographic knowledge have successful travel. Some travel knowledge and skills, such as understanding of the local travel environment, map reading ability, and use of local transportation, tools are essential for tour guide, Travel guide knowledge refers to the extent of travel knowledge, include of dealing with documents, knowing local tourist attractions, restaurants, lodging, and so on. Travel geoformation processing can be defined as the tourist's ability to gather, interpret, and use travel geographic information for the trip. Information processing proceeds along with the systematic thinking route, and the attitude toward the tourism destination is more durable due to the detailed analysis. In the field of geography, geospatial recognition represents the tour guide ability to locate tourism attraction and places and features on a map, with its emphasis on map recognition. However, travel geospatial recognition involves both map skills and on-site geospatial recognition skills. Therefore, travel geospatial recognition can be defined as the tour guide spatial ability to recognize the tourism destination and its features, and orientation awareness, which can include such skills as reading travel maps, sensing direction, recognizing travel signs and indices, and visualizing routes as a map-like image between tourism attractions.
Methodology
There purposes this paper is to study Literacy Impact of Tour Guides on the Satisfaction of Tourists and to develop a measurement scale of tour guide by employing quantitative methods and to examine the linkage between Literacy of tour Guides and its consequences. The present research is applied in terms of its purpose and in terms of research method, it is a descriptive survey. The statistical population of the study is European tourists in Tehran. Inferential analysis of the data was performed using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. For determining the internal consistency of the questioner, the KMO and Bartlett test were used to determine the appropriateness of the sample size and the separation of the factors, and to determine the causal relationship between the variables, the structural equation modeling method was used. The conceptual model of the research is based on Chang et al. Chang et al examined the impact of the geographic tourism visitor's visibility, which has three dimensions of geographical recognition, geographic knowledge and information process, on the satisfaction of tourists. But the present study examines the geographic literacy of tour guides on tourism satisfaction.
Result and discussion
In this study, the effect of tourism geographic dimensions on satisfaction, perceived risk of European tourists from Tehran in terms of tour guides were studied. The finding of this research suggests that the geographic knowledge of the tour guide will affect the tourist's satisfaction, and reduce the tourist's risk involved and also reducing tourist hesitation and destination risk perception. Also, the findings suggest that the tour information process by tour guide influences the satisfaction of the tourist, the reduce risk involved also reducing tourists' concerns, Previous research also suggests that the process of geographic information such as the use of destination information may affect the satisfaction of tourists. The reason for the rejection of this hypothesis is weakness of communication of tour guide in providing accurate information for tourist. To help resolve this problem it is necessary for tour guide to improve their communication skills.
Conclusion
Very few studies have identified the construct and definition of tour guide. The results of this research recognized geographic knowledge; travel geoformation processing; and travel geospatial recognition. Furthermore, this research also evidenced that tour guide geography knowledge has a positive influence on tourist satisfaction, and has negative effects on tourist hesitation and destination risk perception, suggesting that tour guide geography knowledge is a critical construct in tourism that can impact tourists' psychological and behavioral outcomes. These findings extend the knowledge and theory of tourism research, and fill the research gap of geographic literacy in the field of tourism. Finally, this study also proposes some practical implications and suggestions for future research. With regard to travel geographic knowledge, our results showed that understanding the local travel information such as tourist spots, shopping information, culture, and so on was very important for tourists. However, past studies have found that many tourists do not have adequate local knowledge. So the role of tour guide have become so important. The tour guide is a valuable asset to tourism destination. Many European tourists tend to see their tour guide as the representative of the region or country they chose as a tourist destination. If the tour guide doesn’t have good knowledge and geographic literacy tourist become dissatisfied from travel to destination. Several implications are derived from this study. First, the tourism operators consider geographic literacy impact of tour guides on tourism satisfaction and conduct market segmentation and design different travel products according to the tourist geography literacy. At the same time, because improving tour guide literacy can lead to higher travel satisfaction, this offers destination managers and operators a new marketing direction. Finally, the tour geographic literacy scale can be used to assist for tourists enjoy tourism attraction.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Human Geography Research
Volume 52, Issue 4
January 2020
Pages 1217-1233

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History

  • Receive Date: 16 May 2019
  • Revise Date: 22 June 2019
  • Accept Date: 22 June 2019

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