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Kyushu Communication Studies, Vol.8, 2010, pp. 21-39

©2010 日本コミュニケーション学会九州支部

【 Research Presentation Paper 】

Competence Model and Elements Required for Tour Guides1)

TANAKA Hiroe

(Graduate Student, University of Nagasaki)

Abstract. The role of licensed tour guides in Japan has recently become more important

than ever since the Visit Japan Campaign, which aims to increase tourism, started. If tourists

perceive their tour guides to be competent tour guides, their tours of Japan will be highly

enjoyable. I focused on licensed tour guides, which Scollon and Scollon (1995) have called

“Professional communicators”, and I explored intercultural communication competence as it

is required for licensed tour guides, based on the analysis of a questionnaire administered to

foreign tourists in Japan. The questionnaire was comprised of seven questions to explore

foreign tourists’ attitudes towards Japan’s tourism. They include the questions about

interests of foreign tourists, the tourist’s satisfaction level, and expected competence for tour

guides. A question about intercultural communication competence was designed based on

both the model of communication competence by Spitzberg (2009) and the pilot study. As a

result, there were four main findings that came to light from the analysis of the surveys: (1)

foreign tourists have a wide variety of interests in Japan, (2) despite the growing number of

foreign tourists in Japan, they do not always use tour guides, (3) tourists expect tour guides to

possess ‘knowledge’ and ‘language skills’ as well as such attributes as ‘politeness’, ‘kindness’,

‘friendliness’, ‘leaderships’, ‘energy’ and ‘looks’, this result also supported Spitzberg’s model of

competence (2009). Lastly, (4) tour guides are professional communicators as they play not

only the role of tour guides, but also the role of “private diplomats” (Harding, 1998).

INTRODUCTION

According to the Guide-Interpreter Business Law of Japan2), the role of the

Guide-Interpreter is to escort foreigners and give them guiding services, concerning travel,

using a foreign language (Article 2)3). In Japan, it is illegal to guide foreigners without a

license, in their native language (Article 36). To become a licensed tour guide, taking and

passing the national examination is required, which is annually administered by the

Japanese government. The Visit Japan Campaign, which aims to increase the number of

foreign visitors

22

Figure 1. Number of foreign tourists to Japan4)

to 10 million by the year 2010, has brought rapid growth in the total number of foreign

tourists in Japan. Figure 1 shows the number of foreign tourists in Japan from 1998 to 2007.

As can be seen in Figure 1, the number of foreign tourists has been increasing significantly

since the Visit Japan Campaign started in 2003. In order to deal with the growing number of

foreign tourists, the Japanese government has initiated the plan to increase the number of

licensed tour guides from 13,530 to 15,0005). Under these circumstances, the number of people

who wish to get licensed has increased. Tour guides play an important role in satisfying

visitors to Japan. If tourists perceive their tour guides to be competent tour guides, their tours

will be as highly enjoyable ones in Japan.

Researchers have described tour guides in a variety of ways. Cohen (1985), in his

article, “the tourist guide”, referred to a tourist guide as a “pathfinder” and “mentor” (p. 7).

Hughes (1991) mentioned, that the ability of tour guides to influence customer satisfaction on

the entire tour. McDonnell (2001) concluded his study as “an important aspect of the tour

guide’s role is to facilitate cultural understanding of the host culture by visitors” (p. 8). Scollon

and Scollon (1995) called tour guides as “professional communicators,” because “to

communicating with others is a major aspect for the profession” (p. 3). Other professional

communicators, according to Scollon and Scollon, are shown in Figure 2 (p. 3). What are the

specific factors which would make tour guides “professional communicators”? Is it knowledge

or language proficiency? The present study focuses on licensed tour guides, and I examine the

specific attributes that make a tour guide a professional communicator from the view of

intercultural communication competence. Before I try to explore intercultural communication

competence as it is required for tour guides, I will begin by defining intercultural

communication competence.

Definition of Intercultural Communication Competence

Wiseman (2003) said that “intercultural communication competence has been the

23

Figure 2. List of professional communicators

focus of a number of studies since the term was introduced by researchers who were

interested in overseas technical assistants and Peace Corps volunteers” (p. 191).

