What not to do when giving bus/coach sightseeing tours

Best Sightseeing Tours by Coach/Bus

When you are guiding coach sightseeing tours, there are things a tour guide should avoid to ensure your professionalism. Here are the tips.

Do not act like a pop singer or presenter. You are a tour guide it is great to be humorous and knowledgeable but bad to be over-entertaining as that is not your main function to these clients. As many people say, “Tour guide is the unofficial ambassador of a city”.

Do not have things in your mouth e.g. any gum or candy. Small things make the difference to giving the best sightseeing tours. Even though you might be close to your clients after some time together, it’s not polite nor professional to talk while chewing.

Do not talk without testing the microphone. It’s not a must, but highly recommended as noise interference will give all a headache and noone the great wisdom you are trying to share. Check if the microphone works ok. Ask if people at the back can hear you clearly. Do not talk under the amplifier for it will cause feedback.

Do not talk to the driver with the microphone on. Likely wise, whenever you are not addressing to the group, turn it off. It happens that the microphone is left on carelessly.

Any tips of DO-NOTs you want to share from your coach/bus sightseeing tours experience?

Crisis on a sightseeing tour - Ensure happy endings

One charm of traveling is that the journey is full of mystery. Unfortunately, these include small accidents too on the rare occasion. An experienced tour guide is usually quick to respond and tries to turn such accidents into a happy ending. Let’s share some stories from OurExplorer sightseeing tours over the last 3 months.

Anne was visiting Shanghai on a business tour. First time in China, so she wanted to see more during the half-day sightseeing tours. She loves taking photos but unfortunately the camera battery was broken. There is no electronic shop nearby. Luckily the tour guide had a digital camera with her and with a simple solution of changing the memory cards the sightseeing tour was able to continue as normal.

Mary booked a cooking class while visiting Bangkok, but forgot to bring the school address on the day. Instead of heading back to hotel for the piece of paper and wasting precious time, the Bangkok tour guide with her called a friend to confirm the address on internet. Thus Mary made it to the cooking class on time without missing anything.

Kevin booked a Luxor tour guide for a sightseeing tour. He has communicated with the guide before hand and planned a great two-day itinerary. However, due to the accidental delay of arrival, Kevin had only one day in Luxor. The tour guide had a quick change of plan. A longer day tour, but Kevin saw what he most wanted to in Luxor. Happy that the delay did not result in much disappointment of his visit.

These are not big issues, but as a tour guide, you can help your clients with a better memory if you deal with crisis easily on the go.

Tips to get client to book your sightseeing tours

What is the moment you were most excited to hear from OurExplorer? For most tour guides, it’s the email in your inbox “Excellent news, you have a confirmed booking on OurExplorer”.

The client found you on the internet, was happy about your profile details + offer and decided to book your service for sightseeing tours. To reach this exciting moment, here are some tips and next steps after receiving a client booking enquiry.

Be prompt to reply. This is very important. Imagine yourself as a client who is looking for sightseeing tours. It’s great to get a reply in 24 hours, even in 48 hours at the most, but quite disappointing when there is no reply after three days. Quick reply builds up good first impression. You also have higher possibility to get a booking as the client may check with several providers/competitors. So check your email regularly if you can. Do look at spam/junk folder in case of blocked Emails. If you change to a new email address, update relevant partners you are working with.

Be honest. Be honest and sincere in your replies. This is a flat world that people can get information from various channels. Don’t presume travelers know little even though they come from the other end of the world. Moreover, it’s good to get long-term benefits with a client rating after the sightseeing tours.

To the point. Every traveler is unique. They look for different things. So when replying to the client’s query, stick to the specific queries asked by the client. Do not include all your knowledge in one email reply. You may frighten them away with too much information. Many clients prefer the right answer, rather than an all-inclusive standard reply.

Offer more than they expect. Most people like extra free things. It is like the cream on the cake. Offer your clients some free service within your ability, e.g. a free drink, a local souvenir, free entry to a popular destination, a discount to a local activity/performance etc. These are the little nice things as an extra.

Do follow up and confirm the details. If you didn’t receive any message after your first reply, then send on a kind follow-up after 2 days. See if the previous reply was well-received, if the client had any further queries, or any decision on the tour. When the client showed clear interest in your service, ask them to make a booking for the day directly on OurExplorer.

What’s next? The booking email you have been waiting for - “Excellent news, you have a confirmed booking on OurExplorer”
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Tour Guides - Focus on the needs of your clients

Have you as a tour guide ever thought over what your clients want when enquiring about your guiding service? They want a unique and fantastic travel experience. They want a local expert to make things easy. They want a tailor-made tour specifically for themselves and their travel mates. They want their money spent with best value... Yes, all true. Although every individual is different with their travel needs, there are some patterns shared by certain groups of people. By better understanding your client, you as a tour guide will provide service of higher quality. So let’s have a look at some clients who are interested in a private tour guide.

