Awareness and Relevance of Tour Guiding Profession to Hospitality and Tourism Management Students of Iloilo City

Abstract

Travel and tourism industry is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. It is a multi-billion dollar industry that exists in all parts of the world. As a result, the nature of tour guiding and the skills required by an individual guide can vary widely. In order facilitate these demands it is recognizable that there is a need for tour operators and guides who are thoroughly adept in administrative and social aspects.Hence, it is crucial to train and develop the knowledge and skills of tour guiding to tourism and hospitality management students.The purpose of this study is to determine the awareness and relevance of tour guiding profession to hospitality and tourism management students. The convenience sampling was employed in the selection of the participants of the study. A survey instrument was constructed as the data collection tool. This study utilized the non- parametric test for normality using mean scores, rank, and standard deviations were employed as descriptive statistics; while the Shapiro wilk, Kruskal- Wallis test for independent samples, Spearman Rho, and Mann Whitney, were employed as inferential statistics. The criterion for the acceptance or rejection of the null hypotheses was set at .05 alpha level. The study revealed that most participants assess their awareness level to tour guidingprofession as “highly aware.” Furthermore, a greater number of the participants perceived tour guiding profession as “highly relevant.” The test for normality using Mann- Whitney U Test and Kruskal- Wallis shows that no significant differences existed in their level of awareness and perceived relevance to tour guiding professionwhen they were classified according to sex and degree program pursued. However, positive and significant relationships existed between the participants’ level of awareness and relevance to tour guiding profession when they were taken as a whole and further classified as to sex, age, and degree program pursued, (p= . 000, p=> .05) Therefore, the null hypotheses must be rejected. The study concluded that an increase of awareness has a relationship on the relevance of tour guiding as a profession among hospitality and tourism students.