What kind of industry do you think tour guides are?

As an important part of the tourism industry, tour guides have frequently appeared in the public eye in recent years. There are also many news, comments and videos about tour guides on social media, with mixed reviews. For now No matter what, the editor just wants to help everyone better understand the profession of tour guide and make some small contributions to our future travels.

First of all, we need to know what the main responsibilities of a tour guide are. Its main work content is summarized as "guiding tourists to experience the beauty of mountains and rivers, solving emergencies that may occur during the journey, and providing tourists with assistance in food, accommodation, transportation, etc." Therefore, in addition to completing the explanation work during the journey, the tour guide also needs to act as a life steward during our itinerary. When an emergency occurs, we should first contact the tour guide and secondly the police. This is also an aspect that we cannot ignore during the itinerary.

Furthermore, tour guides are also classified. In addition to being divided by technical level, they are also divided by business scope: overseas tour leaders, tour guides who accompany the whole journey (full escort), and local tour guides (local escorts) , scenic spot tour guides (commentators).

Overseas tour leaders and scenic spot tour guides understand very well that tour guides who lead outbound tours are tour leaders. They not only need a tour guide certificate, but also a tour guide certificate, so to put it bluntly, they are higher-level tour guides. Tour guides in scenic spots are what we are familiar with as commentators. Many cultural and historical scenic spots have such tour guides, such as the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Terracotta Warriors and Horses in Xi'an, and the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, etc.

Mainly let’s talk about full tour guide and local tour guide. Full tour guide is the tour guide who accompanies us on the plane from the departure point until we board the plane and returns to the departure place. Local tour guide is the tour guide who stays at the airport or high-speed rail. The station held a sign to pick up our tour guide. Under normal circumstances, full-time tour guides and local tour guides belong to two companies. Full-time tour guides are the staff of the tour agency (departure travel agency), while local tour guides are the staff of the local pick-up agency (destination travel agency). Therefore, it is the first time for many full-accompanying and local accompanies to meet during the itinerary, so they need to cooperate with the tour group to receive a tour group. It can be seen that tour guides need strong organizational and coordination skills.

In the eyes of most people, being a tour guide is a good profession where you can make money while having fun, but this is really not the case. For example, a tour guide in Guangdong may take a group to Chimelong, Guangdong 8 times a month. If you go to a scenic spot 8 times a month, would you still find it interesting? This becomes a mechanical and repetitive work. You also have to bear the risk that problems may arise at any time. After all, it is difficult to predict people's feelings. The service industry is difficult to do, and the tourism industry is even more difficult.

Finally, let’s talk about the prospects of the tour guide profession. In fact, the tour guide is a profession with a very low threshold. It only requires a high school degree or above. The tour guide certificate is not like a certified public accountant, financial analyst, or even The teacher qualification certificate is so difficult to pass. But being a tour guide may be the most training career among them. The ability to communicate with people, coordinate and organize, and handle emergencies can all be exercised to the greatest extent.

Another very important point is that this is also a process of accumulating contacts. During the process of leading a group, you will meet all kinds of guests, maybe a guest you have taken good care of during the trip