Being a tour guide – one of the best professions
Dear visitor! Welcome to my blog on the art of prospering as a tour guide. This is a brand-new project I am starting in order to get better as a tourist guide personally, but also to start sharing the knowledge I have accumulated with the years passing. While writing, I will have in mind younger fellow tour guides that are just starting this business and also experienced colleagues, which are trying to sharpen their tourist guide skills. Being a tourist guide is a way of living – and often only other guides can understand many details of this profession.
Best job among many
At the present time (when I have decided to start writing this blog) I am 42 years old. In the last twenty years I have done many jobs. I used to be a: front office clerk, hotel guest animator, bar waiter, taxi driver, an informant on tourism fairs, a postman, a security guard and other. But in the last ten years I have mainly been a freelance tourist guide. Among all these jobs which I have tried, being a tourist guide is surely one of the best.
A tourist guide’s work is outdoors. A guide meets new people all the time and also gets paid relatively well. It is a profession that leaves one satisfied at the end of the day. This is one of the main reasons why I would like to continue working as a tourist guide all the way till old age, if things turn out that way, off course. I know of a guide in my area that is about 75 years old, and she still does a group every here and there. It is a profession that can keep you alive and kicking well into old age.
I have been relatively successful with my business in the last ten years – I have managed to run a micro company and to raise two kids. The corona pandemic has off course been a big stop also for the tourist guides world. But sooner or later the pandemic is going to be over, and I am motivated to return “on the road” even better prepared. This is why I have decided to start writing this blog.
Many different tour guide topics
This blog will be about all the things we tour guides talk about when sitting on a coffee during a break with our groups. In the next posts I plan to discuss topics like:
- outgoing or incoming?
- where to get clients?
- is it better to be knowledgeable or funny?
- 2 hours, half day or full day?
- what jobs complement tour guiding well?
- the importance of good relationships with colleagues
- digital marketing for tour guides
- good time management skills
- and so on…
I haven’t been writing in English for some time recently. But I am sure my feeling for the English written word is going to get better (with practice) in the following months. At the moment I intend to post once a month. You are off course welcome to follow.
