Interpretation Quality of Tourist Guides and it’s Impacts on Tourists’ Satisfaction in Round Tours

Abstract

Tourist Guides play a vital role in satisfying the tourists visiting a country and the quality of interpretation is the main concern of the tourists as well as the travel agencies. The travel agencies receive complains frequently from overseas tour operators about the tour guides regarding their poor knowledge about the attraction sites, cheating behavior, lack of fluency in language etc. The study focuses to identify interpretation quality of tourist guides and its impact on tourists' satisfaction. The study is conducted as a questionnaire survey using 192 foreign tourists who experienced round tours with National or Chauffeur guides registered in reputed DMCs in Sri Lanka. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple regression analyses. The study has proved the interpretation quality of guides greatly influence the tourists’ satisfaction. The factors related to the interpretation quality such as elaboration and relevancy of information are positively influenced the tourists satisfaction whilst the factors i.e. empathy and positive attitude towards nature are negatively influenced the tourists’ satisfaction. The study offers both theoretical insights related to interpretation and tourist satisfaction as well as practical implications for improving interpretive tour guiding in round tours in Sri Lanka.