A promotional video (your friend in Rome is at 2.00′) and an interesting article about tour guides… a wonderful job, but not an easy one!
From the list of 10 major qualities you can read in the article we expecially believe in interaction and flexibility…a tour guide is not a teacher, but it’s someone helping you in understanding and appreciating the city, the site, the museum you are visiting…YOU are the leading actor, not the tour guide!
On top of that, the tour guide is a “local”, he (or she) is someone living in the city you are visiting, maybe he (or she) was born there and has experienced this place since his (or her) childhood, therefore is able to tell you how the city changed and “where it is going”…
The tour guide is a “percolator”, someone screening for you everything which might be interesting in town, from the main attractions to the temporary exhibits, from the ice cream shop to the good music festivals: commercials always show the best side of everything, but we have tried them before you and we can tell what is worthing value and which is its reputation.
Trust us… a local nice tour guide can add a lot to your travel experience!
Thanks Sarah for the “quiblle”
! Of course a good tour guide can become a “mommy” when needed and requested. What i wanted to underline is the fact a tour to the Colosseum, for instance, should never be the same of the day before. Every client is different, with a different age, background, knowledge, points of reference…thence the flexibility of the tour guide to adapt the main general information to the audience of the day. And the importance of interaction… I personally learnt a bunch of data from clients themselves: interesting analogies with different countries and cultures, military strategies of the Roman army still in use in the US army, allusions to a Raphael’s frescoe on a CD cover… as a tour guide I feel like I’m travelling every day without moving from Rome (and that’s a great privilege of this job !) and this sharing attitude is making a tour a real experience, a sequence wit no token roles!
I agree with you on most things, and I appreciate your contribution.
My quibble is with who is the ‘leading actor’.
It’s not the client. Guides are at a location, guides have studied, guides know what is important.
I would never go to a foreign country as a tourist and presume I am the ‘leader’.
I am there to learn. I am there to be changed. I may know a subject, I know I can ask questions for clarification.
But I can not expect to get my moneys’ worth thinking my ignorance is going to ‘lead’ me anywhere.
Unless I’m just going to a location to get drunk, in which case, I don’t need a guide,
I need a M O M M Y.