The effect of tourist guides' personality and lifestyle on innovative levels

The aim of the thesis study is to determine the effect of tourist guides' personality traits and lifestyles on their innovativeness levels. The research was designed in the quantitative research method. The universe of the research consisted of professional tourist guides working in Turkey. The survey method was used as a data collection tool in the research. The survey form was applied to the participants by the researcher on a voluntary basis and online between 08.11.2021 and 28.12.2021 with the convenience sampling method. A total of 226 questionnaires were collected. The data were analyzed by transferring them to the statistical package program (SPSS). After the normal distribution analysis of the data, reliability analysis, explanatory factor analysis and correlation and regression analyzes suitable for the purpose of the research were performed. According to the findings, the personality traits of the guides were determined as five sub-dimensions. These dimensions were named as extraversion, emotional stability, openness to experience, responsibility, and agreeableness in parallel with the literature. Lifestyle scale: The scale is grouped under seven sub-dimensions: those who strive, thinkers, constructors, successful, innovative, experienced and "believers". The attitude scale of adopting innovations is also grouped under five sub-dimensions: early adopters, early adopters, late adopters, late majority, and innovative thinkers. As a result of the regression analysis, it was determined that the personality traits of the tourist guides affect the innovativeness levels of the guides. Considering the effect of personality traits sub-dimensions on innovativeness levels; The early adopter's dimension is affected by emotional stability (β=.151) and the late adopter's dimension is affected by agreeableness (β=.212), emotional stability (β= -.115), and extraversion (β= -.122). When the effect of lifestyle on the innovativeness levels of tourist guides is examined, it is seen that the lifestyles of tourist guides are effective on their innovativeness levels. When we look at how the sub-dimensions of the innovativeness levels of tourist guides are affected by the lifestyle sub-dimensions; The early movers dimension consisted of hardliners (β= .486), successful (β= .142), and innovators (β= .104); It was determined that early adopters were affected by those who strive (β= -.086), thinkers (β= .138), constructors (β= .172) and successful ones (β= .148). The latecomer's factor was among the successful ones (β= ,275); The lagging majority factor consists of successful (β= .208) and believers (β= .100), and innovators factor from thinkers (β= .318), builders (β= .133), successful (β= .153) and experienced (β=. ,249) are affected.