Is it profitable to be a tour guide now? What are the prospects?

What makes money is, after all, a service industry.

The tour guide industry is now a controversial industry. Due to many reasons, tour guides now have a poor social reputation. The general impression is that they are "low quality" and their work is the same. From the perspective of the hierarchical structure, low-level (qualified and junior) tour guides account for the vast majority of the tour guide team, accounting for 96.3%; the number of medium-, high-, and special-level tour guides is less than 4%. From the perspective of education structure, the academic qualifications of our country's tour guides are generally low, with 41.7% of them having high school, secondary vocational and technical secondary school education, 39.4% having a college degree, and 18.9% having a bachelor's degree or above. The academic qualifications of foreign language tour guides are slightly higher than those of Chinese tour guides, but 52% still have a college degree or below. The direct consequence of this situation is that "tour guides are just shopping guides", and uncivilized behaviors such as robbing customers, dumping groups, and forcibly asking for tips are common. However, the stereotyped tour guide words, route arrangements, entertainment items, etc. make it impossible for tourists to recognize the work of tour guides after the trip. Despite this, neither the tour guides themselves nor travel agencies have paid sufficient attention to the tour guide link in the era of experiential tourism. As an intermediary factor connecting tourism subjects and tourism objects, tour guides are the bridge and link between tourism destinations, travel agencies, and tourists. With the development of social economy and the advent of the era of experiential tourism, the role of tour guides will become more and more important, and the demand for high-quality new tour guides will also increase. On the whole, the future of tour guides is bright. Mainly in the following aspects:

4.1 The job of tour guide is increasingly open and popular

A recent survey shows that many people think that being a tour guide is a "very desirable job" work”. Tour guides seem to be becoming more and more popular as their competitiveness and standards improve.

4.2 Tour guide guilds and associations will increase

The increase in the number of tour guides and the number of tourists in many regions has prompted the establishment of multiple tour guide organizations. Local, regional and national associations can provide tour guides with career information and support, education and certification, health insurance and other benefits.

4.3 Pay more attention to training

Education and training may be the most important means of formulating future plans. Many people regard education and training as the most important step in the career development process of a tour guide. As a result, unprecedented training and education opportunities are now available for tour guides.

4.4 Tour guides will develop in a professional direction

Currently, many consumers are not only satisfied with a casual tour of a place, they want to find tour guides who can provide special tours member. For example, an architect or architecture enthusiast might wish to go on an architectural tour, and as tourists come from all over the world, there is an increasing demand for bilingual and multilingual tour guides. Although tour guides with professional expertise are more marketable, they must also be able to provide a variety of information and provide tourists with the guidance they need.