Those researchers defined intercultural communication competence in a variety of

ways. Ruben (1976), in his article “Assessing Communication Competency for Intercultural

Adaptation”, advocated seven dimensions of communication in an intercultural situation:

They are (1) display of respect, (2) interaction posture, (3) orientation to knowledge, (4)

empathy, (5) self-oriented role behavior, (6) interaction management, and (7) tolerance for

ambiguity (p. 339). McCroskey (1982), in his article “Communication Competence and

Performance”, defined communication competence as “the ability of an individual to

demonstrate knowledge of the appropriate communication behavior in a given situation” (p. 5).

Wiemann (1977), in his article, “Explication and Test of a model of communicative

competence,” defined communication competence as follows:

The ability of an interactant to choose among available communicative behaviors in

order that he may successfully accomplish his own interpersonal goals during an

encounter while maintaining the face and line of his fellow interactants within the

constraints of the situation (p. 198).

In the last two decades, there has been a growing consensus on the definition of

intercultural communication competence which was defined by Spitzberg (2007). Spitzberg

says “intercultural communication competence is considered very broadly as an impression

that behavior is appropriate and effective in a given context” (p. 381). Spitzberg (2009) also

explains that “communication competence is a social behavior that is perceived as relatively

appropriate and effective for a given context” (p. 70) with the model of communication

competence (p. 70). He continues “interaction occurs among people from different cultures, it

can be understood as involving intercultural communication competence” (p. 70). Figure 3

shows the model of intercultural communication competence by Spitzberg (2009 June 18)6).

They are combined so that they can act together to send appropriate messages (behavior) to

meet expectations.

On the basis of these definitions I mentioned above, I would like to define

24

Figure 3. Spitzberg’s model of competence 7)

intercultural communication competence as the ability to interact with members of other

cultures appropriately and effectively, using their knowledge, skills and motivation. It is also

interesting that communication competence is “not intrinsic to a person’s nature or behavior”

(Spitzberg and Cupach, 1984, p. 115). In other words, it is possible to acquire communication

competence by learning.

Pilot Study

A walking tour of Glover Garden in Nagasaki city was arranged for a pilot study so

that the first draft of the questionnaire was modified. The tour guide was an English speaking

guide with two year’s experience, and the audience was an American University student

attending ○○ University. The tour guide provided historical and cultural information relevant

to the garden for the student in the walking tour. After the tour, the student filled out the

draft of the questionnaire which I used this study. In addition, both the tour guide and the

student were interviewed, and they gave me some opinions about the draft. I modified the

draft based on the results of this pilot study.

Research Question

Morreale, Spitzberg, and Barge (2007) insisted that we use three key components:

motivation, knowledge, and skills, to analyze whether a communicator, oneself or someone

else, was or was not competent in any situation (p. 38). In order to examine communication

competence which is required for tour guides, I designed questionnaire items to measure the

competence of tour guides towards tourists on the basis of Spitzberg’s model of competence.

The research questions in this study are as follows:

1. From the perspective of foreign tourists, are there any problems related to tour

guides ?

2. What type of communication competence is expected of tour guides by foreign

tourists?

3. Is Spitzberg’s model of communication competence useful to assess the

communication competence of tour guides?

4. Are tour guides professional communicators or not?

25

PROCEDURE

Data were collected using a questionnaire comprising seven questions to explore the

research questions. They include the questions about interests of foreign tourists, the tourist’s

satisfaction level, and expected competence for tour guides. The questionnaire was prepared

in English, Hangul and Chinese for the survey. Those three versions of the questionnaires are

included in the Appendices. The collected data were analyzed statistically by using both SPSS

16.0 Japanese for Windows and Microsoft Office Excel 2007.

Subjects

The subjects of this research consisted of foreign tourists visiting Nagasaki. A total of

239 foreign tourists filled out the questionnaire. Subjects were randomly selected, and asked

to cooperate with this survey. Those who agreed to cooperate in the study completed the

questionnaire sheets. After the completion of questionnaire, they were interviewed with a few

follow up questions. Demographic details of the respondents are given in Table 1 to Table 3.

Table 1 shows the range of the age of the subjects. The majority of subjects were in the 20-30

age group (54%), while the minority of subjects was over 61 years old (4.2%).

26

The gender of the subjects was shown in Table 2. Males comprise 67.4% of the total subjects.

In contrast, females comprise 32.6%.

