HELPING HANDS
In most professions there is a tradition that new people entering the business get a helping hand from those already established. People remember their early days and pass on words of wisdom and cautionary tales. Sometimes thse are heeded, sometimes ignored, but the thought is there.
Sadly, this does not always happen in tourist guiding. Why? Because people are worried about work and they are afraid that newer and less or unqualified guides will undercut them and do them out of jobs. Guiding is not like surgery or the law where your skill and success are usually related to your experience and increase with age. You are dealing with people who are on holiday, are basically ignorant of what they are seeing (apart from the obvious like a view of Big Ben) and maybe are just a little credulous. In other words, they usually agree with any old rubbish you tell them. That is probably too cynical but you know what I mean. We are in the life enhancement rather than the life-saving business and people often respond more positively to the newer and fresher voice rather than the old stager who has seen (and said) it all before.
With the high cost of entrances to most places, many tours these days are panoramic ones, people sitting on a coach looking at the sights which the guide identifies and describes. There is no way of policing this and so unbadged guides abound - on the Big Bus and other tours where the operator wants to save a few pounds. Lower level guiding qualifications are coming in and work, already scarce, is disappearing into the diaries of newcomers who do not have a blue badge
The latest bete noir is the so-called 'free' walking tours set upby Sandemans, which use t-shirted students who do not charger a fee for the tours but get tips at the end, from which they have to pay Mr Sandeman his cut. This, I am told, is how lap-dancers operate: they pay to dance and feed back some of the fivers and tenners tucked into their garters to the clubowner. You can imagine how guides who have studied and worked hard to qualify for the blue badge feel about gasining the status of an exotic dancer in a seedy club filled with wel-oiled businessmen.
Yet there is little anyone can do about this. We have a tradition of free speech in Britain, even if that consists of talking rubbish (listen to some of those people at Speakers' Corner) and walking tours have never been exclusively blue badge. In fact, anyone can put on a top hat and offer Jack the Ripper walks for £5 a head. Do we really want to live in a society where a police officer can arrest you in the street for speaking to people without having the proper qualification? Let's work hard to protect our panoramic tours and our White Tower of interior guiding at certain sites (see Concentric Castles post) and leave the streets free, even if we do have to share a profession with t-shirted rippersoff with the same morals as lap dancers...
Sadly, this does not always happen in tourist guiding. Why? Because people are worried about work and they are afraid that newer and less or unqualified guides will undercut them and do them out of jobs. Guiding is not like surgery or the law where your skill and success are usually related to your experience and increase with age. You are dealing with people who are on holiday, are basically ignorant of what they are seeing (apart from the obvious like a view of Big Ben) and maybe are just a little credulous. In other words, they usually agree with any old rubbish you tell them. That is probably too cynical but you know what I mean. We are in the life enhancement rather than the life-saving business and people often respond more positively to the newer and fresher voice rather than the old stager who has seen (and said) it all before.
With the high cost of entrances to most places, many tours these days are panoramic ones, people sitting on a coach looking at the sights which the guide identifies and describes. There is no way of policing this and so unbadged guides abound - on the Big Bus and other tours where the operator wants to save a few pounds. Lower level guiding qualifications are coming in and work, already scarce, is disappearing into the diaries of newcomers who do not have a blue badge
The latest bete noir is the so-called 'free' walking tours set upby Sandemans, which use t-shirted students who do not charger a fee for the tours but get tips at the end, from which they have to pay Mr Sandeman his cut. This, I am told, is how lap-dancers operate: they pay to dance and feed back some of the fivers and tenners tucked into their garters to the clubowner. You can imagine how guides who have studied and worked hard to qualify for the blue badge feel about gasining the status of an exotic dancer in a seedy club filled with wel-oiled businessmen.
Yet there is little anyone can do about this. We have a tradition of free speech in Britain, even if that consists of talking rubbish (listen to some of those people at Speakers' Corner) and walking tours have never been exclusively blue badge. In fact, anyone can put on a top hat and offer Jack the Ripper walks for £5 a head. Do we really want to live in a society where a police officer can arrest you in the street for speaking to people without having the proper qualification? Let's work hard to protect our panoramic tours and our White Tower of interior guiding at certain sites (see Concentric Castles post) and leave the streets free, even if we do have to share a profession with t-shirted rippersoff with the same morals as lap dancers...
posted by tourguideddie at 7:33 AM
1 Comments:
Ursula and I started a Reykjavik bike tour business this summer partly based on Sandeman’s business model. A friend of ours, who himself offers a free walking tour in Reykjavik, introduced us to Sandeman’s. Judging from comments from our guests the free tour concept is really taking off in Europe.
Armed with a blue badge equivalent for Iceland, a special hiking guide course, a special incentive and adventure guide course as well as 7 university degrees and 22 years experience as a tourist guide and tourist guide trainer – I believe that I am the most qualified tourist guide in Iceland.
Ursula worked for four summer seasons as a tour manager for the German tour operator Rotel in Scotland. Earlier this year she published a book in the German language about the adventures of everyday life of the Icelanders.
Positive guest’s comments lead me to believe we do a good job. This said, I am almost certain that our guests would also enjoy a tour with a t-shirt boy/girl who knows a bit of English and knows how to bicycle. However, it is very difficult to scientifically measure which experience the guest would prefer since they usually experience each tour only once.
Therefore, I must agree with your sentiment that experience doesn’t always count and in fact may work against you in the way you describe. I also agree with your sentiment that people do not always appreciate quality guiding. Why? I believe it is because people join a tour with very low expectations which usually are exceeded.
However, guest’s tolerance of the guide’s quality and performance is quite elastic. Guests will only complain if the guide is exceptionally poor and they will only praise the guide if he is exceptionally brilliant. The wide range in-between accommodates a wide range of rather poor guides to rather good ones.
Keep on blogging!
Stefan
www.icelandbike.com
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