A phenomenological study of the lived experience of urban Tourist guides in Ardabil province during the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic

A B S T R A C T
Infectious diseases cause behavioral and social changes. tourism industry and tourist guides are also changing like other sectors.
Before the covid, Ardabil province was an active province in the field of nature and culture tourism, and nature guides and cultural guides of both groups were active in this province. So this study aims to examine the impacts of COVID-19 on different aspects of urban tourist guides' lives. this research was conducted as qualitative research in a phenomenological format. 16 tourist guides of Ardabil were investigated by snowball sampling method to collect data. the data was obtained using semi-structured interviews and analyzed in a seven-step Colaizzi method.based on the analysis the positive and negative dimensions of life were recorded in this period and 10 categories of meanings were identified for the lived experience of the tourist guides of Ardabil province during the outbreak of COVID-19, which are: changes in lifestyle, economic challenges and opportunities, transformation of employment pattern, changing in attitudes, advertising, compliance with health issues, changing forms of social relations, mental and psychological issues, stagnation in activities and organizational obstacles
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Outbreaks of diseases that are epidemic have been identified as an influential event in world history. During epidemics, people's communication and travel are significantly reduced and they affect the tourism industry (Menegaki, 2020). The epidemic of corona disease from 2020 to 2022 caused the closure and stagnation of the tourism industry and also caused the unemployment of a large group of tourist guides in the world. tourist guides in Ardabil province, as those who are on the front line of dealing with tourists, were greatly affected by the phenomenon of COVID-19. Therefore, what this research is looking for is to answer the question, what was the life experience of the tourist guides of Ardabil province due to the COVID-19 pandemic? What is the experience of tourist guides when they are unemployed during this period? And what experience did the tour guides have when they went on a tour during this period?
 
Methodology
According to Saunders' research onion, this research has an interpretative view from a philosophical perspective, and in terms of research approach, it is of the type of fundamental research with an inductive reasoning method. Also, in terms of scientific strategies, it is considered field research. In terms of research methods, it is among qualitative research with the phenomenological method, Also, the time horizon of the research was done in a cross-sectional manner, and finally, the methods of collecting information were done through semi-structured interviews., 16 tourist guides of Ardabil were investigated by snowball sampling method to collect data. the data was obtained using semi-structured interviews and analyzed in a seven-step Colaizzi method.
 
Results and discussion
In this research, some sub-category cases were obtained as the lived experience of tourists in facing the coronavirus phenomenon during the outbreak of COVID-19 from interviews with 16 tourist guides of Ardabil province. The people included 10 male and 6 female tour guides. The main question of the research was: What was your lived experience as a tourist guide (in your guiding job and your life) during the period of coronavirus disease? After reviewing the answers, 10 main themes were extracted as follows: Changes in lifestyle, economic challenges and opportunities, transformation of the employment pattern, changes in the type of attitude, the effect of advertisements, compliance with health issues, changes in the shape of social relations, mental and psychological issues, stagnation in activities, organizational obstacles.
 
Conclusion
A tourist guide underwent major changes in her lifestyle during the period of the Coronavirus so her waking hours were moved from early morning to noon, also, due to the unemployment caused by the illness, the sleeping hours of the guides were also delayed. Due to the restrictions caused by Corona, special tours for one and two people flourished and mass tours were canceled, and this problem increased the quality of tours, leisure activities were mainly reserved for homes, and this increased the study rate among this group. Corona disease has caused a decrease in the number of tourists, which has also caused a decrease in the number of tours and VIP tours, and as a result, the price of tours has become more expensive, which in turn has caused the unemployment of guides and double economic pressure on this group. At the same time, the government has given support loans to the guides to compensate for this issue, and several guides in Ardabil province and the country have used these loans. In this period, the career path of the guides has undergone a fundamental transformation in such a way that instead of going on tours with tourists, the guides have started alternative activities such as: holding educational workshops, generating income from the virtual space, and even changing jobs in most cases. Before this period, most of the guides had a relatively positive view of their job, but during this period, the negative view of this job has increased and they generally came to the conclusion that it is not possible to trust this job too much, also because of the free time from the recession. During this period, tourist guides have thought more about their past and future. There were two types of factors in this period that caused further stagnation and in some cases, a relative improvement in the situation of tours, and that is travel deterrence advertisements, which, due to various factors, deterred people from traveling in the world and Iran, and the other category, promotional advertisements.
 
Funding
There is no funding support.
 
Authors’ Contribution
Authors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none.
 
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
 
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.