Thai

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the problems in English language use of tourist guides in the Southern Gulf of Thailand Provincial Cluster, namely Chumphon, Surat Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Phatthalung. The informants were 138 tourist guides working in this area and using English in their work. A set of questionnaires was used to elicit data from the tourist guides and semi-structured interview questions were used to obtain views from the 23 tour companies’ owners to cross validate the results of the questionnaires. The major findings were as follows. The tourist guides rated their English use problems in writing as the highest, especially writing business correspondence and memos, tourist information and emails. Especially in listening to various English accents, they face the most difficulties when listening to an Indian accent. From the interview, several tour companies’ owners demanded that tourist guides must have good knowledge of Thai ways of life and culture to add value to their job performance.