The best tour guide walking tour tips

Staying on the same topic as last week, walking tours. A tour guide can be challenged of an ideal walking tour. It’s not as simple as Johnnie Walker’s words “Keep Walking”. You need to pay attention to the tour pace.

The tour guide’s speed needs to be ok with the slowest person in the group. Check the condition of your clients and make it easy for everyone to follow you. Mind especially if you are with elder people or children.

Walk in the front, or together with those in the front, as a tour guide is leading the way. You’d better not have your clients stop and ask you for directions. When you arrive at corners or turns, pause or slow down. See if all your clients are within your sight. Do not lose people, otherwise you will have trouble. However, it is also advised not to pause too often. People feel as well tired with slow speed.

As a walking tour guide, do you introduce to your clients while walking? Surely you do when you are with a small group of 2-3 people. But do not introduce while walking if you are guiding a big group of travelers. The problem with that is you can’t walk backwards to talk to the whole group. People may miss your points.

Wish tour guides enjoy the walking tour as much as the clients!

Tour Guide Transportation Choices for a City Tour

The discussion here is how to choose the best transportation means between scenic spots when doing a city tour.

The most common choice is a pre-booked vehicle, either it’s a coach, a van or a car. Choose dynamically according to the number of travelers and their specific needs. During time on the way, tour guide shall appropriately introduce scenery along the road or some local culture/life. When communicating with clients, do turn back to make eye contact and to address their interest. The tour guide needs paying attention to their own safety if standing on the vehicle to talk. Do not stand talking while the vehicle starts/stops.

For individual travelers, tour guide has a wider range of selection for transportation. Taxi, metro, bus, etc., the guide may choose the most efficient means considering distance and budget. One thing in mind, try avoiding peak hours in the city. Travelers only want to experience the local way, not to get jammed or crowded in public transportations.

A tour guide can also recommend unique local transportation which travelers won’t experience in their daily life. For instance, Tuk-tuk in Bangkok, jinrick-shaw in Phnom Penh, ferry in Shanghai, etc. They are active transportation tools, but a special local experience for travelers as well.

There’s also another transportation choice. We sometimes call it “Bus 11”, well, not necessarily a tool. It’s to visit with one’s own legs. Walking tour, as people are more familiar with. City walking tour has high requirements of a tour guide. The guide shall be well prepared for route selection, combination of spots along walking, speed and physical condition of travelers, resting points and toilets etc. But above all, walking is probably the best way to understand a city.

Tour Guides - Dining on the Tour

Chinese have a saying “people regard food as heavenly high”, something similar to “Bread is the stuff of life.” Dining on the tour can be an art. It requires the guide’s consideration on a healthy and cheerful experience of the local foods.



Clean and healthy is the basic and primary criteria. The tour guides shall take responsibility on the sanitary conditions of the restaurants. Moreover, check out special requirements before hand, e.g. if any vegetarian, kosher, etc.



Then, taste and specialty of foods matter. Tour guide is not simply leading the clients to a restaurant and call for the meal. The guide shall explain and help to enjoy local dishes. It’s sometimes challenging for foreigners to figure out by themselves how to eat. For instances, you don’t expect fresh hands to eat a crab smoothly, or non-westerners to use forks and knives skillfully. It’s important, as a tour guide, to introduce and instruct.



A professional tour guide also needs to pay attention to small details besides food and restaurant. Check the number of dishes – make sure there’s no missing or short of amount. Take a note of time – mind the following tour if any. For the tour guide himself, eat after all clients are settled and finish before they do, as the guide needs to coordinate throughout meals. Point out the restrooms. Make sure of payment of the meal. Remind travelers of their belongings. When it’s tour of a big group, check nobody has been left behind at departure. Tour guiding belongs to the service industry, and in most cases, attention to details matters.

Tour Guides - Perpare in advance for your clients

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Are you sure that everything has been prepared before you meet your clients and start guiding?

