The roles of tour elements and tourist guides on local attractions' branding

"Locality" in tourism destinations, touristic products and services is becoming an element that is sought by both local and foreign tourists, especially in cultural tours, as much as quality. The unique characteristics of a place and its "local attractions" enable it to be attracted to that place and organized tours to it. Over time, these tours start to add value to the region, such as eliminating the infrastructure and superstructure deficiencies of the region, increasing the quality of touristic products and services, developing local products, and on the other hand, they may be exposed to the negative effects of tourism such as environmental pollution, destruction of attractions, excessive consumption of resources. This study aims to reveal the roles of tour components and tourist guides in the local attractions to become real brands rather than temporary fashion elements. For the purposes of the study, via interviews conducted with tourist guides and travel agencies' managers and via statistics of relevant institutions, local attractions, accepted as brands, in Turkey have been identified. During the research period, two attractions which many tours were organized to and which were thought to be in the early stages of the branding process, were also included in the study for comparison. Surveys were conducted with 315 local and foreign tourists participating in the tours organized to these attractions and with 82 tourist guides, almost of whom were actively working. The data obtained in the 2019 summer season were primarily subjected to descriptive analysis (frequency, percentage). Correlation and Regression analyzes were used to measure the relationships between variables. Nonparametric Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis H tests were used to analyze the differences; One Way Anova and Tamhanes' 2 tests were applied to determine the details of the differences. According to the results of the analysis; it was determined that all variables are associated with branding; that except for the transportation sub-dimension, tour components affect the branding of local attractions; the guidance service sub-dimension affecting branding is only the perceived social role dimension; that all sub-dimensions of the planning and presentation of attractiveness affect branding. In addition, it was concluded that the guides affect branding in matters such as the inclusion of tourist attractions in the tour, the transmission of tourist requests and complaints to tour companies, and that they contribute to the planning and presentations of the attractions directly or indirectly.