What are the characteristics of the on-site tour guide explanation when receiving individual guests?

Personal tourism is also called self-help or semi-self-help tourism, and it is called independent tourism abroad. It is a form of tourism in which tourists arrange their own travel itinerary and pay all the travel expenses in cash. Professor Dai Bin from beijing international studies university Institute of Tourism Management believes that individual travel is an inevitable trend of development. With the change of tourists' consumption pattern and the maturity of tourism experience, it will continue to promote the development of individual travel, and the management and reception ability of individual travel has become an important symbol to measure the maturity of tourism in a country or region. The individual tour guide service refers to various tour guide services provided by travel agencies according to the requirements of individual travelers, including travel consulting services, individual entrustment services and selective tour guide services. [1] The tour guide explanation service is undoubtedly one of the most important links in the tour guide service for individual travelers. How to provide personalized service for individual travelers according to their characteristics is a big challenge for every tour guide.

First, the characteristics of individual travel

Compared with group tourists, individual tourism has its distinctive characteristics, mainly in the following aspects:

Degree of freedom

In China, the number of individual travelers is generally below 9. Compared with group travel, individual travelers are less constrained, and their travel itinerary is generally arranged by themselves, with higher freedom. In addition, due to the small number of people, individual travelers are familiar with each other, and individual travelers have a high degree of freedom to travel, so they often leave as soon as they want. This requires the tour guide to have a general grasp of the itinerary during the explanation, reasonably arrange the connection between his explanation and the scenic spots, and guide the tourists to visit the scenic spots that meet the itinerary during the explanation. It can not only make tourists enjoy themselves, but also arrange the itinerary reasonably, and finally achieve the goal of satisfying tourists.

(2) High consumption grade and great potential.

Because of the large amount of purchases, group tours can enjoy certain discounts on some items such as tickets and accommodation, so the profit margin of travel agencies is relatively small. [2] At the same time, because many tourists who take part in group tours choose to travel with the group, one of their purposes is to save money, so the spending power of many group tourists is not very high. Compared with group tourists, one of the reasons why many individual tourists don't choose to travel with a group is that they want to enjoy better service than traveling with a group. Therefore, their sensitivity to price is generally not high, so the consumption level of individual customers is generally high and their spending power is strong. At the same time, because individual travelers can't enjoy the discounts and concessions of the team, the profit space of travel agencies is also relatively large. This requires the tour guide to guide the tourists reasonably in the explanation, which can not only make the tourists consume the products they like and need, but also bring more income to the travel agency and the tour guide itself.

(C) Individualized features are significant

In the process of traveling, because people are generally in a relatively relaxed state, it is easy to show their personality. At the same time, because the number of individual travelers is relatively small, individual travelers are familiar with each other, and it is easier to show their personality during the trip. Usually, some good methods and skills for serving group tourists may not be effective if they are transferred to individual tourists. This requires the tour guide to constantly adjust his own words and methods of explanation according to the personality and preferences of tourists in the process of explanation, in order to receive good results. [3] In reality, it is not uncommon for some tour guides to copy some contents and methods when explaining for individuals.

Second, the skills of individual tour guides to explain

(1) Preparation before explanation

Preparation plays an extremely important role in the success of the tour guide's explanation. Adequate preparation can ensure that "know yourself and know yourself." A tour guide should know his name, gender, age, occupation, position and religious belief. Personally, also analyze personal hobbies and consumption levels according to the above contents. At the same time, after contact with individual customers, we should constantly revise our own analysis and judgment in order to provide targeted services.

(B) Welcome speech skills

Welcome speech is the opening remarks when the tour guide meets the tourists, and it is an important link to leave a good first impression on the tourists. Its effect directly affects tourists' trust in tour guides and the smooth progress of future work. [4] Welcome speeches for group tourists generally follow the principle of "five elements". However, it is necessary to make a difference in the welcome speeches for individual tourists, mainly in the following aspects:

1. should be targeted, because when giving a welcome speech to group tourists, it is required that the welcome speech should be universal, that is, the welcome speech is not directed at one or a few tourists. When giving a welcome speech to individual travelers, because there are few individual travelers, there is usually one or several "team leaders", which requires that the tour guide should be targeted when giving a welcome speech, so that individual travelers can feel that the welcome speech is tailor-made for them, rather than a stylized "greeting".

