Analysis of the Aspects of Professionalism of a Tour Guide.

Abstract

Nowadays the industry of tourism remains to be highly profitable, the investment in which will pay off quickly. The number of employees in the world tourism industry in 2018 was equal to approximately 760 million. The most demanded in the period of formation of inter-state integration are the highly qualified experts in tourism with the knowledge of foreign languages and, thus, are able to cooperate with foreign clients, make independent decisions in real situations, see the prospects and plan the strategy and tactics of the industry. According to the Tourism Survey (2018) the introduced figures emphasize the fact that the profession of a tour guide is presently of high demand and importance in tourism industry. The research in tour guides’ professionalism has received little attention from the tourism academic community. Having analyzed the views of training the successful workers of tourism industry, the Ukrainian scientists claim that the real tourism expert has to be characterized by high professionalism, progressiveness, communicativeness, competitiveness in the labor market. All these features are combined in the career of a tour guide as a representative of the perspective and well-developed industry. For our study it is essential to give the distinct working definition of the profession of a tour guide, namely: a tour guide is a qualified professional of high culture who possesses the profound knowledge of the guided destination, foreign language proficiency and is skilled at directing and leading tourists on a sightseeing area. Thus, the significant aspects of formation of tour guides’ professionalism (communication skills, foreign language proficiency, presentation skills, oratory, transformational leadership) are studied; the pedagogical methods of information presentation are transferred into the profession of a tour guide. The roles of a tour guide are various and need our profound further research.