The quality of tour guide service has become China's tourism service quality of a "short board". According to the principle of management of the barrel, a short board will reduce the capacity of the whole barrel, the poor quality of tour guide service reduces the overall quality of China's tourism services, must pay attention to and focus on research solutions. Many domestic scholars and industry insiders, from the perspective of how to improve the quality of tour guides and tour guides to strengthen the management of this issue has carried out a lot of useful research, and put forward a number of valuable ideas; but the current tourism market, the emergence of a variety of bad phenomena that our country's tour guide management there are still a lot of problems, and to the extent that not to put in a lot of effort to rectify the degree. The author believes that the management of tour guide service quality is a systematic project, the spearhead of a single point to the tour guide is unfair; tour guide service quality is the root cause of the problem of tour guides and their stakeholders in the interests of the imbalance between the adjustment of the imbalance of the relationship between the fundamental lies in the reform of the management system, improve the system to ensure that.
Second, the definition of tour guide business stakeholders
1, tourism stakeholder research
Stakeholder (stakeholder) theory initially originated in management, which greatly challenged the maximization of shareholders' interests as the goal of the "shareholder supremacy concept", that enterprises should be stakeholder enterprises. In the 1980s, stakeholder theory, which emphasizes ethical issues in business management and sustainable development goals, was introduced into the field of tourism research. In the 1980s, stakeholder theory was introduced into the field of tourism studies to address the confusion faced by the tourism industry at the end of the century, and the term "tourism stakeholder" was derived; the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, adopted by the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization at its thirteenth session on 1 October 1999, explicitly uses the term "stakeholder". The term "stakeholder" is used in the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism adopted by the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization at its thirteenth session on October 1, 1999, to provide a standard of reference for the behaviors of different stakeholders in tourism development.1 At the beginning of the twenty-first century, China's tourism academia introduced the concept of "stakeholder", which was then used in the practice of regional tourism planning. For example, Zhang Wei and Wu Bihu in the tourism planning of Leshan City, Sichuan Province, in cooperation with the United Nations Urban Management Program, used the stakeholder theory to construct a framework system combining qualitative and quantitative, which is a new and useful attempt in China's tourism planning. At present, domestic and foreign scholars' research on tourism stakeholder issues mainly focuses on the following four aspects: definition and classification of tourism stakeholders; stakeholder issues in tourism planning, management and marketing; stakeholder issues in tourism environmental ethics and sustainable development; and stakeholder issues in community tourism and its collaboration. And few scholars have applied it to the study of tourism services and tour guide service quality management.
The author searched the topics of "stakeholders" and "tourism" through China Knowledge, and only found that Xia Zancai (2003) had made a study on the topic of "stakeholders" and "tourism" in the study of Jane Robson and Ian Robson. On the basis of Jane Robson's and Ian Robson's mapping of 12 types of stakeholders involved in tour operators, Xia Zancai (2003) constructed a "basic mapping of travel agency stakeholders" consisting of the core, strategic and peripheral layers by taking the nature of interests, degree of relationship and influence as qualitative factors; Zheng Yongxian (2005) conducted a study on the construction of core capabilities of travel agencies guided by stakeholder values. Zheng Yongxian (2005) explored the construction of stakeholder value-oriented travel agency core competence; Guo Lufang and Jin Huijun (2006) studied the mechanism of balanced development of travel agencies and their core stakeholders; Jin Huijun (2005) analyzed the imbalanced relationship of stakeholders in domestic tour groups, and concluded that tour guides, tourists, travel agencies, shopping merchants, tour guide service centers, and tourism government departments constitute the direct stakeholders of the domestic tour groups, among which, tour guides, strategic layers and peripheral layers are composed of "basic mapping of travel agency stakeholders". Stakeholders, of which, tour guides, travel agencies, shoppers and tourists are in the core stakeholder status, tour guide service centers and tourism government departments are in the dormant stakeholder status; Xu Qitao, gold casting (2007) proposed that to solve the current prevalence of China's tour guide management problems should be given full consideration to the interests of the various stakeholders, can be achieved through the establishment of a perfect tour guide salary and incentive mechanism, the introduction of the "silver-haired tour guide". "Silver-haired tour guides" to create a new image of the tour guide, and give full play to the functions of the Tourism Association to ultimately achieve a balanced development of their interests.
