Perception of recreational benefit and human motivational theory: A study on tourist guides

The human factor is the key aspect for developing strategies which enable competitive differentiation distinct from competitors and maintain the sustainability for tourism which is an extremely labor- intensive sector. Those qualified in human resource management are the primary source for businesses as well as destinations. Therefore, the tourist guide is one of the most important workers in the tourism industry and have an impact on the success of businesses and destinations. Tourist guides are one of the employees in tourism who have primary interactions with tourists, solve their problems, and contribute to and promote the country. It is a matter of importance for the future of the enterprises and the sector to enable the tourist guides to fulfill the responsibilities and obligations of the profession in the best way, in brief, to identify the needs that motivate them, to determine the benefit they get from the recreational activities they participate in their spare time and to reveal the effect of this benefit on their achievement needs. The purpose of this research is to specify the effect of recreational benefit perceptions of active tourist guides on the level of need to accomplishment. In line with the purpose of the research, the used reference data was obtained from 554 active tourist guides working in Turkey by using the survey method. As a result of the analyzes carried out within the scope of the research, it has been determined that there is a positive and moderately significant relationship between the recreational benefit perceptions of the active tourist guides and the level of the need to achieve them. It was concluded that the simple linear regression model, which was carried out to determine the effect of the recreational benefit perceptions of the active tourist guides on the levels of the need to achieve, was also meaningful and it was concluded that 9% of the change in the levels of the participants' need to derived from the perceptions of the recreational benefit.