Effect of professional tourist guides' of professional competence on tourists' destination image perception and on overall satisfaction (A case oriented German tourists in Antalya city tour)

In an attempt to receive further share of the rapidly growing tourism market destinations, in which they compete with each other, highlighting the characteristics of making different and put forward to destination of aspects are destination image and professional tourist guides informing tourists when by accompanying tourists. Through professional tourist guides' knowledge, interpretation of a destination's attractions and culture as well as their communication and service skills, they have the ability to be considerable impact on travelling experiences for tourists. This study reveals that Antalya destination coming of German tourists' perceiving, destination image, professional tourist guides' professional competence and general assessment on the overall satisfaction regarding holiday experience. The purpose of this study indicates that the professional competences of professional tourist guides' , destination image of German tourists coming to the city of Antalya and have the ability to demonstrate the effects on perceptions of overall satisfaction. The findings, which obtained from the research, it is foreseen that will have positive contributions to understanding the relationship between image-satisfaction-guide competence variables. For this purpose, drawing upon theoretical and empirical evidences in the relevant literature, eleven hypotheses were developed and tested. The destination image construct was conceptualized as having three components: cognitive, affective, and overall image. By means of surveys applied to a representative sample of 307 German tourists visiting Antalya destination between 10 May and 10 September of 2014. The data were analyzed using, independent sample t-test, ANOVA, factor and regression analysis. Research findings indicated that there were significant relationships among the professional competence of professional tourist guide, perceived destination image and overall satisfaction. Keywords: Destination, Destination Image, Professional Tourist Guides, German Tourists, Antalya.