Sometimes the guide’s behaviors and character traits produce such a painful impression that the tour does not trigger tourists nothing but irritation. What weak points produce the greatest dissatisfaction?
Let your visitors never have such facial expressions
1. Voice and diction imperfections
It becomes impossible to listen to the story if the guide:
- has strong diction defects (a light burr can still sound charming, but the complete lack of sound "r" makes it difficult to understand words);
- wheezes and croaks, and even have coughing bouts, which is perceived as a sign of disease, and you would like to find yourself as far as possible from such a fellow traveler;
- speaks very quietly, you need to ask him again (it’s not necessary that the repeated explanation will be more audible), or to stand close, causing psychological disturbances;
- speaks so loud that you want to cover your ears.
The impression of a person depends to a large extent on how nice his or her voice sounds. For a tour guide, the vocal apparatus is also the main tool for working with tourists. Therefore, you cannot neglect its development.
You shouldn’t use a loudspeaker; it is better to go to scenic speech courses
2. Poor professional training
If you just tell nonsense with a beautiful voice, you cannot keep the attention of clients longer than a couple of minutes. Then tourists will feel confused and then irritated by the lack of professionalism. What makes them angry more?
- Shallow possession of the narrative subject, as a consequence, no answers to the questions.
- Citation of information and facts, known from school textbooks.
- The story is "about anything", without logic and casual relationships.
- Constant distractions literally to everything that comes into view.
As a result, vacationers are bored and regret wasting money. So, such a guide won’t be recommended to friends and acquaintances.
"What a silly question!", such a guide exclamation is a sure way to cause a strong rejection of the tourist. With this expression the guide, whishing or not, makes it clear that he or she is more intelligent and better educated than the client.
3. Inability to tell exciting stories
You can be deeply in the picture, have all the dates and facts in your hands, know the answers to any tricky question, and at the same time still receive not rave reviews from travelers. The thing is that the guide is not just a lecturer reciting the material, but an actor making a performance. In virtue of his temperament, he can be passionate or melancholic, impulsive or slow. If he or she puts feelings in the story, and speaks with zest, with feeling, then he captivates the listener and gives him a thrilling experience. It is for this they go on a tour.
4. Inattention to customer needs
Personal tours are ordered by people ready to pay for making everything go according to their expectations. Perhaps they will be intrigued by one of the aspects of the topic, and they will ask you to expand on it. Or they will want to make a photo shoot in a corner they liked, so the activities schedule will be a little changed.
Nothing bad will happen if the guide would have to change a bit the scheduled plan, on the contrary, the customer will be satisfied that his wish was granted. And the tour guide, who does not want to make changes will only cause negative emotions.
Such an intrusive tour guide is very annoying!
If you know to have any of these weak points, think about how to fix those. You may need to enroll in public speaking courses or "bury" yourself in mountains of books. In any case, it’s not so easy to be such a guide, which each client remembers with gratitude and wants to meet again.
Read our previous article Features of a personal shopping tour organization
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