The influence of tour guide's satisfaction of tourists

Tour guides are the critical members in tourism industry and their services are mainly based on their professional competencies. When guiding the tour groups, they must have broad tourism related knowledge in order to satisfy different tourists’ needs. Moreover, they need to possess professional skills to solve specific travel problems. Such a professional specialty is the critical skills, techniques or crafts for their enduring career development in the tourism industry. Tour guides’ main job function is to guide and bring the tourists with wonderful travelling experiences.

Tour operator described with these character above mentioned. Therefore, in order to guide tourists to the pleasant journey, they should have some professional techniques. In addition, regarding the dimension of their professional attitude, it means the drive of affection and it is a person’s behavioral performance and the learning related to attitude and affection. It is the attitude or value required when tour guides guide or work on tourists’ travel business. Positive professional attitude is the key factor for excellent tour guides to successfully guide the tour groups.

Tour Guides’ Professional Competencies in various sort of industries, professional works must have different professional competencies required in order to fulfill their own jobs. It is the requirement to successfully accomplish the goals of job. McClelland (1973) proposed the term “competency and indicated that intelligence (i.e. knowledge and skills) is not the only factor to determine job performance. Attitude, cognition and personality traits are also the underlying factors to achieve excellent job performance. Jarvis (1983) suggested that professional competencies are mainly associated with individuals’ jobs. It is the professional knowledge, skills and attitude required for a person when playing a specific role in his or her professional job to fulfill the responsibility in an organization. For a tour guides, professional knowledge refers to tour guides’ understandings required when guiding tour groups.

Service quality in tourism is created by the processes of service delivery (e.g., friendliness, courtesy, efficiency, reliability, staff competency) and outcomes of services (e.g., accommodation, food, leisure facilities) delivered by tour guides. In that sense, tour guides are the moderators for tourists, travel agencies and local environment of sightseeing spots or tourist attractions. Tour guides’ service quality is one of the most critical success factors of the tourism industry. Good tour guides can guide the tourists to approach local landscape of sites and customs. They enhance tourists’ knowledge, relax their physical, mental and spiritual states, and leave tourists with good memories. Tour guides’ service quality can not only be identified by tourists, but also influence tourists’ overall image of travel agencies. The service quality of a tour guide can be determined by the judgement on the gap between expectation of service and actual feelings as perceived by tourists. In tourism, it is generally believed that high service quality and resulting satisfaction lead to positive word-of-mouth endorsements, referrals, and repeat visits, which ultimately affect the performance of travel agencies and tourism firms. Tour guides’ service quality includes their service attitude, friendliness, service efficiency and tourists’ unforgettable experience. It might significantly influence tourist satisfaction. Hence, upgrading or improvement of tour guides service quality not only creates more tourist benefits, but also are the critical factors for travel agencies.

Based upon the above, this study develops an explanatory model and a set of hypotheses to examine the impacts of professional competencies on service quality and tourist satisfaction of GPT s as shown in Figure 2. We theorize that tour guides possess greater professional competencies will increase tourists’ perceptions on service quality and their satisfaction. In addition, tour guides’ service quality may influence tourist satisfaction.

H1: Tour guide professional competencies are positively associated with service quality.

H2: Tour guide professional competencies are positively associated with tourist satisfaction.

H3: Tour guides’ service quality are positively associated with tourist satisfaction.

The rise of the experience economy has led to an increased desire of tourists to be immersed in the “local” way of life, to learn and discover, and the wish to go behind the scenes of a tourist destination. Consequently, a demand for stories has emerged in tourism, particularly in tour guiding. Theatrical elements of the tour help tourists strengthen their experience in guided tours.

To make a conclusion is shown above, tour guide is a main person in the traveling process, interacts directly with tourists, also, spends almost whole day. Tour guide is a main attractor, face of country.