Table 3 shows the resident countries of the subjects. As can been seen in Table 3, the subjects

from the USA or Canada occupied the highest percentage of all subjects (28.5%), followed by

Europeans (25.5%), Asians (15.1%), residents of Japan (12.1%), Australians or New

Zealanders (9.6%), and Others (9.2%). According to Japan National Tourism Organization

(JNTO), foreign tourists from Asian countries (South Korea, Taiwan, and China) occupied

57.2% of all visitors in 2008. However, the reason for the low proportion of Asian tourists in

the sample may be due to their tight schedules of their group tours.

RESULTS

Figure 4 through Figure 11 are the results of Question 1 to Question 7 in the

questionnaire.

Question 1. Which of the Following Are You Interested regarding Tourism in Japan?（Multiple

answers allowed）

In order to find out the interests of foreign tourists in Japan, participants were asked

to choose terms in which they were interested. The figure 4 shows the percentage of tourists’

interests from the results of Question 1.

The most frequently chosen interest of the foreign tourist was Temples (67.3%),

followed by the Atomic Bomb (65.9%), Castles (57.6%), Nature (50.2%), and World Heritage

Sites (49.8%). It should be noted that although the interest in the Atomic Bomb was relatively

high, this result might have been influenced by the place where the survey was done. It was

conducted in the vicinity of the hypocenter park. The majority of tourists likely had already

27

Figure 4. Q1. Which of the following are you interested regarding tourism in Japan?

visited the Atomic Bomb Museum when completing the questionnaire. The interest of foreign

tourists, such as Maid Café (9.5%), Pottery (7.6%), and Ikebana (4.8%) showed lower

percentages than other items. To look at the data from the result of Question 1, the 27 items of

Question 1 were grouped into four categories: (1) Traditional culture, (2) Popular culture, (3)

Sightseeing and public facilities, and (4) Food, shopping, and others. Figure 5 to Figure 9

show the percentage of the different types of foreign tourists which were categorized into four

groups.

Figure 5. Traditional culture

Figure 5 is the result of Traditional culture. The X axis shows the types of interests

and the Y axis shows the percentage of choices. Each bar shows the ratio of people who were

interested in the item of all the subjects, 239 people. The highest interest of tourists was

shown in Watching Sumo (29.3%), followed by Tea Ceremony (28.9%), and Ninja (23.8%).

Ikebana and Pottery were not popular among foreign tourists.

28

Figure 6. Popular culture

Figure 6 shows the result of the tourists’ interest’ in Popular culture. This category

consists of 5 terms. The results were Music (23.2%), followed by Manga (22.8%), Karaoke

(20.9%), Akihabara (19.0%), and Maid Café (9.5%). The interests of tourists in this group were

relatively lower than the other three groups.

The results of the third group Sightseeing and public facilities are presented in

Figure 7. Temples (67.3%), Atomic Bomb (65.9%), Castles (57.6%), Nature (50.2 %), World

Heritage (49.8%), Shinto Shrines (45.4%), Amusement Park (20%), and Mood (15.7%) in this

group. From the results, it is clear that artifacts such as Temples, Castles, and Shinto Shrines

were more popular than nature and modern facilities among foreign tourists.

Figure 7. Sightseeing and public facilities

The final item group is Food, shopping and others. The result is shown in Figure 8. The

results show that the highest percentage was Sushi (47.4%), followed by Shopping (39.3%).

Some tourists who answered others wrote in the blank their answers were such as people,

29

Figure 8. Food, shopping, and others

language, Aikido, and Judo.

Question 2. Have You Ever Participated in a Guided Tour in Japan?

The results of Question 2 are shown in Figure 9. Of 239 respondents, 68% of them

had never participated in guided tours. Only 26% had participated in a guided tour in Japan

previously. Participants who answered yes to Question 2 were asked the reasons why they

had previously participated in guided tours. Some of the answers were as follows: I joined the

guided tour of Mt. Fuji, or a guided tour was included in the tour, or my friend took me to the

tour. On the other hand, one of the more popular reasons for not participating in guided tours

was that the tourists liked to travel freely. It should be noted that the participation in guided

tours was not always voluntary. For instance, in some cases, someone insisted that the tourist

take a guided tour.

Figure 9. Have you ever participated in a guided tour in Japan?

Question 3. Please Rate Your Degree of Satisfaction on These Guided Tours.

Those who had experienced guided tours were further asked to provide some

assessment of the quality of tour guides: Language use, Politeness, Kindness, Knowledge,

Friendliness and Energy. A 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (bad) to 5 (excellent) was

used for the assessment listed each item.

