How to treat the free practice of tour guides

Li Jinzao, director of the National Tourism Administration, put forward a series of ideas to reform the management system of tour guides at the 20 16 National Tourism Work Conference. Among them, the most concerned by the industry should be to let tour guides practice freely. As a tourism professional teacher with 16 part-time tour guide experience, the author is quite touched by this.

The development of tourism needs the free practice of tour guides.

In the era of planned economy, tour guides are closed management, that is, tour guides are completely attached to travel agencies; In the 1990s, when the market economy developed to a certain stage, China established a semi-closed management mode, that is, full-time tour guides attached to travel agencies, and part-time tour guides relied on tour guide management companies to adopt socialized management; 2 1 In the second decade of the century, China's tourism industry has entered a new stage of comprehensive marketization, and the management mode of tour guides must be innovated accordingly. The author thinks that open management is more suitable for the current situation.

First, the reform of tourism supply side requires tour guides to practice freely. Tourism supply-side reform is a major event in China's tourism field at present, and it is also the direction of tourism development. The supply-side reform of tourism needs to optimize the structure of tourism industry and improve the quality of tourism products

As far as the tour guide industry is concerned, China's tour guide team is relatively large, with 800,000 tour guide card holders, but the actual number of employees is less than 30%. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, but at present, tour guides in China must be appointed by travel agencies. The most important point is that if the free practice of tour guides can be liberalized, the annual inspection exemption system for tour guides will be implemented in the future, which will certainly stimulate the enthusiasm of some tour guide card holders and optimize the current tour guide team structure.

Judging from the service quality of tour guides, at present, complaints against travel agencies are mainly concentrated in the field of travel agencies, while complaints against travel agencies are mainly concentrated on tour guides, which may be related to the salary system of tour guides and the overall quality of tour guides, but the most fundamental reason behind it may be the conflict of interests between travel agencies and tour guides. If tour guides can practice freely, such contradictions can be solved, and tour guides will spend more time and energy on improving their own ability and level, thus improving their service quality and reshaping the service value of tour guides.

Second, the development of global tourism requires free practice of tour guides. Global tourism is the inevitable outcome of China's tourism industry entering the stage of popularization. At present, China's tourism industry is in a historic stage of transformation from scenic spot tourism to global tourism. In the era of scenic tourism, tourists basically complete their tourism in the form of teams. For tour guides, they only need to recite some tour guide words and learn some tourism talents according to the route designed by the travel agency, and then they can complete their tour guide work. The binding or semi-binding of tour guides and travel agencies can basically meet this demand. However, when the development of China's tourism industry has entered the stage of global tourism, which mainly focuses on national tourism and individual tourism, it is obvious that the traditional tour guide practice is difficult to meet the needs of modern tourism development.

In the stage of global tourism, tourists pay more attention to personalized tourism forms, and the demand for fragmented tourism services will also increase. If tour guides can practice freely, on the one hand, it will be more convenient for tourists to find individual tour guide services; On the other hand, due to the free practice, the more professional service of tour guides (in the era of scenic spots tourism, tour guides are arranged directly by travel agencies, and tourists do not participate in direct selection, so the requirements for the professional level of tour guides are not high, and tour guides are more professional in the era of global tourism) can better meet the increasingly diverse tourism needs.

Second, the free practice of tour guides requires good internal skills.

Most countries with developed tourism in the world implement a relaxed tour guide access system. There is an objective prerequisite for foreign countries to implement the system of free practice of tour guides, that is, people who can engage in tour guides are basically well-educated and have certain professional expertise, such as university teachers, lawyers and retired government officials. Objectively speaking, the overall quality of our tour guide team is not very high at present. If you want to implement the free tour guide practice system, you must practice hard.

First, tour guides must improve their own quality. Facing the new situation of the current tourism industry, freelance tour guides should improve their own quality from two aspects: on the one hand, strengthen the integration of knowledge in the closed or semi-closed management stage, and the knowledge of tour guides is relatively closed. General travel society prepares relevant materials, and tour guides can recite knowledge according to the requirements of travel agencies, so it is easy for people to become tour guides; In the stage of open management, the tour guide industry is an open system, and tourism is integrated into the whole social system. Tour guides must jump out of tourism and talk about tourism, which requires knowledge integration. On the other hand, they should strengthen market awareness and legal awareness.

The free practice of tour guides means that the tour guide service has been pushed from the behind-the-scenes tour groups sent by travel agencies to the front desk selection of tourists, which determines that tour guides must establish the market competition thinking of survival of the fittest; In terms of legal awareness, the free practice of tour guides reduces the management links of travel agencies, but it does not mean that tour guides are not bound, and tour guides must strictly abide by various laws and regulations. At the same time, the lack of travel agency management also means the lack of travel agency umbrella (the state stipulates that travel agencies should provide some social security for tour guides), and tour guides should know the law and break the law and protect their rights and interests with the law.

