VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --------------------- HOÀNG THỊ THANH PERCEPTIONS OF VIETNAMESE TOUR GUIDES’ COMMUNICATION STYLES BY WESTERN TOURISTS (QUAN ĐIỂM CỦA KHÁCH DU LỊCH PHƯƠNG TÂY VỀ PHONG CÁCH GIAO TIẾP CỦA HƯỚNG DẪN VIÊN VIỆT NAM) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI – 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --------------------- HOÀNG THỊ THANH PERCEPTIONS OF VIETNAMESE TOUR GUIDES’ COMMUNICATION STYLES BY WESTERN TOURISTS (QUAN ĐIỂM CỦA KHÁCH DU LỊCH PHƯƠNG TÂY VỀ PHONG CÁCH GIAO TIẾP CỦA HƯỚNG DẪN VIÊN VIỆT NAM) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Prof. Nguyễn Hòa HANOI - 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby, certify the thesis entitled ―Perceptions of Vietnamese tour guides’ communication styles by Western tourists‖ is the result of my own work as the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
The thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other universities or intuitions. I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study and research. November, 2016 Hoang Thi Thanh I LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to show my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. I would like to give my sincere thanks to the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, ULIS, VNU for giving me permission to commence and go ahead with this M.
thesis and to use departmental data. I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Prof. Nguyễn Hòa, whose encouragement, guidance and support enabled me to develop an understanding of the subject and to accomplish the final version of the thesis as expected. This thesis would not be possible were it not for my lecturers in the M.
course, namely Prof. Hoàng Văn Vân, Assoc. Lâm Quang Đông, Assoc. Lê Hùng Tiến, Prof.
Nguyễn Quang, Dr. Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, Dr. Nguyễn Huy Kỷ, Assoc. Ngô Hữu Hoàng, Assoc.
Lê Văn Canh, Dr. Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, Dr. Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà and Dr. Mai Thị Loan.
I would like to thank them for their interesting lectures, devotion, assistance and valuable hints. Especially, I owe my deepest gratitude to my parents whose endless love and encouragement helped me finish this work. Lastly, I offer my regards and blessings to all of those who supported me in any respect during the completion of the study. II LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT The research firstly scrutinizes the perceptions by Western tourists of their ideal tour guide to find out what they expect from local tour guides.
As the next phase, the communication style assessment process was carried out to explore the communication styles of the Vietnamese tour guides perceived by the tourists. These styles are then collated with the levels of satisfaction to unfold the relationship between them. Thanks to the mixed methods of qualitative and quantitative with the use of questionnaire survey and unstructured interviews, the research records the presence of three out of four communication styles among the Vietnamese tour guides, namely Reflective, Emotive and Supportive which are perceived by the Western tourists. The visual statistic shows that of the three communication styles, tour guides of the Emotive style achieve a much higher level of satisfaction in compared with the other two.
III LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. III LIST OF FIGURES. VI LIST OF TABLES. VI CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY. SCOPE OF THE STUDY. DESIGN OF THE STUDY.
4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. TOURISM IN VIETNAM. An overview of Vietnamese tourism status. Tour guides in Vietnam.
Tour guide’s position in tourism development. An overview of tour guide jobs in Vietnam. What is Culture?. Communication style review.
Communication-style model. The Dominance Continuum. The Sociability Continuum. 14 IV LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Four Styles of Communication. REVIEW OF RELATED WORKS. 20 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Data gathering instruments.
26 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Population of the study. Perceptions of Vietnamese tour guides’ communication styles by Western tourists. Statistical description of the customers’ satisfaction.
Perceptions of Vietnamese tour guides’ communication styles by Western tourists. Relationship between Vietnamese tour guides’ communication styles and tourist satisfaction. Participants’ comments and interviews. IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES. i APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE. vii Section 1 : Survey about Vietnamese tour guides.
vii APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTIONS. ix V LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 - The dominance continuum. 13 Figure 2 - The Dominance Indicator. 14 Figure 3 - The sociability continuum.
14 Figure 4 - The Sociability Indicator. 15 Figure 5 - The partial outline of the communication styles. 16 Figure 6 - The Emotive Style combines high sociability and high dominance. 17 Figure 7 - The Directive Style combines high dominance and low sociability.
17 Figure 8 - The Reflective Style combines low dominance and low sociability. 18 Figure 9 - The Supportive Style combines low dominance and high sociability. 20 Figure 10 - Satisfaction levels of tourists towards their most recent tour guides. 32 Figure 11 - The four communication style model.
