Tour Guide Performance: An Analysis of English Mastery by Sikka’s Tour Guide

Abstract

Tour guides play a crucial role as frontline personnel in the tourism sector. By leveraging their expertise in the attractions and cultural aspects of a destination, along with their effective communication with tourists using different languages. In fact, not all tour guides, even those who are certified, have good foreign language skills, resulting in interpretation errors in recognizing tourist destinations and their distinctive culture. This research aims to analyze the problems faced by tour guides related to English mastery. This research uses a qualitative method that allows researchers to gain an in-depth understanding of the problem under study through descriptive and interpretive data analysis. By conducting an interview, the researcher can explore various points of view and obtain data that is rich in context and then conclude with documentation. The results of this research show that tour guides in Sikka district have several problems. The first is the difficulty of communicating with tourists, especially those from Australia, China and France who have different accents and pronunciation of English than usual, so it is necessary to learn related listening skills and various accents and dialects of English from various countries. Then, the tour guide often found tourists who cannot speak English, so the role of technology such as translator applications is needed to overcome these problems. Furthermore, there are tour guides with non-English educational backgrounds so that periodic training needs to be held specifically for English according to the needs of tour guides. On the other hand, proficiency in vocabulary poses a significant challenge. An illustration of this can be seen in the case of tour guides specializing in the diver division, who are required to attain mastery in the vocabulary associated with marine biota. The role of the tourism department is needed by giving awards to tour guides so that the tour guide is motivated to improve their English skills.