How to become a tour guide? Responsibilities, recommendations and feedback

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The question of how to become a tour guide is not so difficult. You can master this profession quickly enough, subject to the ability to work with people and adapt to the changing requirements in the field of tourism. It is also important to be ready to constantly develop and learn.

Differences between tour guide and tour guide

Many people confuse the concepts of "guide" and "guide". How are they different?

A guide is a person who shows the sights of a country or city to an excursion group, which can consist of two or three people, or thirty or more. Often the guide accompanies the group on the bus during the journey, tells some interesting facts about the history or culture of the country or city along the way, gives useful advice, describes the route that the bus follows, and much more. If the tour group is mostly children, it may be the guide's responsibility to ensure their safety. However, as a rule, guides receive a surcharge in this case, and they are never left alone withchildren: must be teachers, caregivers, counselors or parents.

The guide conducts tours of the place - in art galleries, museums, art houses. He has a less active program, since groups come to the museum or gallery directly to his workplace, so the course of the tour is the same every time - along the route from hall to hall.

What does a tour guide do

Both the guide and the guide should be able to correctly convey information to the audience. A tourist group or visitors to a cultural institution apply for such services in order to get the most useful and accessible information presented in an understandable language.

The guide helps you find your way around, if necessary, explains how to get to a particular art hall, talks about the exhibits presented, reports on the history and time of creation of the most interesting of them.

The guide introduces tourists to the city or country. If the excursion takes place abroad, he tells the tourist group about the national characteristics of the country, its culture, and gives useful advice. Its main task is to show the group interesting sights and tourist routes, the main cultural institutions. It is also the duty of the guide to help tourists in their search for any local entertainment venues. In other words, if the tour is dedicated to the castles of Lviv, and the tourist asks where you can drink beer after the tour, the guide should know the answer to this question.

If the tour is off-site, the guideoften begins to fulfill the duties of both a guide and a tour guide, and tourists often confuse these concepts, as mentioned at the beginning. Therefore, in the future we will call the word "guide" a representative of both that and that profession.

What qualities should a tour guide have

It often seems that a good guide should literally have a calling to his profession, because there are so many qualities and skills that few people can master them quickly.

The main qualities and skills of a good tour guide are as follows:

• Stress resistance. The guide works, but the tourists rest, and therefore often come across people who rest too violently or in such a way that others are straining from their rest. The guide should be able to politely and culturally calm the raging tourist and extinguish the conflicts that arise during the tour. In addition, you need to be able to switch from your own everyday problems and worries to work.
• Thorough knowledge of a city, country or cultural institution. In addition to the main excursion program, it may be necessary to provide tourists with additional information, for example, if someone asks questions. An answer in the style: "I don't know what year this picture was painted" is an indicator of a low level of professionalism.
• Knowing several foreign languages.
• Excellent public speaking skills.
• Good physical condition to endure the whole excursion. Especially important for those who conduct excursions incities.
• Interest with your work. It is very difficult to get people interested in the exhibits or sights of the city if you talk about them with the intonation "wish you would go for a walk sooner."

Of course, most tour guides want to deal with visiting groups, preferably those who travel abroad. This is a great opportunity to improve your skills, visit another country, and the salary level is much higher.

Since many people dream of becoming a tour guide abroad, the competition in this area is very high.

First, applicants for work in another country need to gain experience while conducting city tours in their home countries.

City Tours

Tour guides usually meet with their group at a certain point. Tourists can come in an organized group by bus, or they can pull up one by one or by companies, it depends on the nature, time and place of the tour.

Further, the tour guide leads the group along the tourist route, along the way talking about sights and interesting places.

How to become a tour guide is already taught in the first classes at any faculty of tourism business, since most students are interested in this area of activity.

As soon as a young guide has the opportunity to demonstrate his skills in practice, you need to give it your all. The first experience will not always be the most successful, but you need to be able to take into account your mistakes andpractice.

In city tours, it is important to be able to keep the whole group in sight, and to do this not only for control, but also for the convenience of each tourist: if someone feels superfluous on an excursion, he is unlikely to have a pleasant impression. Body language and eye language comes with experience.