33 Figure 12 - Tour guides’ dominance tendency. 33 Figure 13 - Tour guides’ sociability tendency. 34 Figure 14 - Vietnamese tour guides’ communication styles by percentage. 35 Figure 15 - Relationship between tour guides’ communication styles and tourist satisfaction.
37 LIST OF TABLES Table 1 - Participants’ demographic illustration. 30 VI LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. RATIONALE It is no doubt that of all tourism-related jobs in Vietnam, tour guides play a salient role in the success of the tours. A tour guide who leaves a good impression will facilitate tour activities; in contrast, an unfavorable impression may lead to a cancellation, or even worse, a poor reputation that will affect future visitors by words of mouth or through internet reviews.
According to Manning G. (2012) “The perceptions that others form about us are based on what they observe us saying and doing. They have no way of knowing our innermost thoughts and feelings, so they make decisions about us based on what they see and hear. The patterns of behavior that others observe can be called communication style” (Manning G.
This is more likely to be true in guided tours when a tour guide has to take responsibility for a number of tourists hence has not much time to interact with them individually. Therefore, the feelings of tourists about a guide are majorly based on their perceptions of that guide’s behaviors. In the recent years, Vietnamese tourism industry has witnessed dramatic growth with the increasing number of international tourist arrivals through the years. However, the human resource management in tourism sectors, including tour guide training has not met the required international standard (Saigon Economic Times, 2016).
The common problems of many English speaking tour guides are the shortage of either English competence or cultural and historical knowledge or even both, followed by poor communication styles. While many tour guides are appreciated for their hospitability and good communications with tourists, others sometimes cause an impression of being distant or dominant over their tourists. Some researches on the expectations of tourists about their tour guides show that ―not only the tour guides are expected to be professional and knowledgeable but also friendly and not concerned for their own profit‖ (Li et al, 2011). Consequently, not only satisfaction is likely to be affected by the communication style of a 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com communication partner, but also the likelihood that one shares knowledge with a communication partner (De Vries, 2009).
This has become more significant due to the tourist attraction policy of the Government since last July, allowing a 15-day visa exemption for 13 countries which are mostly from Europe, predicting an influx of Western tourists into Vietnam. If the tour guides are not aware of their strengths and weaknesses to improve their performance soon, it could result in the reduction of a certain number of tourists due to their dissatisfaction. With four years of experience in hospitality, including two years working as a professional tour guide, I am well aware of the above problems which can be encountered by any tour guides. Hence, this research is an attempt to unfold 1) the tourists’ perception of the local tour guide’s communication styles and 2) their possible effects on tourists’ satisfaction.
As an alternative, tour guides can be aware of their own communication style, how it affects their customers’ feelings and hence adjusts their behaviors accordingly. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY For a tour guide, it is essential to create a good impression on their tourists. However, in fact, despite the tour guides’ great effort to take care of their customers, hardly are they aware of their communication style and how it can affect their customers’ satisfaction. In addition, tourists do not often stay in one place too long hence the chance of profound understanding their tour guides is almost impossible.
Therefore, their evaluation of tour guides is mainly based on how they perceive about the guides’ attitudes and behaviors. This perception is culturally determined and in turn influences the way they communicate with the tour guides. Following this assumption, the study aims at: 1) Investigating the Western tourists’ perception of Vietnamese tour guides’ communication styles in terms of tour satisfaction 2) Investigating the possible relationship between Vietnamese tour guides’ communication styles and tourists’ satisfaction 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. RESEARCH QUESTIONS In implementing the study, the following questions are expected to be addressed: 1) What are the perceptions by Western tourists of Vietnamese tour guides’ communication styles? 2) Is there a relationship between Vietnamese tour guides’ communication styles and tourists’ satisfaction? 1.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY This study is an attempt to look into an under-researched issue on Vietnamese tour guides’ communication styles while communicating with their Western tourists in English. Thus, once completed, its outcome may bring about beneficial impacts to several entities involved, namely Vietnamese tour guides, foreign visitors to Vietnam, and even the Vietnamese teachers and learners of English in tourism training. First of all, they are Vietnamese tour guides who will benefit the most from the result of the research. This study will help them firstly to identify their own communication style, then to notice the expectations from their customers and finally to be able to adjust their behaviors appropriately to meet those expectations and to limit potential communication problems with tourists.
The result of this study will also provide future tour guides with some basic intercultural knowledge that could be useful to avoid misunderstanding and to create compassion towards their tourists, hence to strengthen their guiding competence as a career. Longitudinally, once the local tour guides are aware of their own communications style, they will also be aware of proper verbal and non-verbal behaviors to be used when communicating with each kind of tourists. As a result, Western tourists in particular and international tourists in general can enjoy a more pleasant, friendly tourism environment. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.