Professional guiding

Tour guides, or tourist guides, are ambassadors of the hospitality. A tour guide is your tour program’s third stakeholder, along with the travel agent. Tour guides help you complete your tour program with satisfaction. Tour guides are generally local guides who deeply know about the destinations, activities, and community environment. They are the mediator between you and local communities as well. Tour guides maintain an excellent personal relationship (PR) with tour operators, hotels, and other third-party service providers.

Being a professional tour guide is more than showing people around a particular destination. It requires unique skills and qualities to ensure visitors have an enjoyable and informative experience. This blog post will explore the critical aspects of professional tour guiding and how to get satisfied with your tour.

Duties and responsibilities of tour guides

• First thing first, your safety.
• Recognize your interests.
• Preparing and delivering ideal presentations.
• Coordinating between you and the travel agent.
• Organizing and leading excursions.
• Translating and Interpreting.
• Transporting and accompanying tourists.
• Attending to any request by the guest.

Different countries practice different laws to manipulate their tourism industry. In Sri Lanka, tour guides are generated by the Sri Lanka Tourist Board Authority (SLTDA). SLTDA calls for qualified applicants for interviews, conducts tour guiding courses and final examinations via tourism & hospitality schools, issues licenses for the pass-out new guides, renews licenses annually, and regulates the tour guides’ code of conduct. All the tour guides who pass out are Freelancers. No travel agent or tour operator employs them. They are Government-registered free-lance tour guides. Guides must register with tour operator companies in Sri Lanka; they can note with multiple tour operators. They undertake tours given by tour operators under their agreements. Guides will be retained with the tour operators depending on the reviews brought by the guests and overseas travel agents. Accessing guide reviews by tour operators become a highly focused and competitive matter among tour guides in Sri Lanka. The good thing for you is that all the tour guides always try to bring the best reviews.

The Sri Lankan Tourist Police back all the licenses from SLTDA for the related cases. Sri Lanka Tourist Police Headquarters is at the SLTDA head office in Colombo 03. Tour guides are to support the instances with Tour operators. The guide is the first person to be called by the Tourist Police once any instance occurs.

Types of Licensed Tour Guides under the Sri Lanka Tourist Board working in the Field.

1. Site Guides: Guiding and briefing in particular sites only. Ex: Site guides in Sigiriya
2. Provincial Area Guides: Guiding and handling tourists in a particular province only.
3. Chaufer Guides: They guide and drive light vehicles to carry less than seven parties of tourists.
4. National Guides: They can handle any number of groups of tourists at once. They mostly guide more than seven groups of tourists, especially those carrying mini-coaches and buses. They are not driving the vehicles. They use microphones for their briefing on the bus.

Tour operators are only using Chauffer guides and National Guides for their tours. They are not required to hire site and provincial guides, while chauffeur and national guides are permitted to guide on any site and in any area.  

How do you recognize Chauffer guides and National Guide licenses?

You can see a vertical strip of yellow at the side of the Chauffer guide licenses.

You can see a vertical strip of green at the side of the National guide licenses.

Tour guides have to wear their license dangle visible to any party. It is written Tour Guide Name and License’s registered number. Languages they speak are written on the other side. Some guides can speak multiple languages.

Languages spoken by Sri Lankan tour guides.

English, Hindi/Urdu, Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Tamil

Tour operators often call guides based on their languages. It is recommended that you request your preferred language from your tour operator. Tour operators will give you an ideal guide, or you can request a tour guide’s name from the tour operator if you know tour guides. They will do it for you.

You can check or search SLTDA-licensed guides on their website. The link is below.

https://srilanka.travel/tourist-guides

Why do you need to have a Chauffeur tourist guide or a national tourist guide?

• They are selected among many applicants concerning their education and qualifications.
• They must follow the complete course and pass the examinations and practice tests on technical tours conducted by the Sri Lankan Tourist Board Authority (SLTDA).
• They are trained on what to do and what not to do.

Subjects covered within the courses conducted by the Sri Lankan Tourist Board (SLTDA)

• History and monuments of Sri Lanka.
• Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions.
• Geology of Sri Lanka.
• Archeology of Sri Lanka.
• Biodiversity of Sri Lanka.
• Fauna and Flora of Sri Lanka.
• Dancing and music of Sri Lanka.
• Arvada of Sri Lanka.
• Industries of Sri Lanka.
• Adventure of Sri Lanka.
• Hospitality.
• Contingency plans.
• Tour management.
• Grooming and Handling
• Communication and Interpretation.

All the guides are to study all the course subjects. Most guides follow external sources to specialize in particular subjects to improve their range due to the competition. For example, diploma courses and degrees are conducted by government universities. Thus, there are guides for specific subjects.

Subject’s wise guides In Sri Lanka.

• General guides.
• Birding guides.
• Archeological and Geological guides.
• Wildlife tracking guides.
• Adventure tracking guides.
• Marine guides.

All the SLTDA-licensed guides are well aware of punctuality, professionalism, knowledge, communication, flexibility, leadership, friendliness, engagement and attention, interaction, and a good sense of humor.

Providing excellent customer service is a fundamental aspect of professional tour guiding. They should strive to create a positive and memorable experience for each individual on the tour. Visiting Sri Lanka with an SLTDA-licensed tour guide increases your chance of being satisfied with your tour and the worth of your spending.  

Do’s

• Hire a SLTDA-licensed tour guide only. You can question it from your tour operator.
• Be patient always. Sometimes, first-up guides will not recognize your accent and regional language.
• Make feel friendly and approachable.
• Always listen to the guide carefully.
• Follow the guide’s instructions, especially for your safety.
• Communicate with your tour guide.
• Ask the guide first if you want to do anything you are unsure about.
• Leave a tip if you are satisfied with the service.

Don’ts

• Do not neglect the guide’s instructions, which will make your tour unhappy.
• Do not explore new things without instructions from your guide.
• Do not mingle with the locals always (otherwise, they will expect favors).
• Please do not ask about the goodness and badness of the services provided by third parties in front of them. That will create enmity between the guide and local partiers, which will affect their working environment in the future.