Where is the guide. How hotel guides breed package tourists. The best guide

Finding a good and inexpensive guide abroad is not an easy task and the last stronghold of travel agencies in individual sightseeing tours. Finding a ticket and a number in search engines is cheaper than taking in an agency, visa centers are already conducting visas. If you know how to correctly make the route of the trip, all that remains is to find suitable guides and your exclusive ride is ready.

Look for a guide in the right city you can use the search engine Yandex or Google. But the issue will be irrelevant, there is a lot of garbage and outdated information. It will take a long time to sift through the results. You will need to call or wait for an answer by mail, for a long time, sometimes to no avail. In the end, all the hassle may be in vain. It is better to use modern guide search services, the review of which is ahead.

If a guide in one of the European languages ​​is suitable for you

www.contexttravel.com. The service offers guided tours with scientists and specialists in various fields, including archeology, art history, cuisine, urban planning, history, environmental sciences. Associate professors, as the service calls them, combine their usual jobs as scientists and researchers and conduct in-depth walking workshops for small groups of intellectually curious travelers. If you want an expert look at a specific area of ​​expertise, this is the service for you.

Cons: this service does not offer Russian-speaking guides. The territory is limited to several dozen cities.

Minus: Russian-speaking guides cannot be found here yet.

If you are looking for a Russian speaking guide or "our resident" abroad

www.localguiding.com. This service also offers contact with a local guide, so you can find the right guide very inexpensively, literally for a few dollars or euros. The service is comfortable and well debugged. Very quickly finds the location and the chosen language, immediately offering excursions, cost and prompt communication with the guide. In addition to guides and various excursions, the site offers short tours for several days, hiking, cycling and so on.

Minus: there are not a lot of Russian-speaking guides, but you can find it. In Europe, almost no problem.

www.getyourguide.com. This service does not specialize only in guides, here you can find in addition to excursions: tours, cooking courses, cruises, hop-on hop-off buses and much more. But there are guides too, you need to configure it. First, in the upper search bar, we set the country or city. Then we scroll the window down a little and set the language - russian on the left in the column. We receive the issuance of all service options in Russian. Now we go up, on the left in the column we specify what we need: transfers, excursions, tours or cinema tickets.

Cons: the service enters into contracts with companies, not with private guides, so there are many multilingual excursions and tours in the range. As a result, in the issuance or excursions for more high cost or guided tours with headphones.

tourguides.viator.com. Part of the great viator.com service is finding tours and entertainment, it's easy to get lost in it. If you only need a guide - tourguides.viator.com will make it quick and easy to find the right person in the right place. The service offers both licensed guides and unlicensed guides. It is very convenient and fast to search, first enter the direction or city, then the language and you will get all the profiles. Some guides offer discounts on their excursions.

Minus: finding a Russian-speaking guide in Asia is difficult.

www.excursiopedia.com Russian-language service created by our compatriots. Convenient, understandable, fast. Allows you to search immediately for excursions and guides. Offers other options for ground service, sports, adventure, educational.

Cons: the cost of excursions and services includes the commission of the Internet service itself. In the case of some kind of entertainment attraction, cruise or surf camp, this commission is included in the price of the service package. But if you only need a guide, it will cost you more.

www.shiroube.com. The service is still in beta testing. In the center of the page, set the language and country. The search engine finds our compatriots working as guides in all parts of the world: and on Canary Islands and in Thailand and China. It also sorts the guides by gender, age, interests and allows you to contact them through its interface.

Minus: the search engine is still working with a slight creak.

www.privateguide.com. Rather a bulletin board with contacts of guides. The contact base is decent. There are many guides and not only in Europe. Here you will find a guide in Varanasi and Casablanca.

Disadvantage: the service is not perfectly debugged, it does not immediately understand what is needed from it.

But where can you find a guide who can present the material in an interesting way? You can try on social networks, but not all specialists are there. In addition, the most in-demand rarely go there, because they often do not have time. We offer an alternative way to find a guide: contact us on the Youatlas service.

All guides in one place

Regardless of where exactly you want to go (Cambodia, USA, Ireland, South Africa), we have suitable excursions. To find a guide, you just need to look at our website. No need to look for anyone: we already have contacts of experienced guides! Moreover, all specialists are verified. And you can contact them even before placing your order. For this, a special button is provided on the site.

5 reasons to find a guide

In today's world, there are many ways to explore different interesting places on one's own. Why find a guide? What does it do? Let's figure it out!

A good guide knows a lot about the places and sights that he will show you. Very often, famous cathedrals, palaces, mansions, in which wealthy people of past eras lived, are shown, for example, by architects. They explain in an accessible way how this or that building stands out, pay attention to such nuances that an ordinary traveler would simply pass by.