2, tour guides and their stakeholders in the definition and classification
According to Freeman's definition, stakeholders refer to "any group or individual that can influence the realization of the organization's goals or be affected by the goals". Accordingly, the author constructs a basic mapping of tour guide business stakeholders (Figure 1), which considers tour guides, tourists, travel agencies, tourism suppliers, coach drivers, tour guide service centers, tourism authorities, government departments, media organizations and the general public as the main stakeholders of tour guide business, and classifies them into core stakeholders according to the urgency of their requirements for realizing their interests, their close relationship with tour guide business activities and their influence or importance on the whole activity. According to their urgency in realizing interest requirements, close connection with tour guide business activities and influence or importance to the whole activities, they are classified into core stakeholders, important stakeholders and peripheral stakeholders. Among them, core stakeholders are the indispensable group in the process of tour guide service, have close stake with tour guides, and can even directly influence the survival and development of tour guides. Important stakeholders and tour guides form a relatively close relationship, tour guides are the main or even the only object of their supervision and service. In the case of normal performance of the guide, they may only be manifested as a kind of guided tour of the obvious contract people or supervision, service subject; however, once their interests are not satisfied, or the relevant decision-making is not effectively carried out and implemented, they may be from dormant state jumped up to the active state, thus directly affecting the survival and development of the guide. Peripheral stakeholders, tour guides are not the only object of their service or supervision, but only one of their many "trading objects". In the tour guide's view, their degree of importance is relatively low, the urgency of realizing the requirements of the interests is not strong, and the usual attention to them is also very limited. But in the long run, the sustainable development of the tour guide business can not be separated from the support of these peripheral stakeholders.
Third, the imbalance of interests: an analysis of the root causes of the problem of tour guide service quality
The problem of tour guide service quality is, on the surface, a problem of tourists' experience, and tourists tend to blame it on tour guides' service failures, which they consider to be the result of tour guides' own failures in their professional qualities and tour guides' ethical misconduct in order to maximize their personal interests. In fact, although the tour guide is the most important and direct subject to provide services for tourists, the high relevance of tourism itself determines that the quality of the tour guide service depends largely on the fulfillment of the rights and obligations of the stakeholders, and on the pattern of balanced relationship among the stakeholders, i.e., under the premise of effective checks and balances, the comparison of strong and weak strengths among the main subjects of interest is roughly equal, so that the tilt of the relationship of interests of the main subjects is not more than their respective capacity to allow.
Taking the most criticized tour guide accepting kickbacks as an example, on the surface it seems that tour guides are inducing tourists to shop and add points privately in order to earn high kickbacks, but in fact tour guides bear the pressure and risk of being squeezed by the profits caused by the travel agency's low-priced competition (Fig. 2). After paying high intensity labor tour guides not only can not get due from the employer's service compensation or remuneration even the basic life is difficult to protect, but also in the tour before the employer to carry a heavy burden of costs, manifested in the travel agency to pay varying "capitation fee" and to the dependent unit (the main guide service centers) to pay dependency fee and Re-employment fee. In the process of receiving tours, tour guides are also subject to the pressure exerted by tour bus drivers, if the tour guides do not enjoy the "fruits" or efforts to "make money" with the driver ***, the driver's intentionally difficult, or encountered the "dumping of tours "incident, and the resulting tourism complaints, most of which are borne by the tour guide alone. The unipolarization of public opinion has further labeled tour guides as "distrustful". Through Table 1, we can clearly see that people's understanding of tour guides is not optimistic.
