How to be A Good Tour Guide
So you’re in the tourism business or looking into it. With the rise of Air BnB experiences and the like – it’s easier now than ever to break into the industry. But do you know HOW to be a good tour guide or operator? If you want your tourism business or attraction to be successful, you must know how to be a great tour guide! Tour guides will break or make your business. You can’t just point and say “Thats a thing from this time and it did this thing.” Read on to learn how to be the very best tour guide you can be!
Take a Personal Interest in Your Guest
Everybody hates small talk to begin with. It’s awkward, it’s forced, and makes most people uncomfortable. But do it anyways. Ask your guests where they’re from, what brought them to your area, and so forth. Get to know them, have a conversation, and it’ll help them build a relationship & fond memories of your tour.
What’s the Story
Don’t be the boring tour guide that just spits out historical facts left and right. Tell a story! A good story has an intro, a body that weaves in interesting facts, and a conclusion. When telling your guests about a certain place where a big event had happened, include why and how it happened. Find the interesting tid bits and include that in your narrative. It helps your guests visualize themselves in the scene, and provides them with context.
Find Your Funny Bone
Not literally, but have fun with it! You don’t need to be a stand up comedian to make a tour stand out, but being a boring stickler won’t help either. Add some of your humor into the tour, add interesting and crazy stories, puns, dad jokes, whatever you can as long as it’s not offensive (obviously).
Be A Drama Queen
We’re not asking you to be an Oscar nominated actor here, but add some drama and flair to the tour! Ask your guests to close their eyes and visualize the story you’re telling them. If you’re talking about history, create a character to talk about how they would have lived during that time. The best tour guides are the ones that help their guests see something in a different light!
It’s All About the Details
Adding small touches to your tour will bring it a long way. A cooler full of water, packets of sun screen, a variety of free snacks. Show them you are a human being who cares about their guests, and not just some guide herding people from place to place.
Be Flexible
No one likes a stick in the mud. The best tours are the ones where the guide can show each person something they are interested, which will help them connect to the your attraction more.
No tour guide or operator is perfect, but by utilizing some of our tips you can get pretty darn close.
At AAMP Agency | Adventure & Activity Marketing Pros, we eat, breathe, and live tourism & destination marketing. If your tourism business has great tour guides but needs help getting customers through the door, that’s where we come in. Contact us today to start getting more customers to your attraction or business!