Tour guiding-Visitor Satisfaction Nexus: Assessment based on Visitor Perceptions and Importance-Performance Analysis in a National Park, Ghana

National parks are global cornerstones supporting not only biodiversity conservation, but educational and recreational opportunities. Based on these opportunities, ecotourism has gained wide application in national parks as a sustainable form of tourism, providing visitors with recreational and educational opportunities to garner support for biodiversity conservation. Tour guides play vital roles to support these opportunities whiles ensuring appropriate behaviours and attitudes of visitors. The performance of these roles potentially influence visitors' satisfaction, which has the potential to ensure repeat visits, referrals, and financial success of national parks and other protected areas. However, the literature indicates limited studies examining visitor satisfaction with tour guiding. Therefore, this paper investigated visitors’ perceptions of the roles of tour guides using Importance-Performance Analysis, to identify areas warranting management actions to improve visitor satisfaction. Using survey, questionnaires were administered to 197 visitors to rate the importance and performance of a set of role attributes of tour guiding. The data was subjected to descriptive, importance-importance, gap and grid analyses. The results showed that there were role attributes that were important to the experiences sought by visitors. Also, some attributes were identified that required management intervention and re-allocation of resources to improve visitor satisfaction.国家公园（national parks）是全球生态保护与公共服务的核心基石，不仅支撑生物多样性保护（biodiversity conservation）工作，还为公众提供教育与休闲体验的契机。基于此类资源，生态旅游（ecotourism）作为可持续旅游的典型形式，在国家公园中得到广泛应用——既为游客提供休闲与教育体验的平台，也助力生物多样性保护事业获得公众的理解与支持。旅游向导（tour guides）在保障此类生态旅游服务落地、引导游客养成文明行为与正向态度方面，发挥着至关重要的核心作用。旅游向导的履职表现会直接影响游客满意度，而游客满意度又直接关系到国家公园及其他保护地的重游率、口碑传播效果与运营收益。然而，现有学术文献显示，针对游客对旅游向导服务满意度的相关研究仍较为匮乏。为此，本研究采用重要性-绩效分析（Importance-Performance Analysis）法，探究游客对旅游向导角色的认知，以期识别出需通过管理干预提升游客满意度的关键领域。本研究通过问卷调查的方式，向197名游客发放问卷，让其对旅游向导的一系列角色属性的重要性与履职表现进行评分。研究数据经描述性分析、重要性-重要性分析、差距分析与网格分析处理。研究结果表明，部分角色属性与游客期望的游览体验高度相关；同时，本研究还识别出若干需通过管理干预与资源重新配置，方能有效提升游客满意度的属性领域。