Because of the weak position of tourists and tour guides can not form effective checks and balances on the interests of the strong body, resulting in the strong body of the benefits of non-performance is far greater than the cost of performance. Thus, in the case of incomplete contracts, the interests of the main body to utilize its own competitive resources to profit, so that the current domestic tourism stakeholders in China's relationship between the group is clearly "imbalance" situation. Highlighted as: hidden high rebates caused by the main source of income imbalance, deformed compensation structure so that the main interests of the constraints of the relationship between the imbalance, tour guide service center and tour guides, travel agencies and the distribution of income and expenditure pattern of imbalance between the tourism government departments and the core stakeholders between the imbalance of the interests of the protection, as well as the role of the government and the business misplaced, the imbalance of the function. The existence of this unbalanced relationship undermines the long-term interests of all stakeholders, which will inevitably affect the orderly operation of the entire tourism market mechanism, hindering the sustainable development of the tourism industry, and therefore must be adjusted.
To truly adjust the imbalance between the tour guides and their core stakeholders, it is necessary to trace the root cause, find the root cause of the imbalance of the power ratio between its strong and weak subjects, and prescribe the right medicine. The author believes that, in terms of the current development of China's tourism industry, tour guides and their core stakeholders, the existence of strong and weak subjects, strong and weak subjects of the power of the imbalance, the root cause is mainly due to the immaturity of the tourism market and the lack of relevant institutional arrangements, in particular, to maintain and safeguard the interests of the weak subjects, the lack of supervision and constraints on the interests of the strong subjects of the system of the lack of or imperfections that directly lead to the weak subjects in a passive position, the lack of cooperation with the strong subjects. The position of the weak subject is passive and lacks the bargaining chips to compete with the strong subject. Therefore, in order to realize the balance of interests of the main body of the tour guide business and tour guide service quality of the fundamental change, we must improve the system to protect.
Four, the system is perfect: to realize the balance of interests, improve the quality of tour guide service fundamental guarantee
In the tour guide business interest pattern, tourists are the core of the relationship of interest, without tourists, everything will be impossible to talk about. Therefore, the adjustment of the imbalance relationship, the improvement of the corresponding system should focus on the improvement of the tourists' experience. The quality of tour guide service should be improved from the perspective of tourists' perception, and quality control should be carried out in three aspects, namely, before, during and after the event, and the interests of all parties should be sorted out through the improvement of the relevant system to make them reach equilibrium.
1, the source, strict access system of the tour guide team China Thesis Alliance
The low threshold of access is the direct cause of the rapid expansion of China's tour guide team, the intensification of competition in the industry (mainly refers to the Mandarin tour guides) and tour guides of good and bad quality, structural imbalance. The optimization of the tour guide force should first start at the source by reforming the tour guide qualification examination system in order to realize the growth pattern of tour guides from quantitative expansion to qualitative improvement. When the university education in China from elite education to mass education, should be the guide qualification examination enrollment threshold to college, so as to realize the tour guide team academic level, knowledge level of the overall enhancement of a small number of industry shortage of talents, such as composite tour guide, small language tour guide, expert part-time tour guide may not be subject to the examination restrictions and be directly absorbed. In addition, in the examination subject setting, examination content adjustment, etc., should be combined with the professional characteristics of tour guides, highlighting the comprehensive quality of the candidates, and abolish the examination-centered system of a test for life, emphasizing the daily assessment of tour guides. Secondly, the training of tour guides should give full play to the enthusiasm of tourism colleges and universities, weaken the intervention of tourism administrative organizations in tourism education, and play a guiding rather than a decisive role in the qualification examination. Tourism colleges and universities should also focus on the training of tour guide personnel should focus on the quality of comprehensive quality and professional ethics, rather than around the qualification examination pass rate to arrange the curriculum and teaching schedule.
2, strengthen the annual examination, improve the assessment system of tour guides
Annual examination can not only make up for the occasional shortcomings of the one-time examination through the tour guides' usual behavioral performance, moral qualities, knowledge and vocational skills of the assessment, but also play a spurring role in tour guides, prompting them to pay attention to the continuous improvement in the professional ethics, level of knowledge of the language, service skills. Therefore, as the industry authorities must put this work into practice, rather than like some areas as long as the tour guide to pay the fee can pass the examination. In order to avoid the annual examination in form, the competent departments should formulate a specific, as far as possible quantitative assessment indexes, based on the tour guide's business assessment file and the administrative department supervision and inspection results, and take strict and effective measures for those who fail to pass the examination, or give the tour guide to stop working, order to re-examination after a deadline for correction, or cancel the qualification of the tour guide, and pay attention to the annual examination of the education and training. Industry management should be through market research and analysis, to understand the tourists through which attributes to assess the quality of guided tours, to obtain information about the tourists on the quality of the service of each attribute of the importance of the tourists to the training of tour guides, improve the tour guides to the guest service skills and overall quality.
3, two-pronged approach, the implementation of the regulatory system of tour guide services
Because of the independence of the tour guide service work, the process of supervision is the tour guide service management is difficult, it requires government departments and enterprises **** the same efforts. On the one hand, the travel agency as a traveler's "direct contract person", should assume the quality of the tour guide service supervision and guarantee the responsibility for the tourists to provide the corresponding rights and interests of protection. Tourism shopping, for example, travel agencies to give tourists "shopping right to know", shopping to be programmed, a clear list of shopping times, places and stay time, and provides that the tour guide can only be arranged according to the provisions of the contract shopping activities, if tourists in addition to the contractual arrangements for other shopping desires, the tour guide can be and is obliged to introduce or recommend, but shall not be Compulsory. In this way, the tourist shopping business source introducer by the tour guide into the travel agency, is conducive to preventing the tour guide private take "rebate" behavior, cut off the "rebate economic benefits chain". On the other hand, the tourism administration should do something. ① To give full play to the tour guide IC card management system of supervision. In addition to strict law enforcement, should also develop a detailed service quality supervision entry, pay full attention to the tourists on the evaluation of the quality of service of the tour guide, the focus of the inspection by the "non-compliance" of the qualified tour guides to the experience of tourists in the qualified tour guides. ② To establish a tourist complaint mechanism and tourist participation mechanism. The former is responsible for timely remediation of tour guide service errors, the latter focuses on the process of tourists involved in the supervision of tour guide services, such as the quality assessment form issued to the tourists to hire tourists quality supervisors and so on. (iii) Establish an information base for tour guides. The information base is networked with travel agencies and tour guide service centers and is open to tourists. Tour guides' business files, personal information, and records of violations are all recorded and easy to find. ④ Assist the industry to set up a tour guide association, give full play to the role of industry self-regulation.
4, rights and interests, the establishment of a reasonable professional system of tour guides
From the point of view of the survival and development of China's tour guides, the state of tour guides career positioning deviation, tour guides salary system is unreasonable, the lack of humanistic care of the community tour guides, as well as tour guides in the legal significance of the imbalance of responsibility and power of the guides is the main reason and direct cause of the tour guides to become a disadvantaged group of people and tour guides team has a lot of problems. This is the main reason and the direct reason why our tour guides have become vulnerable and why there are many problems in the tour guide team. Only by establishing a reasonable professional mechanism for tour guides can we fundamentally solve the problem of imbalance in the relationship between tour guides and their related stakeholders. Therefore, ① the state should recognize the professional and technical attributes of the tour guide profession, so that tour guides can enjoy the same professional and technical titles as other professional and technical personnel, and such titles can be directly linked to their labor remuneration, social welfare, medical insurance, and promote the tour guide career lifelong. ② should implement "public to public" tourism shopping commission, the establishment of a reasonable tour guide salary system. Tour guides should participate in the distribution of corporate income, enjoy the risk of income and surplus sharing rights. (iii) A strong protection mechanism for tour guides should be established. The establishment of tour guide protection mechanism should include legal protection, labor protection, medical protection and personnel protection and other aspects. The relevant state departments should make necessary amendments to the current Regulations on the Management of Tourist Guides, and in the Regulations on the Management of Tourist Guides, the protection of the personality and dignity of tourist guides, and the rights and interests due to tourist guides should be clearly stipulated. The labor department should include tour guides in the scope of social integration and protection, and take corresponding protection measures in the employment, labor protection, medical insurance and pension insurance of tour guides to ensure that tour guides can get help from tour guide service companies, travel agency enterprises and the government according to the law when they are sick, give birth to a child, get injured at work, become disabled and retire. Labor and personnel departments should provide the necessary safeguards for the evaluation of tour guides' titles and the mobility of talents, so as to provide the necessary conditions for realizing the lifelong professionalization of China's tour guides. Industry authorities should take advantage of the opportunity of the implementation of the new Labor Contract Law to formulate corresponding rules to properly protect the various occupational rights and interests of tour guides.
5, macro-control, to create a good environment for the survival of the industry
In order to avoid the improper arrangement of the system, so that the "non-institutionalized survival environment" in order to achieve their own maximization of revenue, relative information and rights advantages of the strong subjects in the many games to form a relatively stable "alliance". The "alliance" relationship, which directly leads to the tour guide and its core stakeholders "multi-dimensional dynamic imbalance" relationship between the emergence of the relevant subjects, the source of income imbalance, and the resulting series of negative effects. Government departments should strengthen the macro-control of the tourism market and policy guidance for the benign operation of the tourism business process to provide institutional safeguards. A good institutional arrangement is the fundamental guarantee for coordinating interests. ①Rationalize the functions of the tourism authorities, and transfer the training, assessment and daily management of social guides to independent tour guide associations, so as to avoid "rent-seeking" behavior of the tourism authorities in tour guide qualification examinations and training. The new professional affiliation mechanism for tour guides can be implemented as a "dual-track system", i.e., the majority of social tour guides are registered with the Tourist Guides Association, while a minority of tour guides work in travel agencies as full-time employees. Travel agencies in the peak season by hiring tour guides to the Association of Tourist Guides to cope with the situation of the steep increase in tours. ② Implement a star rating system for travel agencies, guiding them to obtain major profit margins through brand management and product innovation; and incorporate into the rating indexes the business assessment, training and supervision of travel agencies of the guides they hire. (iii) Effectively manage the "substantial high prices" of tourist shopping stores and reduce the proportion of shopping rebates. From the international practice, shopping "commission" more than 5% is called "black commission". The implementation of legal commission system, should be organized by the tourism industry to agree on the legal proportion of commission, and will be limited to the commission commission received between the sale of tourist goods enterprises and travel agencies to settle, to eliminate high commissions and backroom operations. Incorporate commission settlement into financial and tax management, and accept the supervision of industry and commerce and taxation. ④Support the production, development and design of characteristic tourist souvenirs, tourist handicrafts and local specialty products. ⑤ Strengthen the management of tour bus drivers. Relevant departments should cooperate with tour bus companies and tour bus drivers to set up normal fare standards for renting buses and gradually reduce the proportion of commission allocated to drivers, so that their incomes are mainly based on normal fares. The relevant departments should improve the corresponding laws and regulations, strengthen training, inspection and supervision, standardize and improve the quality of service of drivers.
6, publicity and education, to cultivate a mature market of domestic tourists
The biggest difference between tourism products and general consumer goods is that its producers have a direct relationship with the consumers, who only and must join in the process of production in order to ultimately consume tourism products. Therefore, the consumer experience of tourists - the pleasantness or otherwise of the tourism experience - depends not only on the service skills and professional quality of the tourism industry practitioners, but also has a close relationship with the tourists' own willingness to cooperate, attitudes, needs and level of tourism knowledge. Tourism authorities should make full use of the power of the media to popularize tourism knowledge, publish tourism information and guide domestic tourists to rational consumption and self-protection; at the same time, increase publicity, report more on the exemplary deeds of outstanding tour guides, reshape the positive social image of the tour guides, and educate tourists to respect the tourism service personnel and familiarize themselves with, and accept, the tipping system.
In short, the tour guide service quality management is a systematic project, tourism's high relevance determines the high quality of the tour guide service needs to be a good institutionalized survival environment to protect. The author believes that only from a systematic point of view of the quality of tour guide service, from the standpoint of the tourists' perception of the quality of tour guide service to solve the problem, in order to balance the interests of all the relevant subjects, so as to break the quality of China's tourism services in the tour guide service link "bottleneck", and comprehensively enhance the overall level of tourism services.