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There were 48 out of 62 tourists who answered Question 3. 48 respondents’ mean ratings (and

standard deviations) of 6 items are shown in Table 4. The data suggests that the Japanese

tour guides’ reputations were quite good.

Question 4. Was Your Guide Helpful toward Your Understanding of Japanese Culture,

Artifacts, and Other Things?

Those who had previously joined guided tours were asked an additional question:

Was your guide helpful in your understanding of Japanese culture, history, artifacts and other

things? The response was given in a five-grade evaluation in the questionnaire. Figure 10

showed the results.

Figure 10. Was your guide helpful toward your understanding

Japanese culture, artifacts and other things?

31

The 62 respondents, 85% of them, evaluated their tour guides as excellent or good. Most

tourists were considered to be satisfied with the guiding provided by their licensed tour

guides. Only 3% of them thought that their guides were bad.

Question 5. In Q3, Why Was Your Guide Poor or Bad? Please Check the Problem.

According to the results of Question 4, there were eight tourists who thought the

guides performed poorly or badly. In Question 5, they were asked to explain why they thought

their guides performed poorly or badly. They could choose multiple answers among six options.

As a result, two of eight tourists checked the option of ‘His/her speech lacks knowledge’, and

one checked the option that ‘He/she wasn’t able to answer my question’.

Question 6. Do You Think You Would Like to Participate in a Guided Tour Again?

All of the subjects who participated in guided tours were asked to answer Question 6:

Do you think that you would like to participate in a guided tour again? 88% out of 62 people

responded that they hoped to participate in guided tours again. Only 0.6% of 62 people

answered no.

The data from the results of Question 3 to Question 6 suggest that the foreign

tourists were satisfied with the performances of their Japanese tours guides. As McDonnell

(2001) suggested, “customer surveys of tourists are notoriously favorable” (p. 7). Therefore,

the negative comments given by tourists may be more useful than favorable judgments. They

wrote some of the reasons for their criticisms, which included “He or she was French”, and

“He or she was not able to answer my questions”. In the latter, it seems their guides were not

qualified tour guides. Regarding the former, it may be that the tourist just wanted to be

guided and communicate with native Japanese guides, not with non native Japanese guides.

Question 7. What Kind of Competence Do You Expect from Your Japanese Tour Guide?

In the questionnaire, Question 7 was designed based on the model of communication

competence by Spitzberg (2009). Tourists were asked to choose any terms of competence

which they expect from tour guides. There were nine terms tourists could choose from:

knowledge, language skills, friendliness, politeness, kindness, leadership, energy, looks, and

others. In order to reduce each tourist’s burden of the completion the questionnaire on the

street, these 9 terms were selected. The selection was done on the basis of the following three

aspects; Spitzberg’s model of communication competence, the results of both interviews of the

tour guides, and opinions from the audience in the pilot study.

Figure 11 shows the percentage of each term. The nine items are knowledge (29%),

language skills (20%), friendliness (14%), politeness (12%), kindness (10%), energy (8%),

leaderships (4%), looks (2%), and others (1%). Although the percentages of leadership, and

looks were lower, the total of the seven terms except for knowledge and language skills

occupied more than 50 percent in this figure. Therefore, friendliness, politeness, kindness,

energy, leaderships, looks, and others are also considered to be important elements for the

quality of tour guides.

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Figure 11. What kind of competence do you expect from your Japanese tour guide?

DISCUSSION

In this study, I investigated tourists’ interests, tourists’ satisfaction level of their tour

guides, and tour guides’ competence which tourists expect for tour guides, by the

questionnaire administered to foreign tourists in Nagasaki. The major findings of the present

study can be summarized as follows:

1. Foreign tourists have a wide variety of interests in Japan.

2. Despite the growing number of foreign tourists, they did not always use tour

guides in Japan.

3. Tourists expect tour guides to possess not only ‘knowledge’ and ‘language skills’,

but also other factors such as ‘friendliness’, ‘politeness’, ‘kindness’, ‘energy’,

‘leaderships’, and ‘looks’.

From finding 2, there is a contradiction between the current system of licensed tour

guides of Japan and the present condition of foreign tourists because tourists usually did not

join guided tours. In order to deal with the growing number of foreign tourists, the Japanese

government has enacted a law for increasing the number of licensed tour guides from 13,530,

which is the present number of resigned tour guides, to 15,000, as I mentioned previously. On

the other hand, it was found from my research that the majority of foreign tourists were

non-users of tour guides. If the present system of licensed tour guides is not changed in the

future, some licensed tour guides will not be able to get a job.

