Principles and Practice of Tour Guide

Author: Zhao Xiangjun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-10-01
Features: At the current stage in China, tour guiding as a branch of tourism studies is still in its initial stages, with relatively few well-established theoretical frameworks. Therefore, this book, to some extent, fills the gap in China's tourism research in this area. Compared to previous related studies, this book holds certain values in the following aspects. On the basis of theoretical analysis, it strengthens practical guidance. Tourist guiding services are a crucial category of tourism reception services and are often referred to by many tourism scholars as the "soul of travel agencies" and the "pillar of tourism reception services." Given this, the book not only conducts reasonable theoretical analysis but also places significant emphasis on the practical guidance of operations. In Chapters 3 ("Principles of Management and Tour Guide Management") and 5 ("Principles of Communication and Tour Guide Language Art"), the content on tour guiding procedures, tour guiding faults and their handling, written tour guiding language, tour guiding explanation language, tour guiding communication language, and tour guiding body language is all based on practical operational foundations and can be directly applied by tour guide practitioners. The author of this book has long been engaged in part-time tour guiding and part-time tour guide management work. Additionally, they have been employed as tour guide training instructors and tour guide evaluation experts by the Hunan Provincial Tourism Bureau, Changsha Municipal Tourism Bureau, local municipal tourism bureaus, and tourism enterprises, possessing extensive practical experience and a deep understanding of tour guiding work. This has allowed the author to incorporate numerous practical operational case studies into the writing process of this book, further enhancing its practicality and highlighting the applied nature of tour guiding studies.
Second, the comprehensiveness and interdisciplinary nature are enhanced. Tour guiding is an emerging branch of tourism studies, and its research inevitably has comprehensive characteristics. Previous scholars' research on tour guiding often focused on applying tourism principles to analyze it, but this book breaks through such limitations and broadens the scope of tour guiding research. In addition to basic tourism principles, the book extensively employs knowledge from management, communication, aesthetics, and psychology to study tour guiding phenomena and attempts to integrate these disciplines. For example, in Chapter 3 ("Principles of Management and Tour Guide Management"), the book combines the motivational principles of management with tour guide human resource management, proposing new concepts such as the "tour guide incentive mechanism" and "tour guide career planning." Similarly, in Chapter 4 ("Principles of Psychology and Tour Guide Group-leading Skills"), the book analyzes the psychological requirements of tour guiding services and the psychological characteristics of tourists based on psychological research on phenomena such as "motivation," "personality," and "cognition." Additionally, in Chapter 5 ("Principles of Communication and Tour Guide Language Art"), drawing on the research findings of basic communication in communication studies, the book revises the traditional classification of tour guiding language and proposes a new method of classification based on basic communication elements such as "source," "channel," and "recipient." It also analyzes the application of direct and indirect communication models in tour guiding work. These aspects demonstrate significant enhancements in the book's comprehensiveness and interdisciplinary nature.
Third, some pioneering attempts have been made in response to teaching reform requirements. In the cultivation of students in tourism majors at universities, tour guiding teaching has always been a weak point and a challenge, but it plays a crucial role in improving students' hands-on skills, organizational abilities, and expressive skills. Through an examination of the employment situations of graduates from our tourism college and other tourism-related universities both within and outside the province, it can be found that engaging in grassroots tour guiding services is often the preferred choice for many tourism majors graduates. Therefore, this book focuses on tour guiding teaching suitable for tourism majors in universities, exploring certain aspects of tourism education reform. In terms of the overall structure and format of the book, it discards purely theoretical academic viewpoints and emphasizes the analysis of the current state of tour guiding services in China, providing readers with a clear and accurate understanding of tour guiding work. This can help tourism majors in universities and individuals in society who are aspiring to work as tour guides prepare for employment. In the main body of the book, the writing fully demonstrates operability, facilitating the transition of tour guiding teaching in tourism majors from theoretical education to a combination of theory and practice. It also enables tour guiding teachers in universities to assess students' mastery of tour guiding principles and skills. When conducting teaching activities such as "field teaching," "simulated on-site tour guiding," and organizing tour guiding skill competitions for students, the book can also provide relevant assistance, thereby better meeting the demands of college students in the new era.
In summary, as a research work in the emerging field of tour guiding, this book extends and breaks through traditional tour guiding research in multiple aspects and also provides new references for tourism major teaching in universities. It is suitable not only as an introductory reading for the general public seeking to work as tour guides but also as a guiding textbook for teaching reform in tour guiding studies within tourism majors at universities.