The Evaluation of the Demand for Services Provided by Travel Guides and Tour Leaders

Abstract

This article presents the results of empirical research on the labour market of city travel guides, regional guides and mountain guides as well as tour leaders. The aim of this article is to evaluate the demand for the services of travel guides and tour leaders. The study included tourism entrepreneurs and the method of a diagnostic survey with the use of computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) was applied. The obtained results confirmed the thesis that the labour market of travel guides and tour leaders is not stable and this is due to the seasonality, level of earnings and changing model of travel organization. The study also showed that in the five-year period from the deregulation of the professions, the market relations between travel guides and tour leaders on the one hand and tourism entrepreneurs on the other did not undergo fundamental changes. The results of the study may be useful for tour operators, organisations associating travel guides and tour leaders as well as for tourism administration at the central and regional level.

Keywords

• travel guides
• tour leaders
• services
• demand