Why do foreign tourists not use tour guides for their sightseeing? There are three

reasons for this. First, the majority of tourists do not know where they can find licensed tour

guides as an option to enjoy their travel in Japan. Second, employing a licensed tour guide

33

may cost much money for individual tourists. According to the Japan Guide Association8), it

costs about ¥20,000 to ¥25,000 for 4 hours of employment of a tour guide. Finally, the

Japanese government has not provided enough jobs for tour guides although it created a

system to increase the number of licensed tour guides. The government should provide more

opportunities for licensed tour guides.

I examined communication competence required for tour guides in Question 7. The

result revealed that tourists expect tour guides to possess not only knowledge and language

skills, but also other factors such as friendliness, politeness, kindness, energy, leaderships,

and looks. Most people think that knowledge and language skills are essential for good tour

guides. From the results of Question 7, it was found that tourists expect that tour guides

should possess the qualities such as politeness, kindness, friendliness, leadership, looks, and

energy as well as knowledge and language skills. I think these qualities are important

elements for competent tour guide as professional communicators.

Tour guides must convey their knowledge to their clients not only of particular places,

but also of other things which are relevant to the places, such as history, architecture, and

local customs. When foreign tourists visit a country for the first time, they may have a lot of

questions about the country. Tour guides should be friendly and kind so that tourists can feel

free to ask tour guides any questions about sightseeing sites. Besides, tour guides have to

have a leadership skill in managing their tour itineraries.

A licensed tour guide is often called a “private diplomat” (Harding, 1998, p. 110) or a

“private ambassador”9) of the country. It is important for private diplomats to make foreign

tourists have a good first impression toward them. A nice appearance, politeness, and energy

of tour guides contribute to making a good first impression for tourists. I believe these terms,

knowledge, language skills, friendliness, politeness, kindness, energy, leaderships, and looks

would be one of keys to have good communication with foreign tourists.

The respondents to Question 7 showed that tourist thought all the terms listed in the

question were expected from tourists as required competence for tour guides. Accordingly, all

eight elements seen to fit into one of the three competence components by Spitzberg:

motivation, knowledge, and skills. Firstly, motivation has both a positive and a negative side

(Morreale, Spitzberg, & Barge. 2007, p. 35). Negative motivation is anxiety in a

communication situation. In contrast, “positive motivation is the perception of potential

reward value that made people driven toward excellence in a course of communicative action”

(p. 35). A lot of energy is needed in order to reach one’s stated goal. Therefore, the term energy

belongs to motivation, in the model of competence. Both friendliness and kindness are also

considered to belong to motivation, because they represent positive motivation. The term,

Knowledge belongs to Knowledge of the model, another component in the model of

competence in Figure 3. Morreale, Spitzberg and Barge defined skills as follows: “skills are

repeatable, goal-directed behaviors.” (p. 38). This means that Morreale, Spitzberg and Barge

said “if it can’t be accomplished again, it is not a skill the person possesses” (p. 38). Therefore,

34

the term, language skills, belongs to skills in the model. Similarly, I would consider the term

politeness goes with skills of the model of competence, because it is possible to think

politeness as repeatable good manners. Also, I would consider that both looks and leaderships

belong to skills, because they are also considered to be repeatable behaviors. Accordingly, I

confirmed that all the eight terms belong to three key components proposed by Spitzberg’s

model of competence. This suggests that Spitzberg’s model of competence can be applied to the

evaluations of the competence of tour guides by tourists.

Finally, a licensed tour guide is a professional communicator. I found out that tourists

ask tour guides to play various kinds of role from guiding tours to being private diplomats.

The core competence needed for playing these roles effectively and appropriately is

communication competence, therefore, a licensed tour guide is a professional communicator.

CONCLUSION

I conducted a tourist survey in order to find out some issues related to licensed tour

guides, and to examine communication competence required for tour guides. As a result, there

were four main findings that came to light from the surveys. First, foreign tourists have a

wide variety of interests in Japan. Second, foreign tourists did not use tour guides as expected

by the Japanese government. Third, tourists expect tour guide to have not only knowledge

and language skills, but also other factors such as friendliness, politeness, kindness, energy,

leadership, and appearances. This result also supported Spitzberg’s model of competence;

motivation, knowledge, and skills are the three components of intercultural communication

competence. Lastly, tour guides are professional communicators as they play not only the role

of tour guides guiding tours, but also the role of private diplomats.

