Start & Run a Tour Guiding Business. Barbara Braidwood, Susan Boyce & Richard Cropp

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      1. Assessing Yourself

      Tour guides and directors are an irrepressibly enthusiastic bunch. They are walking encyclopedias filled with tantalizing tidbits of information and amazing stories of places and people, and they love to share those stories. Whether they are elbowing through the cacophony of sounds and smells in a teeming Hong Kong market or watching for benevolent ghosts in a medieval British castle, tour guides and directors love the people, mystique, and history of the places they go. They love their work. This is a life path, not a job.

      1.1 Characteristics of success

      It is sometimes said that the best test for anyone who wants to become a tour professional is to ask yourself, “Would I do this for free?” In fact, before you read any further you should ask yourself, “If I didn’t get paid to take people traveling, would I be traveling anyway?” If you can honestly answer “Yes!” then at worst you will be doing something you would do in any case. At best, with careful planning, lots of hard work, and just a smidgen of luck, you will have someone else pay your way and put a few dollars in the bank as well.

      Nothing can guarantee success, but there are certain personality traits that will make success as a tour professional more likely. Be honest — brutally honest — with yourself. Forget what you have been conditioned to think you “should” be like.

      1.2 Sticking to your goals

      Goal setting has become increasingly popular over the last few years, probably because to succeed in any enterprise you need to work toward clearly defined goals. You will have tough times as a tour professional, guaranteed, just as you would have in any other business. Goals will help you weather the days when you wonder why on earth you ever thought about getting into this crazy business. The following are only highlights of goal setting. If you want more detailed information, there are hundreds of books available at libraries and bookstores.

      (a) Put your goals down on paper

      Writing out your long- and short-term goals gives them importance and makes them easier to stick to. Be realistic and concrete. It is easy to say you will become a successful tour guide “one day.” The trouble is, in 20 years “one day” is usually still in the future. Give yourself a specific time frame. How many tours do you want to have under your belt after the first season? The second season? The first five years?

      (b) Review and revise

      Written goals are a road map, not an immutable ball and chain. Lucky breaks occur to people every day; circumstances change — for good and bad — just as often. Be open to opportunities around you and capture them before they are lost. Then sit down and review your goals. Perhaps you will decide to change some part of them. Make the change and then celebrate.

      (c) Learn from your mistakes

      Nothing is a better teacher than making a mistake. If the luggage was late getting to the rooms each night on your first trip, figure out what went wrong and modify it. If everyone asked about an attraction you bypassed on a city tour, use it as a stepping stone to improve the itinerary for next time. Then be confident your next trip will be better because of your mistake.

      1.3 Do your homework

      (a) Network

      Talk! Talk to anyone and everyone. If your neighbors went on a tour last spring, find out what they liked and didn’t like about it. Talk to your local travel agent — most are very willing to help. When you are on a tour yourself, ask the guides how they got into the business and what they love about it. Don’t be afraid to ask lots of tough questions. Better to find out what the problems are sooner rather than later.

      (b) Associations and organizations

      In any industry there are associations, organizations, and publications you should be aware of. Get your name on mailing lists for local functions and when you go... ask questions! Appendix 1 contains a list of organizations and associations while Appendix 3 lists relevant publications. Use these as a starting point to begin developing your own data base, and add to it at every opportunity.

      (c) Read and research

      There is no getting around it: you are going to become an information snoop and scrounge. One day you will find yourself trying to spirit a magazine out of your doctor’s office because it has a great write-up about a new museum you have been crazy to add to your next tour. Your face should become so well-known at every library, tourist bureau, bookstore (new and used), and magazine stand within a hundred miles that the staff know your first name and exactly how you like your coffee while you are reading. Valuable new information is everywhere and endless. Keep open to every possible avenue of improving your knowledge base.

      2. Formal Education

      As the travel industry grows, so does the number of schools offering travel training. Just take a look in the Yellow Pages under Travel Schools and you will see how popular they have become. This may appear to make it easier for would-be tour professionals to gain some formal education. The reality is that many of these schools, while offering an excellent curriculum for a generalist or someone focusing on one of the more structured areas of tourism, provide little in-depth training specifically aimed at tour guides and directors.

      Before you invest in what are often high fees, assess how well the training will advance your personal goals. Exactly how much time will be devoted to tour guiding? How much will be spent on other subjects? If 95 percent of the time is spent learning how to be a travel agent, you will probably want to look elsewhere, unless becoming a tour guide is only a side interest for you. Do not be afraid to ask how many of the school’s graduates secure work in the industry. A history of grads finding themselves hard at work as restaurant staff or forklift drivers after completing СКАЧАТЬ