The job of tour guide is often discovered accidentally. I discovered tour guiding when I was a student in Paris. Last year I spoke at a company meeting where I learned that no fewer than two of their guides learned of the job while hitchhiking in New Zealand! Others hear about the job because their friend does it, or they take a tour and learn that it’s an actual job! I remember how annoyed I’d get when people asked me, so what is your real job?
Like other professions, tour guiding suffers from stereotypes: the guide as a flag-waving, microphone and badge-wearing, boring fact delivery machine. Sure, in my line of work as a tour guide trainer I’ve met guides who need lots of improvement. But I’ve also experienced tours that went by in no time at all, because the guide was so engaging in her stories, captivating in her presence, and connected me to the place like I could’ve never done with a smartphone app or a book.
Another stereotype is what kind of job guiding is. Never mind the threat of tour guide robots and self-driving cars with guided tours, there will always be some people who want a human being. So the question is: what kind of job is tour guiding, how do I get a tour guide job, and is this a real career?
Is tour guiding a career?
Let’s tackle that last (and hardest) question first. I run a tour guide training school that prepares people for a career in guiding. My goal in life is to promote guide-led tours and experiences as an essential part of anyone’s travel plans. That means we help train tour guides to be as great as they can be. But the job is not for everyone, and it’s a work in progress. Much about how guides
Some difficult aspects of a tour guide job:
- It is often a freelance career. You’re part of the gig economy.
- The amount of money you make will depend on where you live in the world (bigger cities often pay more).
- Tips often make up a significant part of your earnings.
- You’ll pay self-employment tax.
- It’s precarious: new company staff can decide they don’t like you, a pandemic can wipe out tourism, you might get injured. As a freelancer, you’re not afforded employment protections (which is why guides are suffering so much during covid-19).
Some of the perks of the job:
- It’s often a job that can work around other things that you do. Many actors in New York City, for example, work as guides during the day and can take time off for auditions. Guiding is malleable.
- It’s rarely boring. Every group is different, and the places you’ll guide are often evolving in interesting ways. Weather changes; cities transform. And even when the place doesn’t change, what you say about the place can. You can always learn something new, and dive deeper into different aspects of wherever you are.
- It’s a job for the lifelong learner. How great is it that we can wake up and discover new interesting stories and histories about the world we live in?
The types of tour guide jobs
Guiding jobs are not created equally. We’re not going to go into depth here (we’ve written a longer article which is a step-by-step introduction to tour guiding). But before you can think about becoming a tour guide, you need to decide what path you want to take. Guiding jobs can look very different, so it’s important to decide what it is you want to do!
Some tour guide job options:
- Local Tour Guide – you’ll usually walk (or bus) around with a group of people, sharing history, stories, humor. You might lead ghost tours or food tours or history or comedy tours, but in any case you’re a leader of a small group of people in a city. In this case you’re loaded with knowledge about your city, and your tours may be different each day. Some guide jobs just require a fun presence more than knowledge, like leading a pub crawl tour. A standard local walking tour is usually 2-3 hours long. Sometimes they’ll take up the whole day.
- Multi-Day Tour Director – If you make one basic distinction, it should be whether you want to stay put where you live or travel around with a group, staying in a hotel with them, and going to different regions and countries of the world together. The multi-day Tour Director does just that, and we’ve written a whole article describing the differences between a tour guide and tour director here. Multi-day tours range from 3 to 14 days long, and sometimes even longer!
- Adventure/Outdoor Guide – these guide jobs are often lighter on the storytelling and historical knowledge, and more focused on logistics, health, safety of outdoor activities. You might lead a hike to a volcano, or a group of guests on horseback. The nature of the activity might dictate that you don’t have a lot of time to share stories and history; instead, you’re simply guiding them safely through an adventurous activity. Often outdoor adventure tours take up an entire day, since you’re often driving from a meeting point out to a mountain or some activity farther away.
- Experience Host – This title didn’t exist even five years ago. It’s really come up thanks to companies like AirBnB, which offer local “experiences” around the world. Other companies offer these too, like Withlocals. How do these individuals differ from guides? Well, the nature of the tour or activity is different, to start. An experience host might lead a cooking class or a secret rooftop jazz concert or a sculpting class. Experience Hosts often don’t see themselves as professional guides, but rather as interesting locals who have a unique activity or perspective to share.
- Museum Docent – You might work as a guide in one single location. One example is a museum docent, where you’ll lead guided visits through a museum building, whether focused on art, history or science. A docent tour might only be 1 hour long.
- Cultural Heritage or Park Interpreter – In this context, an “interpreter” isn’t translating a language. It’s a word usually reserved for guides who work at specific historic sites or a National Park. Interpretation is a special way of thinking about communicating to a group as a guide.
So, how do you get a job as a tour guide?
Once you’ve decided which job you’re pursuing, you should think about the kind of training you’ll need. Some sites offer their own specific training programs. In some places in the world you’ll study for several years in a university-level program before you can guide in a certain city (look at cities in Italy or Paris).
