Tour guide

"Guided Tour" redirects here. For the collection of stories by Gordon R. Dickson, see Guided Tour (collection).

A tour guide addressing a group of tourists in China.

A tour guide (U.S.) or a tourist guide (European) provides assistance, information and cultural, historical and contemporary heritage interpretation to people on organized tours and individual clients at educational establishments, religious and historical sites, museums, and at venues of other significant interest.

History

A Japanese tourist consulting a tour guide and a guide book from Akizato Ritō's Miyako meisho zue (1787)

In 18th century Japan, a traveler could pay for a tour guide or consult guide books such as Kaibara Ekken's Keijō Shōran (The Excellent Views of Kyoto).

Description

A tour guide in the National Museum of the American Indian.

Tour guide at in St. Peter's Square

The CEN (European Committee for Standardization) definition for "tourist guide" – part of the work by CEN on definitions for terminology within the tourism industry – is:

Tourist guide = person who guides visitors in the language of their choice and interprets the cultural and natural heritage of an area, which person normally possesses an area-specific qualification usually issued and/or recognized by the appropriate authority

CEN also produced a definition for "tour manager":

Tour manager = person who manages and supervises the itinerary on behalf of the tour operator, ensuring the programme is carried out as described in the tour operator's literature and sold to the traveller/consumer and who gives local practical information

In Europe, tourist guides are represented by FEG, the European Federation of Tourist Guide Associations. In Europe, the tourist guiding qualification is specific to each and every country; in some cases the qualification is national, in some cases it is broken up into regions. In all cases it is embedded in the educational and training ethic of that country. EN15565 is a European Standard for the Training and Qualification of Tourist Guides.

In Australia, tour guides are qualified to a minimum of Certificate III Guiding. They belong to a couple of organisations, notably the Professional Tour Guide Association of Australia [PTGAA] and Guides of Australia [GOA].

See also

• Audio tour
• Blue Badge tourist guide           
• Cell phone tour
• GPS tour
• Institute of Tourist Guiding
• Museum docent
• Museum education
• Cicerone
• Noel B. Salazar

References

Notes

• Salazar, Noel B. (2005). Tourism and glocalization: ‘Local’ tour guiding. Annals of Tourism Research, 32(3), 628-646.
• Salazar, Noel B. (2006). Touristifying Tanzania: Local guides, global discourse. Annals of Tourism Research, 33(3), 833-852.
• Salazar, Noel B. (2008). "Enough stories!” Asian tourism redefining the roles of Asian tour guides. Civilisations, 57(1/2), 207-222.
• Salazar, Noel B. (2010). Envisioning Eden: Mobilizing imaginaries in tourism and beyond. Oxford: Berghahn.

Further reading

• MacCannell, Dean. The Ethics of Sightseeing. University of California Press, 2011.
• Pond, Kathleen Lingle. The Professional Guide: Dynamics of Tour Guiding. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993.
• Ruitenberg, Claudia W. "Learning by Walking: Non-Formal Education as Curatorial Practice and Intervention in Public Space." International Journal of Lifelong Education 31, no. 3 (2012): 261-275.
• Wynn, Jonathan R. The Tour Guide: Walking and Talking New York. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011.
• Wynn, Jonathan R. "City Tour Guides: Urban Alchemists at Work." City & Community 9, no. 2 (June 2010).

External links

• World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations
• European Federation of Tourist Guide Associations