Every destination, every service provider is in a race to be the best. Their success or failure stand as the reason why a visitor has a good, or not so good experience. This is the product. This is what the visitor is paying for. This is this impression that the visitor carries home and is the single most valuable tool available to broadcast your message. This is what the visitor will communicate to — basically anyone who asks.
Every destination, every service provider needs to work on every opportunity to improve their product in order to encourage visitors; to give them a benefit for their visit, to enjoy, to return and, importantly, to speak well of the place. Visitors have made a substantial commitment, financial as well as time, to be in your home place. As well, visitors have chosen your home place out of a wide selection available to them. It would be a huge miscalculation to take this for granted. Value for money is how the visitor thinks and the more this value is delivered, the better the visitor will feel about spending their money.
A visitor will dramatically improve their experience when they engage with a tour guide. To meet and exceed the expectations that the visitor arrives with are going to ensure a valuable and ongoing relationship. The tour guide may often be the reason a visitor plans to return.
Tour guides are a critical interface between the visitor and the destination, this person is really the destination's face to the visitor. Critical for many reasons:
Training for tour guides, like in any profession, is an ongoing, ever-present need to adapt to new market priorities, changing visitor needs, new destination services and attractions, and so on. Also, certification, accreditation, endorsements, recommendations and testimonials are vital to maintaining and growing the business.
TrainingAid: Tourism Skills Training
TrainingAid is an online learning platform for courses supporting skills training for tourism professionals from around the world — from entrepreneurs to community leaders, development experts to career seekers. TrainingAid is a global network for skills training, education and tourism courses for travel and hospitality professionals. Improve your skills & knowledge.
Why is training and professional development important for the tourism industry, and for responsible tourism?
Our industry lacks professionalism. Many people find themselves in tourism out of chance or necessity, and they need to understand the importance of continuous professional development. There is a tendency to think that training should be free or paid by tourist boards. If you find a good trainer, the investment repays itself. Responsible tourism is still in its infancy and too much of the training is too conceptual and repetitive, we need to specialise and develop more specific skills, competence based training that is practical and applicable ... Read more.
Training is also required in order to comply with professional standards, certification standards and health & safety standards. It is a competitive world, so it is also very important to bring tour guides up to speed with what competitors are offering. This would include local competitors as well as regional and international competitors.
Tour guide training can also contribute to a better understanding of interactions between visitors and local people. It can also make a difference in the way visitors impact on places and local people to reduce consumption of resources and improve cultural understanding through sensitizing visitors to local issues and needs.
The more successful destinations have already recognized the importance of training and have placed great emphasis on improving skills along with investing heavily in programs to train tourism professionals. So, these are components of the context the tour guide is operating in.
A Manual for Evaluating the Quality Performance of Tourist Destinations and Services
"Ten good reasons for a quality approach!
1. Quality gives the edge over competitors. 2. Quality performance makes destinations and services easier to market, both to operators and tourists. 3. A quality product results in customer loyalty. 4. Better quality means more profit. 5. Quality management leads to a stable tourism industry and protects jobs. 6. Quality improvements in a destination provide a better quality of life for local residents. 7. Quality management improves access to finance. 8. Effective monitoring of progress avoids repeating costly mistakes. 9. Careful data collection provides the tool for making the right management decisions. 10. Monitoring progress in quality improvement provides the understanding that encourages proactive management". (pg 1)
What's in it for tourist destinations?
In most destinations the final product that the tourists experience, and therefore the memories that they take home with them, is a complex fusion of their exposure to many different phenomena in the destination, for example the local tourism industry, the destination's resident population and the environment in the destination. This relationship is interlinked because not only do these aspects influence the tourist experience, but the tourists in turn influence these aspects. (pg 5)
Refer to: Section 4. The QUALITEST, This section presents the QUALITEST tool, comprised of 16 headline indicators (pg 21)"
A Study on the Effectiveness of Tour Guides Training Programs in Iran-Tehran by Kamran Mohamadkhani and Minoo Ashrafi, 2012
Aquila's Center for Cruise Excellence & Tour Guide Excellence Training | Aquila Tours
Aquila's Center for Cruise Excellence offers training programs to help Cruise Destinations and Tour Operators around the world achieve excellence in their ports, tours, guides and businesses. Based in Saint John, NB.
Employee Training is Worth the Investment - HR Information for BC Tourism Employers - go2HR
Upgrading skills to improve customer benefits also has a hidden advantage: It helps to stabilize the workforce by encouraging employees to stay longer.
Guiding Organisation of Australia
Institute of Tourist Guiding: Tourist Guide, Guiding Qualifications
The Institute of Professional Tourist Guides of Southern Africa
Some of the most important people in tourism are tourist guides. They interact on a personal level daily with tourists, and a good tourist guide can make a holiday visit really memorable.
T-Guide | Tourist Guides for people with intellectual disabilities or learning difficulties in Europe
Teaching Tourism: Local Tour Guide (Sample)
tourtraining.com by Cherie Anderson
What Makes a Top-Notch Tour Guide?: 7 Must-Have Skills for a Tour Guide by Mia Steinberg, 2015