Tour Guides manage tours lasting from half a day to several days depending on the itinerary. These duties include accounting for all passengers and luggage; confirming that bus, meal, and hotel reservations are accurate; awareness of the day's route and driving instructions; ensuring all guests have paid any incidental expenses at the hotel; and providing assistance to any passengers with special needs. They make sure passengers know the bus or flight number and what time they are scheduled to depart and distribute admission tickets.
They may be asked to check out other hotels, restaurants, and attractions for future trips. The hours are long, from early-morning wake-up calls and luggage pull until after the evening's activities, and frequently include weekends. Step-on guides may concentrate on giving tours of a specific city or area, meeting groups at prearranged locations or picking them up at designated stops. They usually stay with their group only for the duration of the tour and do not assist with general travel matters.
Tours may have a focus on historic spots, art galleries and museums, musical and theater presentations, trekking across glaciers, spotting baby seals, spectator sports, hiking, adventure, ecotourism, boating, cruising, grandparent/ grandchildren travel, or any other interest a group of people might have. They may be domestic or international or serve international visitors who are touring the United States. They may be budget tours or upscale. In exchange, Tour Guides are paid to travel and sightsee and may receive discounts on other travel not associated with the company's tours. They also get to meet some interesting people who are taking the tours.
Tour Guides' salaries average US Dollars115 a day, including gratuities and a meal allowance. Other incidental expenses directly related to the trip usually are covered, including transportation to and from the starting and ending points of a trip when the trip is not local. Personal incidental expenses are not covered. A full-time Tour Guide may be provided with vacation and sick leave and health and life insurance. Part-time guides rarely receive these benefits.
Small tour operators generally run fewer tours than do larger companies, so the turnover can be high as Tour Guides move to companies that can offer full-time employment. Therefore, there are generally plenty of vacancies depending on the location and the type of touring an employee wants to do.
As most tour companies are family owned and small, there is very little room for advancement from part-time to fulltime employment for Tour Guides, other than starting their own tour company. Larger companies offer some room for advancement into management positions.
Less than half of tour companies require a college degree from their part-time employees. Additional courses in travel and tourism, foreign languages, math, geography, and other subjects can make a Tour Guide more employable.
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