Korean Tourism Students Personal Tour Guide Experience & Language Perception

The purpose of this research is to examine if Korean university tourism student majors are ready for new employment opportunities as tourist guides which the 2023-2024 Visit Korea campaign is promoting with their investment in the travel and tourism sector. For this study three first-year cohorts (2022, 2023, 2024) were surveyed on their personal tour guide experience and language perception. Descriptive analysis revealed that there is not much difference in the percentage in the cohorts over the years due to covid restrictions, this was for both tour guide experience and language perception, but the 2023-2024 cohort were somewhat less interested in field experience practice than their predecessors, perhaps a covid after effect. The combined cohorts had 47.1% of respondents indicating international tour experience and 57.4% or respondents having domestic tour experience of some type. Though there was some differential in the year-by-year break down of the analysis for the cohorts, because of the many variables and limitations in this study it is difficult to make any concrete conclusions. With regards to language perception, responses for each of the three cohorts indicated one third or more of the respondents feeling below average: 2022 (40.9%), 2023 (34%), 2024 (36.7%). The lack of confidence in English language skill can impact the effort to work at a language to improve it, and hence influence the ability to obtain quality jobs. This study calls on more attention to be placed on the enhancement of English skills for tourism student majors to help improve job opportunities, whether they be internationally or even domestically, in the tourist guide industry or elsewhere, especially in the area of Tourism ESP.