Second, you must become an expert in a certain field. For a long time, everyone's view on tour guides is that anyone can be a tour guide without any skills. This view has seriously damaged the image of tour guides, and at the same time lowered their social status, making tour guides once a socially disadvantaged group and entering the stage of free practice of tour guides. Tour guides should be selected by the market, so higher requirements are put forward for tour guides. Only by becoming experts in a certain field can they be accepted by the market.

Because the tour guide service involves a wide range of contents, a tour guide can become a very rich type of experts. For example, if you want to work in a city, you need to have a comprehensive and three-dimensional understanding of the city and become a tour guide expert in this city. Tourists come to this city to fully understand the city and experience its culture, and you may be the choice of tourists. If you like to be a tourist guide in the form of go on road trip, you need to know the content and some basic knowledge of go on road trip, and you can deal with some possible problems in go on road trip professionally. Tourists who like driving may choose you. With the increasing demand of tourists, the division of labor among experts will become more and more detailed, and tour guides must keep up with the situation and constantly find their place in the professional division of labor.

Third, the free practice of tour guides requires multi-party participation.

First, for travel agencies, it is necessary to treat the free practice of tour guides rationally. On the one hand, we should fully understand the meaning of the policy. Canceling the appointment of tour guides by travel agencies does not mean that travel agencies are prohibited from appointing tour guides. In fact, from the internal operation of travel agencies, tour guides are still an important part of travel agencies, and the human resources management related to tour guides will not be affected. On the other hand, the appointment of tour guides by travel agencies will remain the main way of tour guides for a long time. Don't worry that the departure of tour guides from the travel society will lead to the structural disintegration of travel agencies (because only tour guides are their own products in the product system of travel agencies, and other products are purchased).

In fact, the free practice of tour guides is only a way for tour guides to choose their careers and an additional channel for tourists to choose tour guide services. Although the free practice of tour guides may make some excellent tour guides attached to travel agencies embark on the road of free practice, if travel agencies are competitive enough and care more about the interests of tour guides, they will certainly attract a large number of tour guides for their use. Of course, travel agencies can't use this policy to dismiss a large number of existing tour guides, causing tour guides to panic.

Second, for the government, it is necessary to close the entrance of tour guides and improve the supervision system. On the one hand, the government should close the entrance of tour guides. Judging from the current stock resources of tour guides, the number of tour guides is already quite large, so in the future, it is necessary to select outstanding talents, constantly optimize the structure of tour guides, and ensure the entrance of good tour guides. In addition to the strict tour guide examination system, we should also increase the pre-job training for tour guides who have obtained qualification certificates. On the other hand, although the annual inspection of tour guides has been cancelled, it does not mean that there is no management means for tour guides. In the future, the government should pay more attention to macro-level supervision (micro-level management should be left to travel agencies or related associations), and take severe punishment measures against tour guides who violate relevant laws, are dishonest and cannot guide tourists to civilized tourism until the tour guide team is cleaned up. In addition, in order to support the free practice of tour guides, the government should also formulate relevant professional standards and standardize the free practice.

Third, for the association, to do a good job of supporting the free practice of tour guides behind the scenes is to push tour guides from travel agencies to the society. In fact, in the semi-closed management stage, part-time tour guides have turned to be managed by trade associations, but there may be more tour guides managed by trade associations in the future. It should be said that at present, trade associations all over China have made some attempts to protect the rights and interests of tour guides, but the actual effect is not very satisfactory. With the continuous expansion of this group, the call for the association to play a greater role will become stronger and stronger. On the one hand, tour guide trade associations should actively act as bridges. On the other hand, the tour guide association should not only continue to play the intermediary role between tour guides and government tourism enterprises to solve the reasonable demands of tour guides, but also strive to play the role of bridge between tour guides and tourists. On the other hand, we should focus on solving the worries of freelance tour guides. Once some tour guides who rely on travel agencies lose the backing of travel agencies, they may have an initial period of maladjustment and worry that their lives and jobs will not be guaranteed. The association should try its best to help them buy social insurance from the perspective of tour guides, increase their training and ideological guidance, and make them willing to get better jobs in the tour guide industry.

Fourth, for tourists, we should carefully choose the way of tour guide service. Tour guides are free to practice. Although they are given the opportunity to serve tourists directly, this is not the only mode for tourists to choose tour guides. Visitors can still choose a tour guide through a travel agency. If you choose a travel agency to provide tour guide services, you must choose a regular and reputable brand travel agency. If you choose a freelance tour guide, you must give full consideration to the integrity record, service ability and service experience of the tour guide, and not just pay attention to the price of the service, otherwise it will not only damage the rights and interests of tourists, but also disrupt the order of the tourism market.

In addition, because there are some contradictions among many laws and regulations of China's tourism industry, such as the Tourism Law, the Regulations on the Administration of Tour Guides and the Regulations on Travel Agencies, the legislature and the government should speed up the docking of policies and laws. Of course, the implementation of the free practice system of tour guides can never be achieved overnight, but should be promoted step by step.