1. Business travelers. This group of clients are usually time poor. They visit a place for business, conferences, exhibitions and events etc. During their limited free time (usually half a day or one day), they would like to know the best of the city. As they are time poor do not present everything. Pick up the top things that meet their personal interests. Besides, business travelers are often interested in the area they are working on. A designer may be glad to see creative things, while an engineer can get excited about machines and buildings. Pay attention to their interest and broaden your knowledge in daily work. A great tour guide is more than a scenery narrator.


2. Cruise passengers. They tend to prefer a leisure way of exploring. While on the sea they enjoy their vacation. Once on shore, have want to experience some excursions and adventure. One character they share with business travelers is limited time on-shore. So pick up something unique and wow, not everything. And remember cruise passengers are on a vacation so they may want to be relaxed.


3. Senior travelers. After years of working, now they are retired. Their children have grown up and have their own families. So senior travelers have more free time to enjoy. They are usually not short of time for their tour. Design a tour with good combination of sightseeing and relaxation. Senior travelers also enjoy talking with people. Share their life experiences. A good guide shall listen to them and make good accompany during their tour.


There are many other client segmentations, e.g. luxury travelers, family travelers, independent traveler, religious traveler, adventurous travelers, student group, etc. Are you an expert at guiding certain group of travelers?

Share with us please, OurExplorer would love to hear.
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Best Tour Guide Blogs in the world - Top 5

From over 115 enteries around the globe - a panel of judges from OurExplorer have selected what they believe are the best blogs owned and update by Tour Guides.

Congratulations! Thanks for sharing your local wisdom with travelers around the world.

No.1
Blog Israel Tours
By Tour Guide Jerusalem city – Shmuel Browns

No. 2
Blog Forever Barcelona
By Tour Guide Barcelona – Marta Laurent Veciana

No. 3
Blog - China Tours
By Tour Guide Chongqing – Legend Kung

No. 4
Blog – Israel Photos
By Tour Guide Jerusalem area – Gershon Ferency

No. 5
Blog Insights of a Chameleon
By Tour Guide Dublin – Robert McElroy

The team at OurExplorer admire the dedication of each and every tour guide who maintains a blog with the goal of helping visitors gain insight into a new city before arrival. Well done.
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How Tour Guides can spot unwelcomed guests

Last week, we mentioned that there are often tour guides in special-themed venues. These tour guides are specialized in their specific guiding area. Such tour guides may include museum guides, historical residence guide, and theme-park guide etc. The difference is that they only guide in a certain place for limited time. Some places provide a venue tour guide for free (included in the entrance fee). Some are pay-to-hire services.

If you are a venue guide that some client pays extra to listen to you, and there are hang-on tourists with your group, what would you do? First things first, bear in mind that your clients are your priority and should not be made to feel awkward. It is usually understandable with some people hang-on. Face and talk to your clients. Attend to their questions. When your clients have your full attention, they won’t mind with some more followers.

However, if there are too many hang-ons, or some people affect your group in a negative way, you should point out that this is a private group to them. You may talk with those people separately at a convenient time. Inform them how they can find and pay for a venue guide like you. Be polite, and do not shout to them in front of others. Even though they are not your direct client, they are visitors of your tourist venue.
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Tour Guiding in special themed scenic venues

Sometimes in the tour itinerary, there are locations with specific themes i.e. toys of various decades, movie production theme park, ancient rock painting exhibition, earthquake museum. These places have unique characteristics or styles. When a tour guide is showing around such scenic spots, it is recommended to fit into the scene.


For example, in a movie production theme park, visitors may see scene reproduction, super star signatures, movie-making tools etc. It is more of an entertaining place, rather than for education. Introduce the fun spots, point out the different from what’s seen in the movie. Encourage clients to try interactive devices as this will get their energy levels up.


However, if it’s an earthquake museum, or other memorial places of harsh history, the guiding attitude shall be totally different. You are not expected to give jokes in such atmosphere. Stick to the facts, and share the sorrow and hope for a better future.


In some special-themed spots, they provide their own tour guides. These guides are often more familiar with the place and exhibits. You may invite the spot guides to guide for the place, to make an even better experience for your clients. But as a professional guide, you still need to have certain knowledge of the place. Get prepared for the various questions from your client. The more they get answered, the better experience they will have.

Have you a favourite themed location in your city you can share with OurExplorer ?