Sitting with passengers

"I hate talking to my passengers indivudally!" said one colleague not so long ago. It seems strange but in some ways the most stressful part of a tour director or guide's job is often just talking one to one with the people you are taking around. Most people come on a tour because they value the human touch that comes with having a guide/td - they can find the information they need from books and information signs but, in a strange country, moved around quickly from one place to another, people who are used to a certain rhythm and predictability in their lives are often thrown by the experience of travel and need to identify with their guide.
Talking of predictability, that is the one problem many of us have in chatting with, rather than talking to, people. Almost by definition guides like the sound of their own voices, but they tend to view the relationship as a speaker-audience one rather than as a conversation. One driver once told me he could give me a list of the questions he would be asked if he sat down to dinner with the people on his tour, so he preferred his own company or that of fellow drivers and/or guides. Anything except talking to 'the punters'.
At the end of a tour recently I was in a hotel with a group of drivers and other tour directors when one of the passengers from X's group came and asked her to join them as it was the last night. She refused saying that it was company policy, while the driver did go in, virtually forced to do so. I couldn't help thinking how antisocial that made the td look in comparison, even though the driver obviously did not want to go. We were having a drink and some food in the bar while our groups were in the restaurant and he was dragged across the divide while she refused to go. She was obeying company policy but the effect was not good.
My usual reaction is to say that I have had it up to here with three course dinners and that I would prefer a lighter meal in the bar, which is true but not the full truth. In fact, I have let it slide at times to go and eat with passengers, if the driver is not there for any reason, taking an empty seat when everybody has sat down. I don't think it is advisable to flatly refuse to eat with them, but I mutter something like, "We aren't supposed to (or we don't usually) do that" as though it was an unfortunate rule that, sadly, prevents me from joining them.
Companies generally forbid their tour directors/guides from eating with passengers on the grounds that it does tend to show preference to some people over others but it is the one area where people want more than most of us are able to give them - although we should make it seem like a shame, hypocrites that we are...

The big reunion? The big split

Off tonight to the meeting of one of our professional associations - Association of Professional tourist Guides, known univerally as APTG - in which the issue of merging with the Guild of Registered Tourist Guides, known simply as the Guild, will be discussed. There was a meeting a few weeks ago in August, when Guild/APTG do not generally have their own meetings, to discuss 'the future'. Lots of guides, especially London Guild members would like to see a unification but a combination of institutional paralysis, the problem of what to do with out of London guides who do not charge the same level of fees as those in London, and old fashioned bitchiness have prevented this happening before.
The whole thing came about because around fifteen years ago the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) threatened to take the Guild to court for setting fees for guides - which they deemed anti-competitive - and so the union then called MSF (now Amicus) stepped in and offered union status which would have given guides the right and muscle to fight the issue in the courts - they promised to go all the way to the European Court if necessary. Guild members voted not to unionise, which was a little precious, guides regarding themselves as being above trade union membership, part of a mystery, not concerned with mundane things like making a living.
However, some committed guides, who relied on the fee system to make a living, broke away to form APTg which was union affiliated. Since then the Guild has been told it can set advisory fees (not compulsory as before) and so we now have two sets of fees, two organisations, enormous duplication of effort and the need to find two lots of volunteers to produce two lots of publications. It is all very wasteful and, rather than an at first acrimonious, but now amicable divorce, remarriage is being touted. While most guides would probably be in favour, there are enough guides who are not and enough administrative problems to give the prospect a less than even chance of success. We shall see...

Low level headache

Used to starting a tour in London, I had to fly to Dublin to meet group at airport and then work through Ireland and on to Scotland. Two drivers, unfamiliar territory, a new way of starting the tour, a bout of flu in the early days and going out to Dublin airport a five thirty on a rainy morning was not much fun and, although the tour went well, it was the unfamiliar start, the group coming together in dribs and drabs - including one passenger who did not join until the end of day three and spent the first week complaining about his tour (particularly the tour director) in Italy - and some new territory and hotels that gave me a low level headache which I am still trying to shake off. We are creatures of habit and the break with the usual system of imposing your personality from the get-go made it a curiously diorienting experience.
Maybe it is all the back to backs - one day off in August, two in September but the end of the saeson is in sight.
However, like the hotels already promoting Christmas, the company is asking you for winter availability...
Let's get the summer over with first -s tarting tomorrow...