Local tour guide, how to become one?
We all love to see clients open their eyes in surprise or interest at what you say, the way you say it, the way you know how to engage attention. People's eyes are opened when they learn something new. If you don't like boring people, you need to find a way to convey interesting facts without putting people to sleep. Here are some ideas that will make people love you as a local tour guide and your team:
A local tour guide is interested in tourists
Get to know tourists by having at least a brief chat with them. Find out where they are from and how they like the city and region they are in.
It is simple, small gestures like this that give a sense of value that tourists will take away from your English tour. Being friendly is key, and personal attention builds on that foundation, making tourists feel special.
See if you can find a way to get tourists to interact with you while you are guiding tours in English instead of just listening.
A local tour guide knows how to tell interesting stories
When tourists are overloaded with information, they start begging for the end. The exact year a major event took place is nothing compared to why and how it happened. Find interesting tidbits and weave the information into a story. Get tourists to get into the scenario you are building and and here's the key really get a feel for how people live or lived in a particular environment, situation. If these are nature tours in English, you can still build a narrative. There's a story everywhere. With the help of our tour guide portal, Odyseos.com describe stories that encourage tourists to choose your services.
The fact that a building was once important does not necessarily make it important now. It is the human perspective of the building that tourists find most exciting, or how the building relates to them. For example, with a group of tourists from Germany, you might show them places in your city that have historical connections to their Germany.
A local tour guide has a sense of humor
You don't have to be a jokester, but an occasional sense of humor certainly comes in handy. Think about it: people love to laugh. Give them what they love, and they'll appreciate you for it.
It's not about writing a million jokes. Find appealing and crazy stories, develop them and focus on them. Find contradictions that can be funny.
The local tour guide has an imagination
Encourage your tourists to close their eyes and listen to your voice as you tell the story of the place and issues. Ask them to feel the emotions of your characters. If you are talking about history, you can create an example character to tell how someone would have lived in those times.
As you explore each place, show how your historical character participated in the life of that place and how it affected society as a whole. You can even create several characters, one upper class, one middle class, and one lower class. Use this to show how each of them interacted with the same place, but in dramatically different ways.
The best guides are those who help you see something in a complete new light. Be that person.
A local tour guide knows how to add something from themselves, the little touches
It's the little touches that people remember and differentiate you from a regular tour guide.
Bring umbrellas, free cold water or free snacks. This will show that you are a real person who cares about your tourists, not just the amount of your tour rate.
Even if you put giant ads on your website and in your office with a sign saying tourists must have their own umbrellas, there will always be those who forget. Be prepared for people's mistakes and things they forget, and they will thank you for it.
Another small touch is to provide a small information brochure at the beginning of the tour in English so tourists can keep track of what is going on. So they can plan their day, see what's going to happen.
It's all about being human and doing things with love. If you ask yourself the question of How to organize a tour in English? all these ideas will come naturally, on their own.
A local tour guide knows how to adapt to the needs and expectations of tourists
The best tours in English are the ones where the local tour guide can find points of interest to show each tourist so they can connect on a personal level.
Treat your children as your most important tourists. If you have kids, you definitely know what it's like to travel with them. Sunshine, happiness and smiles 100% of the time, right? Get used to parent tourists quickly by taking care of the kids. Play sets, snack packs or even a free bottle of water makes a difference.
If your English tours are kid-friendly, make sure to emphasize that in your tour descriptions. Show children in the pictures you have on your website so tourists understand that you can cater to families. Even something that you think is obvious to kids may not be so obvious to your tourists.