Tour Guiding Familiarization of 3rd Year Tourism Management Students: An Experimental Learning Towards Tour Activity Enhancement
ACCESS Computer and Technical College
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to determine the overall perception of the 3rd year Tourism Management students on the Batis Aramin, Lucban, Quezon Tour by means of establishing the perceived value in experiential learning, identifying the most valuable activity, and how these affect their learning as Tourism students. This is a phenomenological study that allowed the respondents to fully express and expound on their lived experiences during the tour. The data were gathered using structured interview and focus group discussion to allow the respondents to freely narrate their experiences. They were pre-selected employing purposive sampling from those who actively participated in all the activities. Using thematic analysis, most of the responses revealed that students learn better when provided with “hands-on” and allowed to observe and collect a wide range of information. It was evidenced by the numerous responses in this study that the students learned the concrete experience of tour guiding and reflective observation about what they have learned during the tour. This study underscores the importance of allowing the students to become reflective learners and that taking into consideration of the students’ feedback constitutes a significant role in their learning and improvement of the tour guiding program of the school.
KEYWORDS
tour guiding; experiential learning; reflective learners; learning and program improvement