CHAPTER 4

EFFECTIVE
COMMUNICATION
 4.1 The Communication Process

• To provide the opportunity for people to share the

unique meanings they create of the world
• Required when deal with industry colleagues:
 Tour operators & other guides
 Coach captain & bus drivers
 Tourist information officers
 Govt organization staff
 Acc managers & employees
 Airport staff
• Liaison activities in order to
 Confirm operational & logistic details
 Ensure promised level of svc & product
qualities
 Facilitate mgt of any mishaps
 Receive any update & local information
excluded in the tour briefing
• Guides service audience by:
 Liaising with clients, visitors and customers
 Providing commentaries relevant to the tour
• Forms of Communication
 Written
 Electronic
 Oral
 4.2 Factors affecting effective
communication

• Not just the process of delivering a message

• More to ensuring the people concerned
understand the message
• Required to focus on the response received
during communication
• Effective interpretation is about sharing meaning
• Effective communication presented by the
diagram of presenter & audience (pg 58)
 Being the presenter (Guides)-
delivering the message

• Rely on non-herbals(55%), voice/vocal (38%) and

content/words (7%)
• Message conveyed through the process of
communication (93%) and 7% through content
• How you communicate is far more important than
what you communicate
• What guide should do???
 Spend time on researching facts & figure to
getting the perfect content
 Practice communication skills (voice projection,
anchoring, characterization, working with your
body, storytelling and improvisation
 Clothes, mannerism, gestures will form
audience’s 1st impression
TYPES OF NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION
• Facial expression
 surprise
 happiness/joy
• Eye Contact – should be relaxed, friendly, soft &
non-threatening
- never use eye contact to stare down
someone
- encourage yourself to look around your
entire audience
- depend on some cultures
• Movement, gestures & mannerisms
 can enhance your message or they can become
painful distractions for your audience
 A few questions to ask yourself???
 Can help you to control nervousness
 +ve & -ve non-verbal expressions
• Clothes – do a head-to-toe assessment
• Grooming
• Body piercing
• Personal space
BEING THE AUDIENCE -RECEIVING THE
MESSAGE
• Sensory channels to receive the message
 eyes-75%
 ears-12%
 others-13%
• When leading tours, guides needs to:
- make sure everyone can see what u’re talking
about
- Drawing people’s eyes towards an object
- Challenging the visual by using other senses
 4.3 Ensuring effective communication
• Minimizing the effect of communication barriers
- can be achieved by maintaining a friendly
patient & professional attitude
- managing environmental conditions
• Dispelling myth (table 4.1)
• Being aware of cultural diversity
 Among industry colleagues (Australian society)
 Among your audience
 Language variation between cultures
  Some cultural characteristics of major inbound
tourist groups
• Japanese
- Greeting with a bow, unusual to greet with a
handshake
- Polite to each other
- Eyes are keep lowered (extended being
embarrassing)
- Enjoy degree of personal space (disrespectful if
standing and sitting too close)
- Use the entire hand to point something (not a
finger)
- Saying ‘NO’ is too abrupt /will express negative
- Very neat and tidy standards dressing
- Accustomed attentive service, punctual, expect
efficient service, love shopping
• German
- Abrupt and precise when communicate
- Well-groomed people
- Stress on neat and tidy appearance
- Expect efficient & punctual service
- Go holiday to relax & be free from the stresses
- Enjoy packaged tours and sightseeing

• Koreans
- Accept eye contact and open communication style
(same age & younger Koreans, rude with a
senior)
- Limit physical contact to a handshake
- ‘Thank You’ considered extremely important
- Like visit popular places despite crowds, engage
in little shopping
- 4 is an unlucky number, never use red ink, avoid
pointing with one fingers
 Indonesians
- Not a touching type culture, accept handshake
- Loud voices offensive, maintain indirect eye
contact
- Prolonged eye contact seen as threatening or
disrespectful
- Smiling is an important part
- Personal space is very important when talking
- Rude when talking with hand in pockets/arms
crossed over the chest/wear sunglasses/finger
pointing
- Never handover/receive things/eating using left
hand

 USA
- Expect high level of service and friendliness
- Promote tipping for the appropriate level of
service
- Practice ‘Thank You’ & ‘You’re Welcome’
 Speaking for a people from
a non-English-speaking Background
• Pace your talk
• Don’t raise your voice
• Keep information in small, neat chunks,
understandable
• Taking in response to the audience’s culture
• Leave out double negative when giving
instructions
• Use simple, clear and direct English
• Leave out jargon, slang and colloquialisms
• Face people
• Body movements
• Preserves the dignity and self-esteem of your
audience
• Ensure the environment facilitates
 4.4 Listening-the pathway to
understanding
• What is listening? What is hearing?
• Effective listening requires you to remain alert &
sensitive to all elements taking place in the
communication process
 Include tangible elements
 Include intangible elements
• Developing skills in effective listening is very
important to:
 Ensuring clarity
 Honoring people
 Obtain more information
 Finding out about your participant
 Getting to cores issues
 Identify needs
 Promote conversations
 Remain focused
 Principles of Effective Listening

• Listen without interrupting

• Remain focused on the other person
• Engage non-verbal
• Respect personal space & other cultural
considerations
• Listen with focus & empathy
• Avoid distracting mannerism and gestures
• Allow silences
• Encourage conversation
• Check track of conversation
• Ensure conducive environment / minimal noise
• Listen to behavior
 4.5 Working with questions
• Questions is a great tool to:
- Build empathy with the audience
- Understand both the stated and implied needs
of your audience
• Why ask questions?
• Types of questions:
 Closed Q
 Open Q
• Tips to asking questions
 Simple & direct
 Asked one at a time
 Well-defined
 Reasonable & Respectful
 Relevant
 Shared