Turizm İşletmeciliği Alanında Lisansüstü Eğitim Alan Öğrencilerin Kültürlerarası Duyarlılık Düzeyinin Değerlendirilmesi Üzerine Nitel Bir Araştırma

Abstract

With the effect of globalization, being able to successfully manage the intercultural communication process becomes more and more important. For the tourism sector, which has a multicultural structure, one of the important factors of success in intercultural communication is cultural workforce, job satisfaction and the satisfaction of guests from different cultures, which greatly affects the competitiveness in the sector. It is important for the sectoral development of tourism that tourism education students have high intercultural communication competence and high intercultural sensitivity. Using the intercultural sensitivity model developed by Bennett (1986) to determine two extreme points, ethnocentric and ethnorelative, the intercultural sensitivity levels of students who could be candidates for management in the tourism sector or academicians for tourism education were determined by themselves. evaluation. In this study, it was aimed to determine the level of the Intercultural Sensitivity Development Model of Bennett (1986) in line with the opinions of students who received postgraduate education in the field of tourism. Qualitative research methods were used in the research. A total of 12 students who received postgraduate (doctorate and master's) tourism education at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University were consulted. Open-ended questions were designed with semi-structured interview technique in the online form, data were collected and content analysis was performed. As a result of the research, where the findings of the interaction of people with different cultures were evaluated, the majority of the students (66.67%) see themselves in the adaptation phase of Bennett's Intercultural Sensitivity Development Model.