The Relationship of Crisis on Professional Attitudes of Tour Guiding Students

Abstract

Considering its strategic position, Turkey is under high risk of being exposed to various types of crises. The businesses tend to pursue downsizing policy, and this reduces the rate of countrywide employment on a large-scale. Apart from government and business policies taken as measures against crises in tourism, positive attitudes of tour guides, one of the most significant actors of tourism industry, against their professions are also critical. In this sense, the educational institutions that train and educate prospective tour guides have some critical missions. From this viewpoint, this study aims to reveal the relation of crises in Turkey that also affect tourism industry on professional attitudes of tour guiding students. Mixed method was adopted in this study, and the data were obtained through face-to-face interviews conducted with 19 tour guiding students and through surveys sent to 424 tour guiding students in various higher education institutions that offer tour guiding program in Turkey. At the end of this study, it was observed that the crisis negatively related with the professional attitudes of tour guiding students. It has been determined that especially the tourist guiding students learn from the crises, they want to improve themselves, want become a preferred tourist guide and perform the profession, look to the future with hope and be successful in their future profession life.