How to become a local tour guide in your city ?

You love your city, are familiar with the most important sights and surroundings of your town and know its hidden gems? You are an open-minded person, a story-teller and love meeting new people from around the world? You are experienced in leading groups of people, public speaking and showing your friends and family around the city? These are basically the needs to become a tour guide. If most of these points apply to you, you should consider becoming a local tour guide in your city.

A local guide is someone who is highly confident with a particular city and is able to show visitors the city at its best.

While there are no specific training prerequisites for this job, there are international guide academies that provide training like tour management for tour directors and tour guides worldwide.

The main criteria for becoming successful in the tour business is that you enjoy working with people and enjoy travelling.

Other qualities you need to become a professional tour guide are:

  • Deep knowledge of your city – even if it is not your home town, people usually pay for the services of a guide and therefore expect the guide to know everything about every stop on the tour. Make sure that you know the history, myths and facts and can give personal recommendations and insider tips.
  • Excellent storyteller – a tour guide must be able to attract the attention of the group. When you talk about the different sights, try to do so in an enthusiastic and memorable way, finding the right balance between wit and seriousness. Also it is essential to show them how much you adore your city.
  • Be responsible and flexible – you will be leading groups who are unfamiliar with the city; make sure they are always safe and feel comfortable during the tour. Also make yourself familiar with different cultures to avoid putting your foot in it.
    You should be able to get along with your tour group and adapt to different cultures as the groups are probably very cosmopolitan and each individual might expect something different from the tour.
  • Last but not least, you should be physically fit, because hours of standing, long walks and even hikes are part of the daily routine of a tour guide.

But do not worry if you lack certain criteria, with practice you gain experience and you get better and better at what you do.

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How to start your own tour guide business  ?

You want to start your own walking tour business? We have put together a very short and clear step-by-step guide to help you start your own tour guide business.

  1. Plan your business. Planning is the be-all and end-all when founding a company. You need to think about some very crucial aspects such as
    • startup costs
    • running costs
    • target market and target audience
    • streams of income (how much can you charge your clients?)
    • proper company name
    • …
  2. Establishment of a legal entity. The most common types of corporate structures are
    • sole proprietorship
    • partnership
    • limited liability company (LLC)
    • corporation.
  3. Register for taxes
  4. Open a commercial bank account
  5. Setting up business accounting
  6. Obtaining the necessary permits and licenses
  7. Take out business insurance
  8. Establishment of a strong and unique brand
  9. Create your web presence and a consistent Social Media presence

 

Start you Tour guide company with a Franchise Riviera bar crawl & Tours ?

how-to-become-a-local-tour-guide

The travel industry and the tour business is a very lucrative industry but also a highly competitive one since there are already many established tour companies around the world. A slightly easier and less risky way to act as a tour operator is to set up a franchise.

A franchise offers an existing and complete business system, a higher success rate and more freedom than starting your own tour company.

Riviera Bar Crawl & Tours is a well established tour operating company with more than eight years of experience and expertise in this field. We know the market inside and out, we have a large and satisfied customer base that is growing steadily, we provide professional training, digital marketing and more.

So, what are you waiting for? Start your Franchise in your city and fill in the form below.

For further enquires and information, don’t hesitate to get in contact with us via our email: info@rivierabarcrawl.com