The role of tourist guides at sustainability of cultural tourism: Ankara sample

Tourists are the centerpieces of tourism, which is one of the most rapidly growing industries of the world. Tour guides, who spend time with the tourists almost 24 hours as their position, have a strong influence on tourist behaviors. Thus, it can be said that professional tour guides have significant prerogatives in guiding tourist behaviors. In this context, tour guides have an important role in protecting cultural values and ensuring their sustainability. For this purpose, this study has been conducted to determine whether the tour guides, travel agencies and tourists perceive the tour guides as cultural mediators. In this study, random sampling method has been applied to tour guides, quota sampling method has been applied to the tourists and convenience sampling method has been applied to travel agencies. In analysis of data, Kruskal Wallis test has been applied on the data set for the tour guides and tourists, and ANOVA test has been applied on the data sets for travel agencies. As a result of this study, it has been determined that each sample group has perceived the tour guides as cultural envoys. However, it is remarkable that perceptions of the tour guides take place in higher preference ranking than tourists and travel agencies.