The effect of occupational barriers perceived by tourist guides on the intention to quit

Abstract

Tourist guiding is one of the most important professions in the tourism industry that is in direct contact with tourists. Tourist guides are the people who accompany tourists during the tour as representatives of both the tourism sector and their countries and guide the tourists in every field in their destination (Çokal & Yılmaz, 2020). Individuals who actively perform tourist guidance in the tourism sector, which is one of the professions that require the coexistence of physical, intellectual, and emotional labor, may face some obstacles related to the profession from time to time. Confrontation of such obstacles in the professional experience of tourist guides can have some effects on their attitudes and behaviors. Tourist guides, who exert a high level of emotional labor as a requirement of their profession, are likely to frequently encounter negative work outcomes such as burnout, job stress, and quitting their jobs. In studies on occupational barriers perceived by tourist guides, it has been found that some problems are perceived as barriers to the profession by tourist guides. Some of these problems are the existence of legal problems, lack of professional income, emotional weariness of the profession, health problems due to occupational reasons, seasonal concentration in the profession, negative effects of the profession on private life, and guidance not being seen as a profession (Çetin and Kızılırmak, 2012; Güzel, 2007; Güzel et al., 2013; Güzel et al., 2014; Köroğlu et al., 2007; Köroğlu & Köroğlu, 2011; Yazıcıoğlu et al., 2008;). Tourist guides, whose working conditions are not easy at all and who are facing many obstacles in the profession, are faced with many negative emotions due to the weight of this mission they carry. The fact that these possible emotional situations such as job stress (Min, 2014; Saltık & Kızılırmak, 2020; Xu et al., 2018), dissatisfaction (Akdu & Akdu, 2016; Arslan & Şimşek, 2018; Mackenzie & Raymond, 2020), alienation (Kırıcı & Özkoç, 2017), and burnout (Kaya & Özhan, 2012; Yan et al., 2020) cannot be resolved to cause the decrease in both the motivation (Bayram, 2019; Zhou & Wang, 2007) and performance (Caber et al., 2018; Huang et al., 2010) of the tourist guides, and even to quit the job (Yang, 2013) and leave (Gökdemir & Hacıoğlu, 2018; Yumuk & Koçoğlu, 2020) the profession. High intention to quit the job is one of the frequent negative work outcomes for tourist guides (Güzel et al., 2013; Lin et al., 2020; Xu et al., 2018). In particular, since the intention to leave the job results in a turnover behavior, it has negative effects on the individual in many respects and also increases the cost of the tourism sector. Beyond the loss of a qualified workforce, it is an element that increases the workload of human resources management functions, especially at the point of replacing it. In this respect, the intention to quit is an emotional state that needs to be determined before turning into a behavior. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to compensate for the individual, organizational or sectoral costs. It is observed that the barrier perception of the tourist guides towards the profession is also an important factor in the turnover. In the literature, many studies have been made on both occupational barriers and the intention to quit and the importance of these concepts for tourist guides has been emphasized. However, it has been observed that there are not enough studies regarding the effect of perceived occupational barriers on the intention to quit. From this point of view, the purpose of this study is to reveal the effect of tourist guides' perceptions of occupational barriers on their intention to quit. The data used in the research were obtained by applying a questionnaire to 149 tourist guides working under Nevşehir Guides Chamber. Statistical analysis methods such as correlation and regression analysis were used for data analysis. As a result of this research, which determines the effect of occupational barriers perceived by tourist guides on their intention to quit their job, occupational obstacles are; The sub-dimensions of guidance related barriers (H1), income-related barriers (H2), and occupational barriers (H4) have a positive and significant effect on the intention to quit but has been determined that the sub-dimensions of sectoral barriers (H3) tourist-related barriers (H5) and legal barriers (H6) do not have a significant effect on the intention to quit. Accordingly, the H1, H2, and H4 hypotheses were accepted, and the H3, H5, and H6 hypotheses were rejected. Finally, some suggestions were made for both researchers and tourist guides by evaluating the consequences of the findings obtained in terms of the tourist guiding profession. The findings of the study are expected to contribute to the literature and the industry, especially due to the limited number of studies conducted in tourism literature.