Have you ever reminisced about a trip you took in the past and realized that the highlight of your experience was that one tour guide who made everything come alive and created long-lasting memories in your mind years later?
Tour guides are the gateways between visitors and destinations. They are the eyes and mouthpieces through which visitors interact with and understand destinations. Tour guides can make or break a travel experience, leaving a memorable mark in the minds of tourists. The behavioural attributes, overall knowledge of a destination and communication skills of tour guides contribute greatly to tourists’ satisfaction and improve their value-added experiences.
Tour Guide Trainees at Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA), Pan-Atlantic University, Lekki-Lagos.
Even with self-guided tours with audio-visual facilities in destinations, and virtual reality tours, physical tour guides are important for the visitor experience and remain relevant in the overall tourism system; great tour guides enhance the experience and those who can modulate their delivery to your particular interests and group composition are invaluable. Tour guides build relationships with the local communities and contribute to their economic and social development, and the range of tours available means that the same destination can provide multiple experiences.
As countries in West Africa begin to spotlight domestic and regional tourism as one of the key pillars for their economic recovery, tour guides have essential roles to play as visible human components of tourism and tourist destinations. Capacity-building through quality training programmes for tour guides and frontline officers in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries will greatly improve service delivery and can set the tone to achieving sustainable tourist traffic and tourism revenue.
How can this be done?
- The public sector partnering with and funding training programmes facilitated by private sector organizations – programmes must be robust, hands-on and contain relevant fundamentals of tour guiding e.g. First Aid for Tour Guides, How to deal with difficult customers, Planning for contingencies during tours, The Art of Storytelling, etc.
- Creating an enabling and inclusive environment for growth and sustainable development (the AfCFTA Agreement and ECOWAS Free Movement Protocol of persons, goods and services come to mind) where trade, travel, tourism, culture, and businesses can thrive and prosper.
- Developing an online directory/tour guide marketplace where tourists can meet and interact with registered and licensed tour guides domiciled in various parts of the city, and one where tour guides can be reviewed and rated.