Perceptions of Tourist Guide Candidates on 2019 Vocational Practice Trip: A Qualitative Research

Abstract

In accordance with the Regulation on Tourist Guidance, Article 14, it is compulsory to attend to the application trips for the guides who are or will graduate from the tourism guidance departments of the universities and for the guides who want to add a new region to their licenses, under the observation and supervision of the Ministry. This training trip is important in terms of recognizing historical and touristic areas for guide candidates and having information about them. In this context, planning and management stages of these trips are important. In this study, it is aimed to discover the expectations of the tourist guide candidates on the practice trip before they became a guide, what kind of experiences they get from this trip and how they evaluate these experiences. In this context, qualitative research approach was preferred in this research. The research was carried out in a phenomenological pattern, as the experiences of guide candidates about the phenomenon of the training trip will be described. In order to obtain data within the scope of the exploratory / interpretative paradigm since the research design required interviewing, in-depth interview method was conducted with 15 guide candidates participating in the application trip in 2019. The results of the descriptive analysis of the data obtained from the interviews with the participants were as follows; the expectations of the participants, the positive and negative ideas for the tour and the suggestions for changes to be made for the development of the future tours are gathered under four titles: price, accommodation, tour program, information, tour route, student lectures, tour participants and tour organization. The problems were determined by the researchers and the suggestions from the participants about the training trip planning and general guidance training were discussed by the researchers.