COVID-19 and its Economic Implications for Turkish Tour Guides

The COVID-19 outbreak, which became one of the most stunning pandemics of the modern era, had a truly global effect on the world economy in a short period of time. Almost all countries were negatively impacted by the outbreak, which practically paralysed global life and resulted in negative dynamics, unprecedented conditions, and obstacles. Türkiye was not immune to this, having felt seriously negative consequences during this period. Tourism, nearly coming to a complete interruption for the first time since World War II in the 21st century, happened to be one of the hardest hit industries. The industry of tourism in Türkiye, steadily growing over the previous decade was subjected to this difficult process, bringing the situation to a near-standstill. Tour guides who are major front-line employees in the industry experienced this negativity and faced numerous job-related challenges. With these considerations in mind, the present study sought to uncover how the COVID-19 outbreak impacted Turkish tour guides. For this purpose, a sample of 26 certified tour guides associated with the Izmir Chamber of Tour Guides were interviewed using a semi-structured interview form in September 2021. The study findings reveal that the COVID-19 outbreak greatly affected tour guides, reducing their sources of income while maintaining most of their fixed expenses. To ensure their survival, tour guides require more supports, particularly financial ones

Interfaith Tourist Behaviour at Religious Heritage Sites: House of the Virgin Mary Case in Turkey

This study questions selected behavioural aspects of travellers belonging to different religious beliefs during their religious heritage site visits. Tourist behaviour needs to be analysed in specific circumstances. This study aims to clarify in situ problems experienced by religious tourists, behavioural differences of tourists with different beliefs, and religious tourist behaviour regarding cultural heritage site protection. A qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews has been followed. Documentary analysis provided secondary data. On-site observation and face-to-face interviews with key-informants provided primary data. Snowball (referral) sampling was applied as non-probability sampling was convenient for data collection. Primary data suggest that visitor behaviour tends to differentiate based on religious faith and age of visitors. Young Turkish Muslim visitors (Gen Y) seemed to have superficial contact with holy sites especially when the site does not represent their own faith. This superficiality seemed higher for Euro Turks and young male students. Muslims and Christians exhibit similarities (deeper interest and respect with increasing age) and dissimilarities (more female interest in Muslims, more on-site praying for Christians)

Valorización sostenible del patrimonio cultural via tour guías: caso turco de efeso ciudad antigua

The concept of sustainability has become one of the most popular topics of tourism studies. Sustainable tourism emerged as a strong stream of tourism research based on the stance that tourism industry has responsibility for degradation of natural and cultural environments. Additionally, tourism industry consumes local resources and has to pay its attention on conservation issues. Tour guides are part of tourist experience in destinations and they have a strong influence on tourist behavior. In this study, the potential support of tour guides conducting excursions to Ephesus Ancient City located at Western Anatolia nearby Izmir metropolitan city is questioned for sustainable heritage valorization process. Ephesus is regarded as one of the great outdoor museums of Turkey, once the trade center of the ancient world, a religious center of the early Christianity and today an important tourism center deserves to be questioned through cultural heritage valorization concept. Role of tour guides in minimizing negative impacts of tourist traffic is rarely perceived and applied as a support to heritage site managers. This research seeks to reflect primary data obtained through qualitative data collection techniques (semi -structured interview) from Turkish tour guides surveyed at Ephesus Ancient City. Following the evaluation of findings, recommendations will be developed for tourism industry and cultural heritage site managers.El concepto de sostenibilidad se ha convertido en uno de los temas más populares entre los estudios de turismo. El turismo sostenible surgió como una fuerte corriente de investigación basada en la postura de la industria del turismo en relación a su responsabilidad en la degradación de los ambientes naturales y culturales. Además, la industria del turismo consume recursos locales y tiene que prestar atenciónal tema de la conservación. Los guías turísticos hacen parte de la experiencia turística en los destinos y tienen una fuerte influencia en el comportamiento de los turistas. En este estudio es cuestionado el potencial apoyo de los guías turísticos que realizan excursiones a Éfeso, antigua ciudad ubicada en Anatolia occidental cerca de la ciudad metropolitana de Esmirna, en el proceso de valorización del patrimonio sostenible. Éfeso es considerado como uno de los grandes museos al aire libre de Turquía, uno de los centros de comercio del mundo antiguo, un centro religioso del cristianismo primitivo, y en la actualidad, un centro turístico importante que merece ser estudiado a través del concepto de valorización del patrimonio cultural. El papel de los guías turísticos en la minimización de los impactos negativos del tráfico de turistas rara vez es percibido y aplicado como un apoyo para los gestores de lugares con patrimonio. Esta investigación procura reflejar datos primarios obtenidos a través de técnicas de recolección de datos cualitativos (entrevista semiestructurada) de guías turísticos turcos encuestados en la Ciudad Antigua de Éfeso. Tras la evaluación de los resultados, se elaborarán recomendaciones para la industria del turismo y para los gestores de lugares con patrimonio cultural

