Journal Screenshot

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

Touring the Worthiness of Tourist Guides in Malaysia Today

Mimi Sofiah Ahmad Mustafa, Ezwani Azmi, Yuhanza Othman, Marziana Abd Malib, Ida Rahayu Mahat

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v11-i10/11494

Open access

Tourist guides are one of the front-liners that undisputedly ascertain the success of any tourism activities conducted by the tourism enterprise. The touring activity would be more fruitful and enjoyable with the existence of a tourist guide. The law requires that any transportation of more than seven persons that has an element of tourism be escorted with a licensed tourist guide (requirement by MOTAC, enforceable in August 2014). However, this is rarely the case today as there is lacking in the demand for tourist guides even before the COVID-19 period. The development in information technologies causing difficulties to tourist guide to get assignments to continue their tour guiding jobs. They have to compete with online virtual information providers that could easily be available anywhere in the world. Thus, this paper would discover the relevance of tourist guide during this era by exploring the problems faced by a tourist guide in the tourism industry and suggest several solutions to the issues encountered by tourist guides in the execution of their job. A qualitative method was adopted in this study where several tourist guides and tourists were interviewed. This study found that tourist guides are still significant and relevant, some problems faced the current tourist guides. Several suggestions were proposed so that tourist guides could maintain their importance in the industry. The writers interviewed several tourist guides for the purpose of this writing via telephone calls, face to face meeting and in-depth written interviews. It is hoped that the outcome of this writing will help the legislature, policy makers and those involved in the tourism industry to bear in mind the role of tourist guides in their decision making.

Amitrajeet, A., Batabyal, A., Yoo, S. J. (2010). A probabilistic analysis of guided tours for tourists during the slack season. Tourism Management, 31,482–485.
Barre, S. (2013). Wilderness and cultural tour guides, place identity and sustainable tourism in remote areas. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 21(6), 825-844
Carrillo, B., Barbieri, C., Knollenberg, W., Edwards, M. B. (2020). The stress from my tour leading job: Differences between genders. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 44, pp. 211-214.
Cetin, G., & Yarcan, S. (2017). The professional relationship between tour guides and tour operators. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism.
Chan, A., Hsu, C., & Baum, T. (2015). The Impact of Tour Service Performance on Tourist Satisfaction and Behavioral Intentions: A Study of Chinese Tourists in Hong Kong. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 32:1-2, 18-33, DOI: 10.1080/10548408.2014.986010
Cook, J., Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K. H. (2017). Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0175799. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0175799
Dale, N. F., Ritchie, B. W. (2020). Understanding travel behavior: A study of school excursion motivations, constraints and behaviour. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 43, pp. 11-22.
Farki?, J., Filep, S., & Taylor, S. (2020) Shaping tourists’ wellbeing through guided slow adventures. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 28:12, 2064-2080, DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1789156
Ko, T. G. (2000). The Issues and Implications of Escorted Shopping Tours in a Tourist Destination Region: The Case Study of Korean Package Tourists in Australia. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 8:3, 71-80, DOI: 10.1300/J073v08n03_04
Maj, J. (2020). Literary Tourist Guides as a Form of New Literary History. A Popular Genre in the Field of Professional Literary Knowledge, Open Cultural Studies, 2018; 2: 500–509. Open Access. © 2018 Joanna Maj, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial-No Derivs 4.0 License.
Mak, A. H. N., Wong, K. K. F., & Chang, R. C. Y. (2011). Critical issues affecting the service quality and professionalism of the tour guides in Hong Kong and Macau. Tourism Management, 32 (2011) 1442-1452
Qiu, M., Zhang, J., Zhang, H., & Zheng, C. (2018) Is looking always more important than listening in tourist experience?. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 35:7, 869-881, DOI: 10.1080/10548408.2018.1445064
Randall, C., & Rollins, R. B. (2009). Visitor perceptions of the role of tour guides in natural areas. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 17:3, 357-374
Stein-Smith, K. (2017). The Multilingual Advantage: Foreign Language as a Social Skill in a Globalized World. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 7(3), 48-56.
Teng, H., & Tsai, C. (2020). Can tour leader likability enhance tourist value co-creation behaviors? The role of attachment. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 45 (2020) pp.285-294
Tomeja, K., & Xiang, Z. (2020), Affordances for tourism service design. Annals of Tourism Research, 85 (2020) 103029
Ulker-Demirel, E., Ciftci, G. (2020). A systematic literature review of the theory of planned behavior in tourism, leisure and hospitality management research. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 43, 209-219
Wong, C. (2013) The sanitization of colonial history: authenticity, heritage interpretation and the case of Macau's tour guides. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 21(6), 915-931
Xu, D., Pearce P. L., Chen, T. (2021). Deconstructing tourist scams: A social-practice-theory perspective. Tourism Management, 82, 104186.
Zhu, M., Gao, J., Zhan, L., & Jin, S. (2020). Exploring tourists’ stress and coping strategies in leisure travel. Tourism Management, 81 (2020) 104167

In-Text Citation: (Mustafa et al., 2021)
To Cite this Article: Mustafa, M. S. A., Azmi, E., Othman, Y., Malib, M. A., & Mahat, I. R. (2021). Touring the Worthiness of Tourist Guides in Malaysia Today. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(10), 1177 – 1190.