The post-pandemic era tourist guiding: evidence from professional tourist guides

ABSTRACT

This research contributes to the literature by uncovering the perspectives of professional tourist guides on the tourist guiding profession in the post-pandemic era. Following a qualitative research approach, 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted with professional tourist guides working in different regions of Türkiye. The results illustrate that being physically demanding, the lack of work-life balance, unfair expectations of travel agencies, seasonality, and the necessity of constantly updating knowledge and skills are among the challenges of tourist guiding. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the future of tourist guiding emerged as tourist-guide and tourist-related impacts. Furthermore, future employment risks emerged as the high risk of unemployment and its mental results, vulnerability to crises, and the risk of unemployment at older ages due to declining performance in the future. The findings also emphasise the need for education and training, acquiring new skills, adapting to technology and new trends, continued vocational development, and understanding new tourist expectations in the post-COVID era for the future of tourist guiding.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourist guiding
• future
• tourism profession
• resilience to unemployment
• future employment
• skills

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).