Anthropological Study of Cultural Brokers as Tour Guides: The Case of Lalibela, Northern Wollo
| dc.contributor.advisor | Senishaw, Getachew(PhD) | |
| dc.contributor.author | Belay, Tesfaye | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-06-25T12:34:38Z | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2023-11-04T11:55:47Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2018-06-25T12:34:38Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2023-11-04T11:55:47Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2017-01 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This study has aimed to understand the roles of tour guides in the tourism industry in Lalibela. Specifically, an attempt has been made; to investigate how the local guides conceptualize tour guiding, the interpretive strategies of the local guides, and their awareness about tourists‟ cultural differences and their general knowledge about tourists‟ attractions. The study has also extended in identifying challenges that local tour guides experience in their endeavor and finding out strategies employed by local tour guides to interpret tourist attractions. To address these issues, data have been collected through interview, survey questionnaire, participant observation and Focused Group Discussion. Both the interview and FGD data have been first transcribed and then including the data collected through survey questionnaire analyzed and categorized thematically. Then, descriptive and thematic analysis has been employed in the analysis stage of the study to describe, interpret and explain the data. The data has been analyzed in relation with concepts, theory and literatures discussed in the literature review. The study findings have showed that five types of local tour guides associations found in Lalibela. Cultural mediations: mediation of access, mediation of information and mediation of encounters; leadership and safety; ambassador; sales representatives; education and promotion; and safeguarding of heritages are the major roles of local guides as identified in the study. The local guides underlined the importance of multi disciplinary knowledge in the case of Lalibela so as to properly address different questions raised by tourists. As a result, religious, historical, geographical, architectural, geological and archeological knowledge, and language ability, cultural awareness and good code of ethics have been found as major requirements for local tour guides of Lalibela. The findings have showed that local tour guides of Lalibela apply more or less same interpretive strategies in the introductory part፡ they highlights the three kingdoms such as the Axumite, the Zagwe and the Gonderian. However they devote more time for the Zagwe dynasty especially on the history of Lalibela. The findings have further depicted that tour guides have experienced language and culture related problems in their tour guiding practice. The findings of the study have displayed several challenges of local guides of Lalibela encompassing seasonality of the business, unavailability of training so as to overcome their language problems, and upgrade their competency in multi-disciplinary skills and knowledge with regard to the nature of tourists‟ attractions. Furthermore the expansion of group visit and signboards are stated by the local guides as problems, which threaten their earnings. Various types of training including on-job-training related to destination knowledge, language skills and cultural differences have been recommended for the development of local tour guides profession. Finally, conducting a large scale survey research on the other aspects of tour guides has been indicated as an area of further study. In general, some of the roles uncovered in this study are also mentioned and others are either overlooked or implicitly stated in the models of tour guiding described in the study. However, unlike the models of tour guides discussed so far in this study not only the services offered by tour guides are the focus of study. A wide range of issues related with local tour guides as mentioned above are investigated. The study has clearly revealed as local guides of Lalibela are cultural brokers too | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/3273 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Addis Ababa University | en_US |
| dc.subject | Social Anthropology | en_US |
| dc.title | Anthropological Study of Cultural Brokers as Tour Guides: The Case of Lalibela, Northern Wollo | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |