Kelsey

Today we are going to explore how to be more likeable as a tour leader, guide or experience host and break down the habits of likeable individuals.

I regularly get asked the question How to become a Powerful Speaker? by guides and tour leaders in the Be a Better Guide Community. Therefore, in this episode, we’ve turned to some of our greatest historical orators and a book by James C. Humes for some advice.

Tour guides have it especially bad because

 1) we are claiming to be knowledgable 

2) People are paying us to entertain/inform them and 

3) It is expected that we field questions constantly during a tour!

That’s why this week we are focusing on how to get your voice ready for tour and sharing a number of our favourite vocal warm-up exercises.

As a treat for you, we are featuring a special guest: Rocco, an experienced guide from the Netherlands. Not only is Rocco a great guide but he has also been a performer, actor, and dancer ever since he was eight years old. Rocco sent in some video clips of the warm-up exercises he uses before every tour.

Can it really be used to promote your tour and drive more sales??

In this video, I answer that question with a resounding yes! I’ll also explain why I think that tour guides are uniquely positioned to kick butt at live streaming and grow their potential customer base. Periscope is about to take the tourism industry by storm and I want you to be ready.

If you as a guide have ever asked yourself, When should I hold my ground on my refund policy?

Well my friends, today we shed light on speech disfluency and how we as tour guides, tour leaders and tour managers can fall victim to this bad habit.

But never fear! We also talk about four ways to keep those pesky filler words out of your speech. That way people can focus on the amazing things that you are sharing, and won’t be distracted by the way you are saying them.

Let’s face it, no matter which part of the world we work in – all of us guides need to be comfortable talking to people we’ve just met. For many, this is an especially challenging part of the job and one that takes a lot of practice to improve.

Unfortunately, many tour leaders, even with professional training, lose credibility before they even open their mouths! This week’s QnA focuses on how we can all put our best foot forward and really make a strong impression right from the get go.

Well, I usually bite my nails, I sometimes make people wait for me… and my girlfriend accuses me of being obscenely positive… and that’s just the tippest tip of the iceberg.

Does the sound of staying at fine hotels and eating at exquisite restaurants around the world appeal to you? Do you love people and always being on the road? Then you definitely need to tune into today’s video, where we talk about three jobs where you can do exactly that!

Well, for starters, we are not talking about interpretation between languages or other types of translation services. Those are a skill unto themselves – but not what we are talking about today.

In this instance, we mean the interpretation of culture, the environment or history as done by an educator, park ranger or tour guide. Or in other words, think of interpretation as simply a communication strategy.

They provide us with powerful technique that great speakers use to hone our public speaking, plus a grab bag of tools we should be able to use in our tour leading jobs.

Today I share one skill that will keep people hanging off of your every word. It’s simple, easy to implement, and it even will help you memorize the key parts of your tour.