No matter what, after you’re trained, it’s time to go job hunting. How do you land a job?
Referrals and networking
Like so many other career paths, tour guides talk to each other. Tour companies talk to each other. It’s a close-knit community; since guides are often freelancers, they’re working for two or more companies at the same time. So keeping a stellar reputation and meeting other guides as often as possible is important.
So, when you’re just starting out, how do you “break in” to the industry, and get to know others?
- Take a tour, and then talk to the guide afterwards. Guides are friendly people, by profession! Often they’ll be willing to spend a couple of minutes telling you about their work, and give you an honest assessment of the job and the industry. Ask them for their business card and follow up with them later (after you’ve left them a perfect review and a generous tip, of course!).
- Join your local tour guide guild, if it exists. That guild (or association) might even do hiring fairs, which is your opportunity to meet dozens of companies at once. The Guides Association of New York City, one of TripSchool’s partner organizations, even has an online directory of New York City guides that is used by companies looking to hire new people. Other local associations have similar directories.
- Network at tourism conferences. You might decide to attend an in-person hiring event near where you live.
- Online forums. Our 3,500+ guide strong Facebook Forum is where guides and tour directors meet to discuss the issues of the day. Becoming a member of that association gets you on the list of jobs
- The TripSchool community. Not to toot our own horn, but TripSchool is a worldwide family of guides that watch out for each other; we share job leads and tour offers all year long, exclusive to graduates of our guide training program.
Applying and Working for a tour company
Don’t underestimate the basic “search and find” jobs online. Job boards like Indeed, monster, and others often have listings for tour guide jobs.
But don’t stop there! Look up tour companies in your area, and reach out to all of the ones for which you think you’re a good fit! Get used to making cold calls, and remember that phone calls are more personal than emails. Tour operators are always overworked, and often they’re wearing several hats. So be persistent, without being annoying. Don’t settle for the fact that you didn’t get a reply from filling out their contact form. I know one operator who never responds by email, and only interviews people who follow up with a phone call to see what happened to their application, since that shows initiative and ambition!
If you want an idea of the companies operating in your area, beyond googling you can also visit Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Viator, GetYourGuide, and Expedia to see what’s being offered.
Beyond tour companies, you can also reach out to what are called DMCs: Destination Management Companies. A DMC organizes tours and events for companies when they come into a city. They may need 50 people to help transfer people to and from the airport. They may need tour guides to lead optional fun excursions around town after a corporate event is finished. You can be hired to do many things; but in any city where corporate/business travel in big, DMCs can be a great revenue stream. This is just one part of a niche in the industry called MICE travel.
Once you’re offered an interview, our free resource page includes a Getting Hired section and a specific article on interview questions! While it’s more geared specifically to tour directors, learning to answer those questions will be good practice for an interview.
Working with an online marketplace
Online marketplaces are basically giant online directories of guides and tours. Each marketplace has a different feel and flair, and focuses on different kinds of customers and attracts different kinds of guides. On some, you lead a tour they’ve created. On others, you create the tour, name the price, and they take a commission. All of the companies below have recruiting managers who are constantly on the prowl for great guides, so check them out!
Starting your own tour business
There’s one way to guarantee you’ll be assigned a tour booking that comes in: if you own the business. We’re huge fans of trying everything we can do to give guides the tools to be more entrepreneurial. It’s certainly not easy: there are any different hats you have to wear: tour designer, guide, operations manager, sales and marketing director, website designer, and more. But, it’s not as hard as you think to start your own tour business now. There are so many resources available for you to learn and grow, like the Tourpreneur Podcast and Facebook Forum. TripSchool even teaches a popular step by step course on creating your own tour business!
Finally: What is a typical tour guide salary?
Of course any post about a job has to bring up money. And every job blog post usually says the same thing: it depends. In guiding, it really, really does.
Factors that influence a tour guide’s salary:
- The size of your city. Big cities are usually more expensive places, and guides there earn more. New York City probably has the highest-paid guides, because it’s also one of the most expensive cities in the United States. Guide pay rates will vary around the world drastically.
- The quality of the company. Companies have quality levels! Some companies treat their guides extremely well, and pay their guides a premium to retain them.
- The type of tour. High-end tours bring wealthy guests who are big tippers. Private tours are pricier: you’re guaranteeing no one else is on your tour. Some tours are called “pay as you wish” or “free tours” – which means the tour costs nothing, but the guests tip the guide at the end, and most of that money is kept by the guide. It’s a risky and controversial model.
- The quality of your reputation and referrals. After working in the industry for a long time, word spreads around about you (if you’re good), and you can command a higher rate. As a freelancer, you ultimately set your rate through negotiation with the employer. But in practice that’s a privilege reserved for someone who has shown their worth to a company. In the online marketplaces like ToursByLocals, you can set your rate for a private tour, and they take a commission.