2. In the welcome speech, we should properly grasp our own "emotion" application, that is, at the beginning of the welcome speech, let tourists feel warm and polite, then let them feel their affinity and approachable personality, and let tourists relax their "nervous" nerves when facing strangers.

3. Welcome speech to individual should follow the principle of conciseness. Those long and enthusiastic welcome speeches are generally only suitable for large group tourists, but for individual travelers, too many greetings seem to lack "human touch". The following is the welcome speech used by the author in the process of personal tour guide explanation:

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

Good Morning, everyone! First of all, on behalf of XXX Travel Agency, I welcome you to visit Kaifeng in the Seven Dynasties. I am your tour guide on this trip to Kaifeng. My name is Wang Qi. You can call me Xiao Wang. The ancients said, we are in the same boat, and we can get along well for a hundred years. It's a lot of fate to travel with you in Kaifeng today. I hope this fate and my enthusiasm can leave you an unforgettable journey. Today, the number of our team is relatively small, and as far as I know, everyone has done some research on the history and culture of Kaifeng and Song Dynasty. So I hope that when I explain the service to you, we can communicate with each other. If there is anything wrong with my explanation, please criticize and correct me. Finally, I hope you have a good time, eat comfortably and live comfortably in Kaifeng. I wish you a successful trip to Kaifeng.

(3) Skills of explaining along the way and scenic spots.

When explaining the scenic spots along the way, we should pay attention to the following aspects:

1. Wit eye disease, improvise. When explaining to group tourists, there are generally fixed "routines", mainly to meet the needs of most tourists. For individual travelers, due to the small number of visitors, we should always pay attention to their personality, hobbies and current interests when explaining, and be witty and flexible. To determine what tourists pay attention to and are interested in, the tour guide will quickly adjust the explanation words and focus on the content that individual tourists are interested in, thus stimulating tourists' interest in traveling and obtaining satisfactory results.

2. Use the "interactive" interpretation method. When serving group tourists, the way of "the tour guide talks and the tourists listen" is generally adopted, which is somewhat similar to the way that teachers teach students, and there is less communication between tourists and tour guides. However, in real life, this method is hard to be loved by individual travelers. Generally speaking, the quality of individual travelers is relatively high, and they have a certain understanding of what tour guides say, and most of them like to communicate with tour guides. Therefore, the "interactive" explanation method for the individual traveler is to treat the individual traveler as a "friend", explain the service to the individual traveler by chatting with friends, and communicate with tourists more, so that it is easy to control the atmosphere of the tour, stimulate tourists' interest and receive people.

3. Leave "face" to individual customers. In the process of "interacting" with individual travelers, on the one hand, the tour guide should fully affirm the individual traveler's sophisticated opinions and judgments on something, so that he can feel the respect and admiration of the tour guide. On the other hand, for some controversial topics and some wrong views of individual tourists, tour guides should reasonably control the scope of the debate, don't dwell too much on individual tourists' mistakes, and learn to "pass by" and "lenient" to save face for tourists and avoid unhappiness.

(D) Explain skills before shopping

Shopping is a very important link in the process of tourists' travel. It is not only an important supplement to tourists' tourism activities, but also an important source of tourism income for countries and regions. The tour guide should pay attention to several aspects in the process of explaining to the individual traveler: First, insert the shopping-related content reasonably, so as not to let the individual traveler feel that the tour guide's explanation is selling things. Secondly, we should learn about tourists' hobbies through conversation, so as to recommend their favorite products for tourists. Finally, we should pay special attention to the spending power of individual customers. In reality, individual travelers are often humiliated because tour guides underestimate their spending power. Therefore, we should pay special attention, especially not to underestimate the consumption power of individual customers, and dare to recommend relatively high-priced tourism and shopping products to them. In short, in the explanation before shopping, we should stimulate tourists' interest in shopping without revealing traces, and finally achieve the goal of tourists' satisfaction.

(E) farewell words skills

Farewell speech tour guide service is the last link of tour guide work and plays a vital role in the success or failure of tour guide work. When giving farewell speeches to individual travelers, tour guides should pay attention to the following aspects besides expressing farewell feelings and good wishes normally: First, due to the small number of individual travelers, tour guides should bid farewell to all group members one by one to show their sincere farewell. Secondly, in the farewell speech, we should emphasize the places that people want to stay in the process of traveling and the friendship formed in the process of traveling, so as to deepen the impression of tourists on the excellent service of tour guides and create a good reputation for travel agencies. Finally, after seeing the tourists off, you should send them out of sight before you leave.