Role of tour guides on tourist satisfaction level in guided tours and impact on tourist re-visiting intentıon: a research in Istanbul

The increase of leisure time and economic welfare level led people to travel and thus participate in tourism activities worldwide. As a result of the increase of the international tourism activities in recent years, the amount of tourism receipts that countries acquire increased significantly and tourism destinations found themselves in a harsh competitive atmosphere. In tourism industry in which customers’ wishes, needs and expectations change every day, countries in macro-level and tourism enterprises in micro-level, which want to obtain share from international tourism pie and maintain their current market share are supposed to offer qualified service and renew themselves constantly. In this context, tour guides who are regarded as one of the representatives of countries and tourism destinations and one of the most important front-line staff in tourism industry play significant role on tourist satisfaction and re-visit intention. Tour guides who provide idea and information to tourists about community and country via their attitudes, behaviors, skills and knowledge level and represent themselves, their colleagues, travel agencies/tour operators, their countries and countries’ people to tourists are accepted as the staff group having most significant responsibility. No matter how many guide books and how much information that tourists making a visit to any country have, they need tour guides as they do not know the language, culture and traditions of the country. Irrespective of the volume of information tourists might have when visiting a country, the need for a tour guide plays a crucial role on interpreting the authenticity, language, culture and traditions of the country. Thus making the tourists’ experience an unforgettable one. The purpose of this research is to determine the impact the tour guide service in Istanbul has on tourist satisfaction level and what extent this attracts repetitive visits to the city. This research is made up of three chapters. In the first chapter, the concepts of tour guiding profession and tour guide are examined in a detailed way and the characteristics that tour guides should have are investigated by analyzing the concept of tour guides. In the second chapter, the concepts of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and loyalty in tourism industry and re-visit intention are examined by making a detailed literature search. vii In the last chapter, the impact the tour guide service in Istanbul has on tourist satisfaction level and what extent this attracts repetitive visits to the city is determined on the framework of theoretical knowledge. In this context, the questionnaire technique was applied and the obtained quantitative primary data were analyzed statistically. Following the findings of the research, the results were evaluated and recommendations were developed

Tourist harassment and its impact on tourism experience in Istanbul İstanbul’da turist tacizi ve tacizin turizm deneyimine etkisi