NOTES

1) This paper is a revised version of “Competence Model and Elements Required for Tour

Guides,” which composes Chapter 1 of my master thesis submitted to the Graduate School

of Global Communication in University of Nagasaki.

2) Available from http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S24/S24HO210.html (December 3, 2009)

3) Retrieved, November 16, 2009, from http://www.jga21c.or.jp/ (Translated into English by

the author)

4) Retrieved, December 1, 2009, from http://www.geocities.jp/nezimaki_tokyo/kankou/

hounichi.htm

5) Available from http://www.mlit.go.jp/common/000059040.pdf (December 3, 2009).

According to Tourism Agency, as of April 2009, 13,530 people who had passed the national

examination and they registered as licensed tour guides on prefectural office.

6) Dr. Brian H. Spitzberg gave a lecture to graduate students of the University of Nagasaki,

Siebold in June 18, 2009.

7) The presented here was the model adopted from the presentation paper distributed by Dr.

35

Brian H. Spitzberg on June 18, 2009. I would like to thank for giving me permission of this

adaptation.

8) Retrieved, November 16, 2009, from http://www.jga21c.or.jp/

9) Retrieved, November 16, 2009, from http://www.jga21c.or.jp/jga_guideinterpreter_e.html

They say that “whether tourists from abroad go home with good impressions about Japan

depends on guide-interpreters' competence. That is the reason why a guide-interpreter is

called a private diplomat.”

REFERENCES

Cohen, E. (1985). The tourist guide, Annals of Tourism Research, 12(1), 5-29.

Harding, K. (1998). Going international English for tourism. London: Oxford University

Press.

Hughes, K. (1991).Tourist satisfaction: A guided cultural tour in North Queensland.

Australian Psychologist, 26 (3), 166-171.

McDonnell, I. (2001). The role of the tour guide in transferring cultural understanding. School

of Leisure, Sport and Tourism working Paper Series. University of Technology

Sydney. Retrieved January 5, 2010 from http://www.business.uts.edu.au/1st/

downloads/WP03_McDonnell.pdf

McCroskey, J.C. (1982) Communication competence and performance: A research and

pedagogical perspective. Communication Education, 31(1), 1-7.

Morreale, S. P., Spitzberg, B. H. & Barge, J. K. (2007). Human Communication: Motivation,

Knowledge, and Skills. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.

Ruben, B. D. (1976). Assessing communication competency for intercultural adaptation.

Group and Organization Studies, 1(3), 334-354.

Scollon, R. & Scollon, S.W. (1995). Intercultural communication. NY: Blackwell Publishing.

Spitzberg, B. H. (2007). A model of intercultural communication competence. In L.A. Samovar

& R. E. Porter (Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader, 12th ed., (pp.375-387).

Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Spitzberg, B. H. (2009 June 18). A model of intercultural communication competence. Paper

presented at the lecture in the University of Nagasaki, Siebold, Nagasaki, Japan.

Spitzberg, B. H. (2009). Axioms for a theory of intercultural communication competence,

Annual Review of English Learning and Teaching, 14, 70-81.

Spitzberg, B. H., & Cupach, W. R. (1984). Interpersonal communication competence. Beverly

Hills, CA: Sage.

Wiemann, J. M. (1977). Explication and test of a model of communicative competence.

Human Communication Research, 3 (3), 195-213.

Wiseman, L. R. (2003). Intercultural communication competence. In W. B. Gudykunst (Ed.),

Cross cultural and intercultural communication (pp.191-206). California State

University Fullerton: SAGE Publications.

36

APPENDIX A

A questionnaire in English

Date 2009/ /

I am a graduate student of University of Nagasaki. For the purpose of my research, I am

conducting a survey of foreign tourists in Japan. I would appreciate your cooperation by answering

the questions in this questionnaire.

Please check or circle.

Age

・under 20 ・20〜 30 ・31〜40 ・41〜50 ・ 51〜 60 ・over 60

Male /Female

Which of the following do you come from?

1. Europe 2. America 3.China 4.Oceania 5. Others ( )

What is your purpose of this trip ?