Historians know how to competently immerse in the past of a city or a specific part, describe a specific era, tell how people lived then. A walk with such a guide will resemble a trip to another world, to one in which it is still fresh and real. In addition, with guides with a history education, for obvious reasons, it is very interesting to visit different excavations.

Experienced art critics often conduct excursions. A visit with them to an art gallery or to a particular exhibition will enrich you with knowledge of the most famous paintings, frescoes, sculptures and other works. You will see in front of you not just a work of art, you will begin to understand the implications.

Some of the excursions were written by journalists. They love to dig up what cannot be found on the Internet, to find inconsistencies between popular theories explaining the past of a city or a particular place. Very often, such people conduct whole investigations.

The second reason to find a guide is to save money. Yes, you heard right. Although you will need to spend money on the services of the guide himself, he will save you the need to hire an interpreter. In addition, experienced guides often know where to buy souvenirs cheaper, some share their discounts when going to popular shopping and entertainment centers.

Do you like photo shoots? Would you like to bring some unusual pictures from your vacation? In that case, here it is, the third reason to find a guide! Many guides are fond of photography themselves. They are constantly looking for interesting and unusual angles from which to shoot a famous landmark so that it looks original, perhaps even unrecognizable. And the guides willingly share these secrets with travelers.

Unique opportunities are what you get by purchasing a specific program. Guides develop routes, book rooms in hotels, tables in famous restaurants, buy tickets to museums or to shows ... In a word, they do everything so that you can find yourself where you would not otherwise have been able to get. Thanks to the tour guides, you don't have to worry about queues. And, by the way, in many places without guides, they are simply not allowed.

Finally, the fifth reason is pleasure and relaxation. You do not need to think about where and how to find something interesting, how to get to a specific place, where to find it on the map, how to get from one point to another, and then return to your hotel. The guide will do everything for you. And is vacation needed not in order to properly relax?

Going on vacation to an unfamiliar country, each of us wants to get as much positive emotions as possible from the trip. Therefore, many people prefer to entrust their acquaintance with the sights to a professional guide who will not only tell you about the history and culture of the Aborigines, but also show the most significant places, help in difficult situations and give some valuable advice on how to behave and what to avoid.

Going on vacation to an unfamiliar country, each of us wants to get as much positive emotions and impressions from the trip as possible. Therefore, before the trip, someone carefully studies all available information about the selected country and plans excursion routes on their own, while someone prefers to entrust their acquaintance with the sights to a professional guide who will not only tell about the history and culture of the Aboriginal people, but also show the most significant places. will help in difficult situations and give some valuable advice on how to behave and what to avoid.

As you probably already understood, this article will focus on guide profession, whose representatives can be safely called "guardian angels" of unlucky tourists who manage to "get lost in three pines" and get into the most ridiculous situations "out of the blue."

Who is a guide?

A guide is a specialist who accompanies a tourist (or a group of tourists) on excursions, hikes, car tours, etc., and introduces him to local attractions, culture and traditions. Quite often, the responsibility for organizing leisure activities is also assigned to the guide.

The name of the profession comes from the French guide (leader, conductor), which almost completely reflects the essence of the guide's work. It is not known for certain when the first guides appeared, but there is an assumption that the need for them arose simultaneously with the ability to travel long distances. It is known that the services of the crowned specials who made foreign trips were always provided by the guests of the meeting, who not only introduced the high-ranking guests to local attractions, but also provided them with any assistance they could.

Over time and as a result of the development of tourism, there was a need for professional guides, as a result of which this profession appeared. Today's profession guide includes several narrow specializations, among which a guide-translator, a guide-guide and a naturalist guide are in special demand.

In duties modern guide includes: meeting tourists on arrival, organization sightseeing tours, accompaniment during excursions or walks, acquaintance with the peculiarities of local culture and customs, ensuring the safety of tourists, etc. That is, for tourist group the guide becomes a real leader, on whom it largely depends general impression from the trip and the place of rest.

What personal qualities should a guide have?

It is not difficult to guess that since guide work involves communication with large quantity people, a representative of this profession must necessarily be not just sociable, but a very interesting interlocutor, able to captivate listeners with his stories and convey valuable information to them. In addition, the guide must have such personal qualities as:

• artistry;
• a responsibility;
• punctuality;
• equilibrium;
• good memory;
• erudition;
• benevolence;
• tact;
• patience;
• resourcefulness;
• intelligible and competent speech.

Since the guide has to deal with a variety of people while working, it will not be superfluous to know the basics of psychology and the ability to neutralize any conflict. If we talk about the requirements for the physical training of a guide, then a representative of this profession must be hardy and not get tired during long walks. The guide will also come in handy with an excellent sense of humor, which will help him to always be in good location spirit, regardless of the difficulties and difficulties that have arisen. And most importantly, the guide must love not only his work, but also the area with which he introduces tourists.

