Sneak Peek
Learn to be a Better Tour Guide
This short course is a concise online tool designed to prepare you for working as tour guide.
On successful completion, your Certificate in Completion in Tour Guiding, will demonstrate you have learned the essential for this work.
This course will:
- Communicate better with the tourists you guide
- Make excellent work based decisions to become a guide
- Prepare you to deal with emergencies and unforeseen situations
- Reflect critically on topics relevant to guiding
- Develop your thinking on what really matters on tour guiding operations
This course is ideal for:
- Professional tour leaders
- Volunteers
- Overnight tours
- Short tours
- Educational tours
- Historical tours
- Walking, bus, boat tours or anything else
- Geographical tours
- Open farms and gardens
- Self employed and employed tour guides
COURSE CONTENTS
LESSON 1 ROLE OF THE TOUR GUIDE
What is a tour guide?
Types of tour guide
Historical
City tour guides
Museum
Park
Nature
Adventure
The role of the tour guide
What are the tour guide’s responsibilities?
Sharing knowledge
Carrying out research
Tour guide skills
Leadership
Communication
Organisation
Role of a Tour Guide
Review what you have been learning
LESSON 2 PRACTICAL SKILLS USED IN TOURS
Initial introductions and establishing rapport
Selling your passion – introducing yourself and why you love being a guide
Customer research – establish your group’s interests at the start
Personalising a tour - adapting your tour to fit your group’s interests
Learning names – hints and tips
Identifying access and equity issues (wheelchairs/buggies/ additional sensory needs)
Voice projection and presentation skills
What kind of stories to tell?
Tell, tell, tell (tell them what you will talk about, talk about it, summarise key points)
Building affect and emotional connection with your audience
Keep things short and simple
Maintaining the group’s interest and involvement
Introducing age/interest appropriate games or activities
Time management
Preparing for the group’s arrival
Choosing a meeting spot
Managing parking or transport issues
Comfort breaks
Keeping the tour together (and moving at a group-appropriate pace)
Running a trial tour
Practical Skills for International Guiding
Review what you have been learning
LESSON 3 ORGANISING TOUR ACTIVITIES
Knowing who is in the group
Ability
Age
Carrying out research effectively
Scheduling
Punctuality
Calculating time required for different activities
Selecting complementary activities
Adapting
Creativity
Structuring a Tour of an Attraction
Review what you have been learning
LESSON 4 WORKING WITH OTHER SUPPLIERS AND ORGANISATIONS
Accommodation
Check-In
Adventure accommodation issues
Catering
Managing multiple dietary requirements when camping
Managing multiple dietary requirements from accommodations/hotels
Transport
Choosing transport services
Equipment
Linking with Other Organisations
Working with Rules and Regulations
Review what you have been learning
LESSON 5 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS FOR TOUR GUIDES
How to get jobs as a Tour Guide
Setting up YOUR own business
Developing a USP
Marketing a tour business
Post Tour Work for Tour Guides
Review what you have been learning
LESSON 6 TOUR RISK MANAGEMENT
PESTLE analysis – why it’s relevant
Assessing risk
How to plan for and manage risks
A risk assessment is a document which is created Risk Assessments
What do we mean by a risk on a tour?
Requirements for licenses or permits
Insurance
Tour risk management
Potential Hazards
Risk Assessment Matrix
Safety method statement
Review what you have been learning
Final Assessment
WHAT IS A TOUR GUIDE?
Tour guides accompany individuals or groups of visitors to attractions. This may be a day trip or a longer visit. For example, they may take a group of people on a tour through a remote forest and be away overnight or for a few days.
They may show a group around –
- Historical locations, such as monuments, buildings, stately homes, archaeological digs etc.
- Areas of natural beauty
- Areas where there is interesting wildlife or plant life
- Tourist attractions
- Towns and cities, such as London, Sydney, New York
- Walking or cycling tours
- Remote locations, such as woods or forests
Tour guiding may be year-round or seasonal work. A tour guide may be involved in guiding visitors around a wide range of different places that are potentially of interest to visitors. The guide will enhance the tour by giving the visitors information and more insights into the experience.
Tour guide skills
The types of skills required as a tour guide will depend upon the type of guiding work. More specialist skills will be required for some locations and roles. However there are some key skills which are transferable from one guiding role to the next.
- First aid skills are useful for any tour guide. However, tour guides who are involved in some types of tour may require more specialist knowledge. For example, an adventure or nature tour guide may need more knowledge on how to deal with bites or falls or injuries more than a city tour guide.
- Language skills can be useful. It is obviously not possible to speak every language in the world, but a good understanding of the languages spoken by most of the tourists visiting the area will be an advantage. For example, if you find that most visitors are English, French or Japanese, then a good understanding of those languages will be useful.
- Driving/chauffeuring skills can be very important, particularly if you are transporting visitors to different locations.
- Being fit and healthy is also important. Tour guiding can require guides to be walking a lot each day.
- Having energy and confidence is also important. Visitors want a tour guide who is interested, informative and enthusiastic. The tour guide’s passion for their subject matter can make the tour a success.
- A tour guide should be able to work under their own supervision.
- They should be disciplined, punctual, and well organised.
- Customer service - Working with the group that they are leading, or interacting with people in the places they stop at along the way, all require strong customer service skills.
- A calm manner is also useful.
- Good interpersonal skills are important. Good verbal and written communication skills, patience and humour can be particularly useful.
- A good tour guide will have good research skills to help them to plan and develop their tour.
- A tour guide also needs good planning skills to ensure the tour runs smoothly
- A good tour guide will have good problem-solving skills. Things do not always go according to plan, so being able to think on their feet and find alternatives is essential.
ENROL NOW AND LEARN