Where it works |
| The tour guides work in the Tour guide Department, directly leading the tourists and visitors throughout the journey, helping them better understand the places to visit, having a good experience with the travel service of the company
He/she works under the directives and supervision of the Owner. |
The activities |
| Tour guides are directly responsible for the entire trip of the guest. In a travel and tourism business, every job of a tour guide is clearly designed and planned, specifically for each specific tour. The first task that the tour guide needs to do is to receive the tour schedule for a trip from the operator who performs the work on documents, travel contracts. Next, the tour guide starts reviewing customer information, checking vehicles, preparing necessary equipment, etc. During the trip, the tour guide is the manager who stimulates interaction, creates excitement for guests to make the trip meaningful. In general, the work of a tour guide is quite versatile, requiring enthusiasm and good working skills, always focusing on high intensity.
Tourism has a close relationship with accompanying services such as accommodation facilities, hotels, restaurants, amusement parks, etc. The job of a tour guide is to monitor and supervise how they serve, and to evaluate and give specific suggestions to the service providers so that they can come up with a tour plan to handle and improve the service better in the following tours. This is to cement a long-term cooperation between the two parties as well as bring the best experience to customers. Besides being the organizer of fun activities, sightseeing according to the trip’s plan, the tour guide also solves the problems that arise during the entire journey. In fact, there are many common arising situations from customers that the tour guide must deal with such as: forgetting things, complaining guests, transportation problems, etc. With these cases, the tour guide needs to be calm, use his/her skills to solve the most appropriate and fastest way. Another important task of a tour guide is to receive guest feedback and report back to improve service better every day. This is also an important stage in assessing the tour guide’s capacity, helping them to correct their existing weaknesses and promote their strengths in each trip. |
Qualifications |
| Becoming a tour guide is not too difficult. Anyone who graduates from a professional intermediate school or higher and undergoes a short-term training course of 1.5 months – 2 months has fully met the legal conditions to issue a domestic tourist guide card. To become an international guide, there are slightly higher professional requirements – that is, you must have graduated from a university or higher, and have an appropriate foreign language certificate. |
Technical skills |
| First of all, voiceover in tourism is one of the vital factors that create the identity and brand for a tour guide. Voiceover is not only conveying information to visitors, but it is an artist’s soul because tour guides are artisans to make it livelier and more attractive, not to make visitors sleepy. Second, good guides need to communicate well – direct or indirect communication, non-verbal communication. They should always smile brightly – these smiles will dissolve any distance between guides and tourists. Three basic elements that make up the communication process are Attitude, Skills and Knowledge. Therefore, a tour guide always improve himself/ herself to have an attractive communication style. Third, a professional and successful tour guide needs to be very delicate and sharp in handling arising situations. While going on the tour, there are many situations that cannot be foreseen, requiring the guide to always confidently master all problems to have proper solutions.
Moreover, a tour guide should be able to work in a team and work independently because in any field, especially in the tourism industry, the cooperation is a must for a success. Tour guides are only part of a chain of tourist activities and services; therefore, it is necessary to regularly interact and support each other between departments for the best results. Finally, organizational and management skills are essential for tour guides to manage many members, link groups of tourists together, and form a unified block. To manage a group of several dozen tourists with many ages, diverse nationalities, different languages, the tour guide needs to have the skills to organize, manage, plan to move, rest, eat. for all members of the group to feel that the trip to discover new places is interesting. |
Computer and linguistic knowledge |
| Foreign languages: for an international tour guide, foreign language skills are extremely important. Foreign language skills are not only limited to listening – speaking – reading – writing but also understanding the unique cultural features of each country. You must go in-depth, discover the tourist’s personality so that you can share and understand each other better. Currently, the popular languages in Vietnam are English, Chinese, Russian, Korean, French, German, Spanish. A tour guide needs to master one or more languages to keep up with the trend of integration and development.
Computer knowlegde: master online tools to spread the brand, the image of nature and the unique cultural features of the country and people through the social networks, radio – television, multimedia advertising to promote customers, and change their psychological behavior. |
Personality and availability |
| A professional tour guide should ensure to equip some of the most core qualities as follows:
– Expressing easy-to-understand, choosing the most popular languages to achieve maximum efficiency at work. Besides, knowing how to use headphones or different types of audio equipment to meet the standards in the field of tourism. – Being on time, always waiting for visitors at the destination and ensuring that visitors are on time. – Being friendly with tactful attitude towards guests to keep them together, but not threatening. – Having extensive knowledge about the history, culture, geography, customs and habits of the new land to “bring tourists back to the past” through thrilling and fascinating stories. – Having a moderate level of humor and knowing when to take quiet time in order to provide relaxing moments for visitors. – Having the ability to observe visitors to recognize the special needs of each individual, in order to make the trip go smoothly and efficiently. – Being empathetic with guests who are sick, have physical defects or are not used to the pace of the journey, sharing and gently persuading them to get along with the members of the group. – Being flexible in sayings, and in handling inadequate situations. |