xi, 382 sayfa29 cm. 1 CDThe tourism industry is referred to as the world’s one of the largest serviceindustries and as one way to achieve development in tourism destinations across the globe and offering benefits and contributing to the local economy for any country. Tourism, which becomes a common phenomenon and important for a wide range of reasons, particularly for the developing countries is one very sensitive and fragile industry to any negativity by its nature. In the global economy, the share of the tourismindustry is increasing and thus, intensifying competition among the growing number of tourism destinations, which offer similar products and services to have a greater share from the international tourism market. Therefore, all tourism destinations are supposed to find out their strong and weak parts to tackle threats more easily and generate the opportunities, which are more effective and creative ideas for the business enterprises to keep the success and sustainability in their operations. However, the increasingly common research works caused a partly different look. Tourism, whichis the sum of the relations arising from the interaction of international tourists, host governments, host communities and business suppliers might lead large groups of international tourists into relatively small-scaled areas temporarily and contribute to international tourists’ interaction with local people, which may result in problems such as crime and harassment. Tourist harassment is presumably one of the main global and vexing problems that do negatively affect the sustainability, development and wellbeing of the tourism industry in many destinations located in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. As one of the major challenging issues, the tourist harassment is one possible negative consequence that results from the interactive relationship between international tourists as guests and local people as hosts and doesemerge as a conflict to the tourism industry,which mainly depends on hospitality. In today’s world, tourist harassment is an important and serious problem in a wide range of countries around the world, particularly in the ones, which do benefit immensely from the tourism industry. As one of the most leading tourism destinations in the Mediterranean region, Turkey is one of these countries and does face the problem of tourist harassment in highly tourist-populated regions especially in Istanbul, one of themost famous and most visited tourism destinations in Turkey and possessing a high potential for a great variety of tourism types.ABSTRACTTurizm endüstrisi dünyanın en büyük hizmet endüstrilerinden biri olarak vedünyanın dört bir yanındaki turizm destinasyonlarında herhangi bir ülke için gelişme sağlamak amacıyla fayda getirmenin ve yerel ekonomiye katkıda bulunmanın bir yolu olarak anılmaktadır. Yaygın bir fenomen haline gelen ve özellikle gelişmekte olan ülkeler için çok kapsamlı nedenlerden dolayı önemli olan turizm doğası gereği her türlü olumsuzluğa karşı çok hassas ve kırılgan yapıya sahip bir endüstridir. Küresel ekonomide, uluslararası turizm sektörünün payı sürekli olarak artış göstermekte ve bu nedenden dolayı uluslararası turizm pazarından daha büyük pay almak için benzer ürün ve hizmetler sunan ve artan sayıdaki turizm destinasyonları arasında rekabetgittikçe yoğunlaşmaktadır. Bu nedenle, turizm destinasyonları tehditlerle daha kolay başa çıkabilmek için sahip oldukları güçlü ve zayıf taraflarını ortaya çıkarmalı ve böylelikle işletmelerin faaliyetlerinde başarı ve sürdürülebilirliği devam ettirebilmeleri için daha etkili fırsatlar ve yaratıcı fikirler üretmek konumundadırlar. Bununla birlikte, giderek yaygınlaşmakta olan araştırmalar kısmen farklı bir görünüme neden olmuştur. Yabancı turistlerin, ev sahibi konumunda olan devletlerin ve toplulukların ve son olarak ticari anlamda hizmet tedarikçilerin etkileşiminden doğan ilişkilerin toplamı olan turizm büyük oranda yabancı turist guruplarını geçici olarak nispeten küçük ölçekli alanlara yönlendirebilir ve suç ve taciz gibi sorunlara neden olabilecek yabancı turistlerin yerel halkla etkileşimine katkıda bulunabilmektedir. Turist tacizi Avrupa, Orta Doğu, Asya, Afrika ve Karayiplerde bulunan birçok turizm destinasyonunda turizm sektörünün muhtemelen sürdürülebilirliğini, gelişimini ve refahını olumsuz olarak etkileyen temel, küresel ve can sıkıcı sorunlardan biri olarak kabul edilmektedir. Başlıca zorlu konulardan biri olarak, turist tacizi misafir olarak yabancı turistlerin ve ev sahibi olarak yerel halkın arasındaki karşılıklı iletişimden kaynaklanan muhtemel olumsuz sonuçlardan biri olmakla birlikte temel olarak konuk misafirperverliğine dayanan turizm sektöründe bir çatışma olarak ortaya çıkmaktadır. Günümüzde turisttacizi dünya genelinde özellikle turizmden büyük ölçüde yararlanan ülkeler başta olmak üzere çok çeşitli ülkelerin karşılaştığı önemli ve ciddi bir sorundur. Akdeniz bölgesinin en önde gelen turizm destinasyonlarından biri olan Türkiye bu ülkelerden bir tanesi olmakla birlikte Türkiye'nin en ünlü ve en çok ziyaret edilen turizm destinasyonlarından biri olan ve çok kapsamlı turizm türleri için yüksek potansiyele sahip İstanbul başta olmak üzere yabancı turistlerin yoğun olduğu bölgelerde turist tacizi sorunuyla karşı karşıya kalmaktadır

Effects of Ivabradine on 6-Minute Walk Test and Quality of Life in Patients With Previously Implanted CRT-D

Background: We aimed to evaluate clinical effects of additional heart rate control by ivabradine on life quality score and 6-minute walking test in patients with previously implanted biventricular cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) with ischemic heart failure under regular treatment. Background: &nbsp; We aimed to evaluate clinical effects of additional heart rate control by ivabradine on life quality score and 6-minute walking test in patients with previously implanted biventricular cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) with ischemic heart failure under regular treatment. Methods: &nbsp; Fifteen men and 14 women with a median age of 63 years (range, 48 &nbsp; Y79 years) were studied. Twenty-one patients were in New York Heart Association class II (8 patients were in class III), CRT-D implanted previously, and with resting heart rates greater than 70 beats per minute with sinus rhythm despite conventional medication. Patients were given 2.5- to 7.5-mg ivabradine orally twice a day, and drug dosage was titrated to decrease the patients&rsquo; average heart rate to 70 beats per minute. Before and 3 months after ivabradine treatment, all patients underwent extensive clinical, echocardiographic, and laboratory evaluation. Results: &nbsp; Ivabradine treatment produced dose-dependent reductions in heart rate at rest and at peak exercise (91.9 &nbsp; T 6.3 to 71.7 T 4.8 and 114.4 T 7.6 to 96.8 &nbsp; T 4.8; P = 0.001 and P = 0.001, respectively). There were also significant improvements in life quality score (52.4 &nbsp; T 9.5 to 37.9T7.8; P &nbsp; = 0.001) and 6-minute walking distance (278.7 T 85.8 to 373.3 T 94.0; P &nbsp; = 0.001) of patients. All patients with New York Heart Association class III became class II after 3 months of ivabradine treatment. Conclusion: &nbsp; Heart rate reduction in a short-term period by ivabradine produced significant improvements in exercise capacity and life quality in patients with CRT-D and conventional therapy.</p