1. sightseeing 2. business 3. Repeaters 4. others ( )

1. Which of the following are you interested in tourism in Japan? (Multiple answers allowed.)

1 tea ceremony 9 manga (comics) 17 watching sumo 25.zen

2 bonsai 10 Akihabara 18 ninja 26 karaoke

3 painting 11 Maid Cafe 19 Atomic bomb 27 others

4 kabuki 12 World Heritages 20 nature ( )

5 Ikebana 13 castles 21 factory

6 calligraphy 14 temple 22 shopping

7 pottery 15 Shinto Shrine 23 mood

8 Music 16 sushi 24 amusement park

2. Have you ever participated in guided tour in Japan? If yes, please rate your degree of

satisfaction for them.

Yes (Q3.4.5.6) No➡ please go to Q7.

☟

3. Language used English Japanese others

excellent good acceptable poor bad

a . l a n gu a ge u s e d 5 4 3 2 1

b . po l i t e ne s s 5 4 3 2 1

37

c . k i n d n e s s 5 4 3 2 1

d . p r o f e s s i o na l kn o w l e d ge 5 4 3 2 1

e . f r i end l i nes s 5 4 3 2 1

f . e ne rge t i c 5 4 3 2 1

4. Was your guide helpful to understand Japanese culture, history, artifacts and other things?

excellent good acceptable poor bad

5. In Q3, why was your guide poor or bad? Please check the problem.

His/her speech was too fast. His/her speech wasn’t fluent.

His/her speech had heavy Japanese. His/her voice wasn’t clear.

His/her speech lacks knowledge (You have more knowledge than him/her).

He/she wasn’t able to answer your question.

6. Do you think you would like to participate in a guide tour again?

Yes No

7. What kind of competence do you expect for your Japanese tour guide?

1. Knowledge 2. Language Skills 3. Politeness 4. Kindness 5. Friendliness 6.looks

7. Energetic 8. Leadership 9. Others （ ）

8. Please list anything or anyplace that interests you in Japan.

（ ）

Thank you very much for your cooperation!

38

APPENDIX B

A questionnaire in Hangul

성별 남 / 여

저는 나가사키현립대학 대학원생 다나카히로에 입니다.일본에 오시는 외국인관광객에

관하여 연구목적 때문에 조사하고 있습니다.죄송합니다만 협력해 주십시요.

아래의 설문 중 해당되는 곳에 ㅇ를 쳐주세요.

나이를 알려 주세요.

1． 20세 미만 2． 20세～30세 3． 31세～40세 4. 41세～50세

5. 51세～60세 6．61세이상

1. 일본관광에서 흥미가 있는 것은 무엇입니까?

1．다도 2．분재 3．그림 4．가부끼 5．꽃꽂지 6．서예 7．도자기

8．음악 9．만화・아니메 10．아끼하바라(秋葉原） 11．메이드깃사(メイド喫茶)

12．일본의 세계유산 13．성 14．절 15．신사 16．스시 17．스모관전

18．닌자 19．원폭자료관 20．자연 21．공장견학 22 쇼핑 23.분위기

24테마파크(하우스텐포스) 25.참선 26.가라오께 27.기타

2. 지금까지 일본에서 관광가이드를 이용해 본 적이 있습니까?

1．네 (설문３．４．５．６으로) 2．아니오 (설문７으로)

그때의 관광가이드가 사용한 언어는 무엇이었습니까?

1．영어 2．일본어 3．한국어 4．기타

3. 그때의 관광가이드에 대한 만족도를 5단계로 평가 해주세요.

대만족 만족 보통 불만 최악

언어구사능력 5 4 3 2 1

예의 5 4 3 2 1

친절 5 4 3 2 1

전문지식 5 4 3 2 1

친근감 5 4 3 2 1

활발성 5 4 3 2 1

4. 일본을 이해하는데 관광가이드는 도움이 되었습니까?

① 크게 도움이 됐다. ② 도움이 됐다. ③보통 ④ 도움이 안됐다. ⑤모르다.

5．관광 가이드의 서비스가 나빴던 이유를 써 주세요.

( )

6. 또 관광 가이드의 여행에 참가하고 싶습니까?

1．네

2．아니오

7. 관광가이드에 대하여 원하는 것은 무엇입니까? （이상을 들려주세요.）

1. 지식 2. 언어능력 3.예의 4.친절 5.친근감 6. 외모 7활발성

8. 리더쉽 9．기타( )

＊설문에 협력해주셔서 대단히 고맙습니다. 앞으로의 연구에 귀중하게 사용하겠습니다.

39

APPENDIX C

A questionnaire in Chinese