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 the course should set off warning bells.
The first and currently the only school in North America devoted entirely to training professional tour directors and guides is the San Francisco-based International Tour Management Institute (ITMI). Modeled after training schools in Europe, ITMI was established in 1976 and now has training facilities in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston. Of the more than 250 tour directors and guides ITMI trains each year, approximately 80 percent find work in the industry. As one successful and now employed graduate put it, “The contacts you make there are something you can’t buy at any price.”
For further information contact:
International Tour Management Institute
Administrative Headquarters
#810 - 625 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Tel: (415) 957-9489
www.itmitourtraining.com
3. The Importance of Language
One of the most important assets you can have as a tour guide or director is fluency in a second, third, or even sixth language. When you start talking to tour operators, directors, and guides, you will discover that, almost inevitably, the first thing they mention is “second language.”
Even if you can’t visualize yourself sharing a bowl of pasta and chitchat in a small, nonEnglish-speaking Italian village or trekking through the Himalayas with only Tibetan-speaking monks for company, the number of tourists traveling into North America is enormous and growing. Although we often believe everyone speaks English, many of these guests do not. As a result, sometimes the language requirements of an area are not what you would expect at first glance. Certain destinations may be popular with a particular country even though the area itself has few local residents of that nationality. For example, Canada’s West Coast and Rocky Mountains are extremely popular with German tourists; a fact which has sent the demand for German-speaking tour guides skyrocketing.
3.1 Learning a language
Language studies come in many formats. For starters, you could try a night school course. Most community colleges, universities, and continuing education programs offer some form of basic instruction to get you going.
Many good computer stores offer a variety of language courses on CD-ROM. We have not heard any first-hand reports about the usability of these learning tools, but if you have a computer already, this is an option worth investigating.
If you are really serious about becoming multilingual and are willing