Abstract:
This research studied international tourists’ and stakeholders’
expectations of the monastery, tour guides’ competency and ability, the monastery
tour guides’ real competency and ability in the present time, the monastery tour
guides, competency and ability which should be developed, and guidelines of
developing competency and ability of the monastery tour guides. The sample
groups were 100 international tourists in the Asian region, who visited
monasteries in Bangkok and 15 stakeholders. Data were collected by using the
questionnaire with international tourists and the interview guide with
stakeholders. The data wereanalyzed by using Frequency, Percentage, Mean, and
Standard Deviation.
The results revealed that the sample groups had the most expectations of
the monastery tour guides’ competency and ability of human relation, knowledge,
guiding, and problem solving. Stakeholders had similar expectations of the
competency and ability of the monastery tour guides. Both sample groups thought
that the monastery tour guides in the present time have considerable abilities of
human relation, knowledge, guiding, and problem solving. Their expectations of
the monastery tour guides’ 4 aspect competency and ability were higher than
the monastery tour guides’ real competency and ability in the present time.
The monastery tour guides should improve and develop competency and
ability in every aspect. As for the recommendations of this research, the related
agency should provide the training for instilling conscience, issue the measures
which stimulate tourist guides to seek more knowledge at all times, provide more
curriculums which emphasize on the job training, and provide more training in
foreign languages which are required by the tourism market. Furthermore, further
research should use a large sample size in different groups of tourists and design
more foreign language questionnaires suitable for such sample groups