Benefits of being a tour guide

Talking about the benefits of being a guide, first of all, it should be noted that there is no routine at work. In contrast to the related specialization of the guide, where a specialist sometimes has to conduct the same excursion from year to year, the guide draws up the route himself, in which tourists often make their own changes. Also, the advantages of this profession include:

• communication and acquaintance with a large number of people;
• the opportunity to practice foreign languages ​​with native speakers;
• a decent level of remuneration;
• the opportunity to travel a lot and discover new tourist destinations;
• outdoor work;
• great prospects for the development of their own tourism business.

Disadvantages of the profession of a guide

Disadvantages of the profession of a guide not less than advantages. What is the need to work at any time of the day and in any weather? The well-known saying "the wolf's legs are fed" fits this profession as well as possible, since the salary directly depends on the number and quality of the tours carried out: I went to work - I got paid, I didn’t come out - I didn’t get it. Do not forget that the guide:

• very often remains without breakfast or lunch (while the tourists are having lunch, the guide often has to either solve organizational issues, or look for tourists who are lagging behind the group);
• must answer any questions of tourists with a smile, even if they, in his opinion, are stupid and tactless (that is, one cannot demonstrate a bad mood and irritability);
• is responsible for the safety of tourists, who, by the way, are not always distinguished by prudence and discipline;
• she talks and talks almost all day, and this is a very big load on the vocal cords.

Where can you get the profession of a guide?

In order to become a guide It is not at all necessary to receive a special education. It is enough to complete special courses, pass an aptitude test, and you can start working. Practice has shown that the knowledge and skills gained in the courses are quite enough for the first time. Further career and, importantly, the level of the guide's salary entirely depend on his ability for self-improvement and the desire to constantly improve his qualifications.

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And ride the world at someone else's expense

Four years ago I became a tour guide and went to work in the Indian state of Goa.

I am a journalist by education and never planned to develop in tourism. In Moscow, I led excursions for foreigners, but it was a part-time job. Once a friend told me that she was flying to Goa as a guide, and I realized that I wanted to do the same. I sent my resume, passed an interview, and then training courses in Moscow. Two months later, I was already giving excursions in India. I had never been there before.

After two seasons in Goa, I worked as a tour guide in two more companies: in Crete and in the Dominican Republic. Everywhere has its own nuances, but the work and conditions are similar.

The main task of the guide

The tour guide conducts excursions for clients travel company... Its main goal is to make sure that everyone survives and is happy.

Depending on the number of people, excursions are divided into group and individual, depending on the route and topic - into historical and entertainment. The perfect guide will handle any excursion. He will be able to make 60 people laugh on the bus and establish contact with a family with small children on an individual trip. He knows all the Hindu gods and the chronology of Columbus's travels and colorfully tells about how a starfish dines.

A tour guide is a teacher, entertainer, reliable guide and patient mentor. Tourists want the trip to be worth the time and money spent. But everyone needs their own: someone wants to have fun, and someone wants to learn in detail the history of the country. A good guide will find the balance and lead the tour so that everyone in the group will be happy.

How to maintain discipline

Tourists are interested in different things: some want to take a longer walk around the museum, others - around the store. They often get carried away and lose track of time. And when there are several stops on the excursion and there is a clear schedule, even a ten-minute delay can disrupt the program.

In Greece, I took excursions from Crete to romantic island Santorini. We got there by catamaran with 1000 seats, which went once a day. There was a program in Santorini, and then free time. Each time I was nervous and prayed that no one would be late or get lost. Once people stayed for a long time and the driver had to drive along the serpentine, and on the catamaran he almost had to jump over the water: the gangway was already being removed.

Sometimes you want to shout at tourists and even punish the whole group for someone's bad behavior, like in a pioneer camp. But if you do this with adults who have paid for the excursion, everyone's mood will be ruined. I used financial arguments: I told the tourists in advance how much it would cost them to be late. A ticket for tomorrow's catamaran - 60 €, a night in a normal hotel in Santorini - 100 €, a taxi from the port to a hotel in Crete - another 50 €. Everyone immediately became punctual.

It must be understood that these are only outwardly adults and conscious people. Inside, they are all children who have come to rest.

The guide saves everyone

In tropical countries, things often go wrong. Cars break down, boats are late, the weather deteriorates, rum runs out. For all the troubles, tourists blame the guide: there is no one else. You need to be on the side of people and try to turn the problem into an adventure.

Once our bus was stopped by the police and we stood in the mountains for two hours while they were checking documents. I did not hide from tourists that all this also upsets me, but I explained that we cannot influence anything. Rescued funny stories about the country and mentality local residents, and I used the situation as an illustrative example. This defused the situation. In two hours we became friends with the guests, and they bought other excursions from the company.

