Tour guiding is a relatively young profession. The main function of the guide – to accompany tourists in campaigns, excursions, bus tours, cruises. It is an interesting profession by means of which it is possible to see and learn a lot of new, to visit beautiful, historical places, to get acquainted and communicate to interesting people and it is quite good to earn at the same time. I think, I would like to work as a guide, but it not precisely. Here are the qualities that a guide should possess:
- People skills- You’re spending practically every hour of every day with your guests and not all of them will be nice.
- Logistical management- A lot of aspects go into planning a holiday. Even if you’re not responsible for setting up those details, you’ll be responsible for keeping on top of them all once your group is on the road.
- Organization- You don’t want to get mixed up on where you’re supposed to be going, or what you’re doing.
- Calm under pressure- Anything could happen on a tour, and everyone will look to you when things go wrong.
- Quick learner- From “Where’s the bathroom?” to “When was that built?” you’ll need to have answers at hand.
- Good public speaker- Speaking to your group is more than half the job. You want to make sure they understand you.
- Energetic- You’ll be working almost every waking hour, often for weeks at a time- you need to be in top form at all times.
One of the hardest parts of that job may be answering questions. Unlike a speech that you can memorize, you won’t always know what questions people will ask. You can’t always know everything but as a guide but you need to make an effort for your travellers to find out anything they may want to know. This not only ensures that you are providing the best service that you possibly can but it also means that you are constantly learning and challenging yourself. The following difficulties consist in need to work in any weather conditions and at different times day, high load of legs and vocal chords, responsibility for safe and various rest of a large number of strangers, compensation directly depends on the number of the conducted tours. And I had no experience in working as a guide, so I can’t say the good and bad sides of this work.
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