Depending on personal and professional qualities, as well as on the basis of experience and professionalism, the guide can start moving up the career ladder, including traveling with groups on excursions abroad for short or long periods.

And since practically every specialist who meets professional and qualification requirements can theoretically become a tour guide in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris or Prague, every little thing is taken into account when selecting candidates for the position.

Guide in museums and galleries

This position is much easier, since there is no need to spend a lot of time in the conditions of the scorching sun or severe frosts, and the group is much easier to keep in sight. Only people who are very interested in art, who study its features and chronology with great pleasure, are interested in how to become a guide in a museum. As a rule, for them, such work will be rather a pleasant pastime, especially if they love and know how to share their knowledge.

Young people rarely go to work as a tour guide in a museum, unless it is some modern, creative or extravagant cultural institution. For example, it is more common to seea young female tour guide at the Museum of Modern Art than at the Tretyakov Gallery.

By the way, since becoming a tour guide at the Tretyakov Gallery is quite prestigious, experienced guides who are well aware of the history and culture of painting apply for jobs there.

Moscow tours

Moscow is the capital of Russia, so a huge number of people visit it every day. Therefore, it is very important for the cultural sector of the city to train tourism employees on how to become a guide in Moscow in order to impress guests.

It is the guide who makes the first impression of the guests about the capital, and there is a tourist - a foreigner, then also about the country as a whole. This is the main feature of excursions to the capitals of countries. Not only is the tourist route itself quite long, but also the audience is diverse, among which there may be foreigners. Is it worth talking about the importance of knowing a foreign language in this case?

During a sightseeing tour, as in any other city, you need to have time to show as many main sights as possible.

Features of excursions in St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg is a special city, permeated through and through with the spirit of culture and poetics. As a rule, tourists come there to improve their knowledge of painting, sculpture and poetry, to enjoy the architecture characteristic of the city, to visit the legendary historical sites.

Since many want to become a guide in St. Petersburg precisely because of the high level of spiritualitylocal residents and out-of-town visitors, candidates must be able to literally feel the spirit of the city. Ideally, if the guide is a resident of St. Petersburg, then he will be able to acquaint tourists with the character of the city literally from the inside.

Training guides

In fact, not every guide has a diploma of education in the field of tourism business. Some specialists attend courses that can last from several months to a year, quickly learn a profession, receive an appropriate document and can apply for a job in this area. Such education cannot be considered meaningless, since tourism graduates rarely specialize in excursions. In general, universities teach management in tourism, hotel and restaurant business, which, by the way, can be an advantage, and not a mandatory requirement for a guide.

That is why the question of how to become a tour guide without a basic education in the field of tourism is absolutely normal and not stupid. And yet it is desirable to complete at least courses in the profession.

Prospects for a tour guide

Since becoming a guide in Moscow is not the ultimate dream of most Russian specialists, it is safe to say that the tourism industry is progressing and developing.

A good tour guide may well grow professionally to the head of a department of a travel company or a higher-level boss. On his shoulders may lie the responsibility of compiling tourist routes for others.tour guides. This job is suitable for calm people who prefer a measured schedule in life.

And those who want to keep traveling are wondering how to become a tour guide abroad. This opportunity is also closely linked to professional growth.

Tips for young tour guides

• Determine the desired direction of work (excursions in museums, galleries, field trips, trips abroad, etc.).
• Compare your desires and capabilities, identify weaknesses.
• Continuously develop and learn, attend refresher courses. Often such courses are provided by travel agencies in which guides work.
• Study the field you work in: the history of art, exhibits, cities, attractions, main features, interesting facts and more.

Reviews about the profession

According to most tour guides, this profession is much more difficult than it seems at first glance. But its advantages in the form of constant new experiences overlap and level all difficulties.

Those who dreamed of becoming a tour guide in St. Petersburg got this opportunity thanks to their great interest in the history of the city. Travel agency managers give preference to those employees who are enthusiastically ready to lead excursions and tell tourists about the city with burning eyes.

CV

We hope that in this article many have found the answer to the question of how to become a tour guide. The main difficulty of this work is its rhythm. You need to be able to constantly keep yourself in good shape, be able toexpress your thoughts competently and beautifully and skillfully hide your tiredness from tourists.