Outbound travel by Chinese citizens has grown rapidly in recent years, with 40.95 million Mainland Chinese travelling outside China in 2007. It is predicted that by 2020 China will become the fourth largest country of tourist origin in the world. When travelling overseas, most Chinese holidaymakers join group tours escorted by Chinese-speaking local guides. These tour guides serve as the main point of contact between destination countries and the Chinese visitors. Despite the importance of the tour guides' job for the Chinese market, limited academic studies have been conducted on Chinese-speaking tour guides in general, and on tour guides' intercultural competence (IC) in particular. This book provides insights into what constitutes the IC of tour guides, what factors are associated with intercultural competence, and how the tour guides' IC impacts on the guided tour experience. The book is useful to tour guides escorting Chinese tour groups, and to students and researchers in tourism studies or anyone else who are interested in tour guiding and tourism research.
