Mods, I’m not sure if this thread is more suited to GQ. If you feel it is, my apologies and please move it.
I’ve been considering career options lately and something that really appeals to me is tour guiding. I think I’d really enjoy showing tourists around London and Britian. I know a lot about the place, I can get by in French and planning to gain a qualification in Italian later this year, and I love to show people things. I’m also good at organising and bossing people about (as those who’ve been to a Londope I’ve organised know ;)).
But I have no idea how to go about getting into the industry. Google searches aren’t being very fruitful and there are literally hundreds of tour guide companies. Who do I talk to? What’s the first step? Advice/thoughts appreciated.
Mostly just posting this to subscribe to the thread, because it’s something I’ve found that I enjoy as well and I’m interested in the replies.
But, my guess would be to just call up one of the companies and ask. At my old college, they recruited students to take groups on walking tours of the campus every day. I really wanted to get into that, but didn’t. That was only a volunteer position, but if I could be paid for something like that, wow!
2 years ago, I did a (Dutch) 2-month course in tourguiding. It consisted of a week training and 2 months of home-study, and cost 700 dollars. It came with a “job-guarantee” in the sense that they promised to refund half the money if you didn’t have a job within six months. But they scanned the perons enrolling first, to rule out people who would never get a job turguidign ebcause they were not the type for it.
I did pick up some useful skills, like how to hold a mike or how to adress a group. But in retrospect, the course didn’t teach me anything I wouldn’t have learnt on the job.