As a tour guide, you may have visited your site for thousands of times, and know all the details of your guiding spot. However for a visitor, this is somewhere they had never been or scarcely know anything about. They expect the tour to be fantastic and memorable. So as a professional tour guide, you shall check everything before any tour for your clients.


Itinerary Preparation

Be familiar with the timetable and schedule. Tour guide is critical for both group travelers and individual clients. Make sure every detail is confirmed, what time, where to go and what to do. Confirm the site opening and closure, as they may change with summer/winter time, peak/low seasons, or holidays. Check if the activity is available, for they may cancel due to weather conditions.



Material Preparation

Travel is a way of consumption. The payments can be done by the tour guide or travelers according to your agreement. If a tour guide is required to pay for meals, accommodation, transportation, entertainment etc., do bring enough cash/money. Prepare for the vehicle if applicable. Confirm the vehicle condition and driver contacts. Also do not forget your guiding tools like tour guide certificate, microphone, and pick-up signs.



Knowledge Preparation

Your knowledge of the guided area, on-the-way sceneries, anecdotes… is basic. Tour guides, of course, are not encyclopedia. But the more you know, the better experience you clients would receive. Tour guide belongs the kind of miscellaneous career, requiring ongoing study and self-fulfillment. For example, the Olympic tour in Beijing after 2008, the coming 2010 EXPO visit in Shanghai. No matter you are a fresh guide, or a guide with 10-year-experience, you have to catch on with the new developments.



Psychological Preparation

Are you confident that you could satisfy your clients? They may have higher education, perhaps expert in certain industry, or with religion background … Do you have the confidence that clients of various types would be happy with your service? Well, do not panic. As mentioned before, tour guides are not encyclopedia. You don’t have to be more knowledge in all areas. Respect their knowledge or belief, and meanwhile, do your best to share the place you live and work. One way to help with your psychological preparation is to know about your clients before hand - where they come from, what age they are, if any special needs on religion or foods, etc.



Get ready with the above, and I’m sure you will start guiding with full confidence.

Tip for Tour Guides - Do not lecture

Travelers are not students. All tour guides understand it. However, many guides tend to lecturing rather than guiding with their clients. You may be very knowledgeable of the place or scenic spot, so you work hard to speak out on every bit of information.
Wait a minute, can your clients receive all this information, or just half of it? Pay attention to the client’s reply, either emotional or verbal. Do not lecture to them.
Guide books, promotional booklets, or guiding machines can do the lecture much better, standard and accurate. The value of a personal tour guide is to lead align with the scenery and emotions. For instance, on the bund of Shanghai, you are introducing the “International Architecture” with the city’s colonial past. Once facing the Pudong New Area, you are changing to the modernity and prosperous future of a bustling metropolis. Same location but different angles, the travelers will have very different information and a unique experience. Moreover, excellent tour guides communicate with their clients actively. They reply to questions that clients ask, expand knowledge when clients show interest, and appreciate when clients express exclamation.

How can your guiding remain in the tradition version of one-one communication?

Tour Guide best practice - Pricing your tour

This week OurExplorer came across some very interesting experiences from some of the tour guide bookings on OurExplorer. Some tour guides like Pablo in Argentina (pictured) have a policy of including all fares, transport, food, drinks, entry fees etc in his day price. I think this works best for the tour guide and the client as it prevents any surprises. A happy client = a happy tour guide.

However some tour guides will try and request more additional funds from a client post the booking. Is this fair?

OurExplorer - WFTGA tourist guide convention 2009

OUREXPLORER AT THE WORLD FEDERATION OF TOURIST GUIDES 2009 CONVENTION

The Chief Exploring Officer (CEO) of OurExplorer was delighted to attend and present to the delegation in Bali 2009. Hundreds of professional tourist guides from all over the world attended.

Do you have any queries/comments on why licenced tourist guides are better for global tourism?