Guide-to-Tourist Interaction in Guided Tours: A Participant Observation Research

Abstract

This research aims to discover how the social interaction between the professional tourist guide, who is the primary service provider in guided tours, and the tourists participating in the tour occurs and to reveal the impression management techniques applied by the tour guide in this process. Following the qualitative research approach, data was collected from a four-day Black Sea region tour using participant observation. The field notes obtained during the participant observation were subjected to content analysis. Subcategories and categories were created from the data to explain the tour guide-tourist interaction in detail. In the next stage, two themes were revealed: guide-based interaction and tourist-based interaction. In this context, it has been revealed that guide-tourist interaction occurs through first impression, expression, authoritarian behavior, compliant behavior, one-to-one communication, aggressive behavior, and one-sided interaction. In addition, it was concluded that the impression management techniques used by the guide during the tour were ingratiation, exemplification, self-promotion, and intimidation. The results were interpreted in the context of social interaction theory, and the theoretical and practical contributions of the research were discussed.

Keywords

• Social interaction
• Guided tours
• Guide-to-tourist interaction
• Impression management
• Participant observation

Rehberli Turlarda Rehber-Turist Etkileşimi: Bir Katılımcı Gözlem Araştırması

Öz

Bu araştırmada, rehberli turlarda temel hizmet sağlayıcı olan profesyonel turist rehberi ile tura katılan turistler arasındaki sosyal etkileşimin nasıl gerçekleştiğini keşfetmek ve rehberin bu süreçte uyguladığı izlenim yönetimi tekniklerini açığa çıkarmak amaçlanmıştır. Nitel araştırma yaklaşımı benimsenerek, dört günlük bir Karadeniz turundan katılımcı gözlem tekniğiyle veri toplanmıştır. Katılımcı gözlem sürecindeki saha notları içerik analiziyle çözümlenmiştir. Rehber-turist etkileşiminin detaylı şekilde açıklanabilmesi için verilerden alt kategoriler ve kategoriler oluşturulmuş; rehber kaynaklı etkileşim ve turist kaynaklı etkileşim olmak üzere iki tema ortaya çıkarılmıştır. Bu çerçevede rehber-turist etkileşiminin ilk izlenim yoluyla, anlatım yoluyla, otoriter davranış yoluyla, uyumlu davranış yoluyla, birebir iletişim yoluyla, agresif davranış yoluyla ve tek taraflı etkileşim yoluyla gerçekleştiği belirlenmiştir. Ayrıca, rehberin tur sürecinde kullandığı izlenim yönetimi tekniklerinin kendini sevdirme, örnek olma, kendini övme/niteliklerini tanıtma ve yıldırma/gözdağı verme olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Ulaşılan sonuçlar sosyal etkileşim teorisi bağlamında yorumlanmış, araştırmanın teorik ve pratik katkıları tartışılmıştır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Sosyal etkileşim
• Rehberli turlar
• Rehber-turist etkileşimi
• İzlenim yönetimi
• Katılımcı gözlem

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