Sometimes the difficulties are created by the tourists themselves. If a conflict arose within the group, I reminded us that we are on vacation in another country and the police are relentless here. In the event of a fight, they will not figure out who is to blame.

If guests complain to the tour guide, the most important thing is to stay calm. You learn this quickly. No matter what strange questions people ask, no matter what they demand - on the face of professional guide not a single muscle flinches. Girls love to be asked if they have already married a local. Sometimes I said that yes, we already have five children.

The guide solves organizational issues

The guide communicates not only with tourists, but also with contractors - car and boat drivers, cafe employees, event coordinators. He makes sure that everyone completes their tasks and does it on time: he calls the driver in advance to leave the parking lot and meet the group in the square, or rushes the waiters at lunch. The contractors do not speak Russian, so English or the local language is indispensable.

Sometimes a local guide will accompany the group. This is a cover in case of a meeting with the police. According to the laws of many countries, foreigners are not allowed to work in this position. When meeting with the police, the local guide pretends to be his group. And the rest of the time he goes about his business.

After each excursion, you need to report on how it went: whether all the guests returned to the hotels, how the contractors worked, whether there were any force majeure. The report is submitted in paper or electronic form. The work of the guide himself is assessed by the administration according to the questionnaires that tourists fill out. Usually the guide is rated excellent, but this is not an indicator. It is embarrassing for tourists to put a low score, because they give the questionnaires to the guide personally.

The real assessment of the guide's work is in the rest of the questionnaire. Formally, the guide is not responsible for the variety of the menu and the beauty of the sights. But if everything is presented correctly, tourists will get more positive emotions and give higher marks.

For example, my colleague arranged quests for guests in boring ancient ruins: he made riddles, created an antique atmosphere with stories, and even scared, depicting a mythical monster. His excursions were the most popular with the company.

Schedule and working conditions

90% of excursions start before dawn and end after dusk. The working day of the guide lasts 12-14 hours. From this time, an hour or two is spent on going around all the hotels in the morning and collecting guests. Another hour - to take everyone back in the evening.

The number of working days depends on how many excursions the tourists bought. Usually the guide works 5-6 days a week. At the peak of the season, there are 10-15 excursions seven days a week - until the body and psyche break down. In other months, for example at the end of December, you sit without work for weeks. It hurts.

Income depends on the company. Some pay a flat salary and bonuses for each excursion, others only bonuses. My employers paid 400-500 dollars or euros per month and 30-100 $ for each excursion. It came out $ 1000-1500 per month.

A comparable amount can be earned on commissions in stores that are official partners of a travel company. The prices are overpriced, but there is a large selection, and the staff speaks Russian. It is impossible not to visit them during the excursion, they are fined for this. In order for the guides to have a personal motivation to advertise the store, the owners pay them a percentage of the sales or give them gifts - a bottle of good wine, natural shampoo or a cashmere shawl.

There are other bonuses as well. Often the company pays for the rental of housing - a villa or an apartment, where 1-2 people live in a room. Sometimes the guides can eat at the hotels for free. Once I ate all season in one of the best hotels the island on which she lived.

On excursions, everything that is included for tourists is included for the guide. Helicopters, yachts, elephant and donkey rides, tastings of local sweets, grilled lobsters, massages with aromatic oils, corporate parties in luxury hotels, even bungee flights - an experienced guide will not be surprised with entertainment. In shops, guides are given discounts, in restaurants they give club cards.

There are regulations that the guide must follow: for example, he must wear a uniform and not swim in front of guests. But this is usually not followed. On trips to the islands, most guides calmly sunbathe on the sun loungers next to their groups.

But for being late for an excursion, absenteeism or part-time work on the side, they can be fined and even fired.

Where to look for work in tourism

The easiest way to find a job in tourism is through acquaintances: they will share the mail of the HR manager in the right company and put in a few words. This does not guarantee success, but it significantly increases the chances. You can also ask students of tourism universities, but they themselves are usually offered not Better conditions: one room for four and a total income of $ 300 per month.

If there are no acquaintances, traditional methods remain. I got my first job as a tour guide after responding to an ad on Headhunter. In order not to miss the vacancies of tour operators on this site, subscribe to the "Jobs abroad" mailing list.

It is useful to follow the section of vacancies on the websites of the tour operators themselves, for example, "Pegasa", "Coral-Travel", "Anex-Tour", "Tez-Tour", "Biblio-Globus". Many tour operators work with a host: in Russia, a client buys a ticket from one company, and in the country of arrival he is met by employees of another - a local one. Then vacancies should be looked for in a meeting company.

There are closed groups on Facebook, for example