International Journal of Development in Social Sciences and Humanities

Tour guides play a paramount role in boosting tourism development by providing quality services to tourists and thereby promoting the revisit intention of the tourists at destinations. The quality of tour guides’ professional services is an important indicator to successful destination marketing because it influences tourists for the choice of destination, the consumption of products and services, and their decision to stay longer and to return. This study tried to investigate the professional competencies of tour guides in terms of their knowledge, skills, and personal qualities at the four tourist destinations of Amhara National Regional State (ANRS) namely, Gondar, Debark, Bahir Dar, and Lalibela. The study employed a crosssectional mixed research approach. The target population of this study were international tourists and tourism culture and office experts in 2017/2018. Two-hundred twenty-eight tourists participated in this study Quantitative data were gathered using Likert scale type questions to assess the level of tourists’ perceived tour guides’ professional practice and personal qualities. Qualitative data were collected using interview and focus group discussions to explore the major challenges tour guides have been facing in their professional practices. The findings of this study showed that tourists rated tour guides’ general knowledge at low level. Similarly, they rated tour guides’ intercultural communication skills/English language skills at low level. But they were perceived to have good understanding about destination-related products and services and the required rules and regulations of the attraction sites. The study also indicated that the tour guides had poor personal qualities on measures of sense of humor and understanding of the tourists’ feelings and emotions. The result of the qualitative data analysis indicated that the major challenges related to tour guides’ professional practice were lack of standard tour guide recruitment, absence of professional training, and poor monitoring and evaluation of performance of tour guides. This study recommended that tour guides have to receive on job-continuous training to promote their professional competence. The culture and tourism offices at each destination should closely follow up the performance of tour guides and take corrective measures when necessary