Negative Evaluations of Communication in Tourism Service Encounters as a Basis of Developing Communicative Activities for English for Tourism

Abstract

Good interpersonal communication between tourists and tourism service providers contributes to positive word-of-mouth among tourists. If this basic need is not fulfilled by tourism service providers, disappointed tourists will not hesitate to share their negative experience and express their negative feelings with others either face-to-face or in virtual communities via travel websites. The present study examined tourists’ online reviews by focusing on 275 negative evaluations of interpersonal communication with tourism service providers. The study found that issues related to interpersonal communication in service encounters could be categorized in three major categories of synchronous communication, asynchronous communication and non-verbal communication. Based on these findings, the study proposed four communicative activities i.e. role-play, problem solving, story-telling and group project activities to be conducted in English for tourism classes to help consolidate students’ English language competency and better prepare them for their careers in tourism.