Today we will discuss one of the most exciting ideas for a home-based business: becoming a local tour guide. If you love the outdoors, are proud of your local community, the sights, the local customs and historical monuments, and want to make a real contribution to your neighborhood or city being a local tour guide is the ideal business idea for you.
How Do You Become a Tour Guide?
There needs to be a meeting between your own enthusiasm and curiosity to discover attractive places which tourists would pay to see. This should include some specialized courses and a dash of your own business acumen, as well. The most important part is your own excitement to promote your local area and community to tourists, and to be persuasive in your presentation. And, of course, you’ll need to be good at talking to people, showing them around and giving them explanations.
The most successful local tour guides are those who grew up in a specific area and know all its ins and outs from their own childhood. But do not despair if you have just moved with your family a couple of months or years before starting. As you plan for opening a business, you can use your free time driving around, inspecting various local tourism websites and discovering areas which you could include in your tours.
Considering you are now familiar with the area you wish to promote as a tour guide, here are the basic steps you should follow to open and successfully run your home-based tour business:
1. Incorporate Your Business
One of the things we suppose is self-evident is that you’ll need to run a legally incorporated business, be it a sole proprietorship, LLC or S-Corp. Before you contact your first customer and earn your first fee, you should be registered for tax purposes with the IRS. Since the field of home based businesses is so wide, many people do not consider their operation to be a “true” business. However, if you make money from it, it is a business, and it must be registered. Otherwise you might fall afoul with the taxman.
2. Pass a Tour Guide Certification Test
As a tour guide, you must prove you possess a few basic skills needed in your work, such as reading a map, using a compass, giving first aid in case of emergency, and so on. Also, you will have to prove solid knowledge of the local history, architecture and landscape of your area.
The certification must be given by an institution approved by your local tourism authority, making them the best place to go and choose where you will write this test.
3. Decide How You Want to Offer Your Services
As a local tour guide, you could offer your services to different travel agencies, or try to seek out customers on your own, negotiating directly with them. Here are a few things you need to know about both of these possibilities:
Working With Travel Agencies
As an independent contractor for travel agencies, you will receive a fee for your services. They will send clients to you and you will probably have to follow a set of rules imposed by the agencies in dealing with tourists. This is a good option if you do not want to deal with the aspect of finding clients by yourself, but your revenue will be limited to the commission you are paid by the agency.
Working On Your Own
This option will offer you greater opportunities to earn money, because you will negotiate directly with tourists, receiving the full price for your services. If you worry about being able to compete with large travel agencies, we are pleased to tell you that there are lots of websites and apps where you can connect directly with tourists, looking to avoid dealing with travel agencies. They want local tour guides, and that makes you a strong candidate for their business. Some of the more popular resources are:
⦁ Shiroube
⦁ Vayable
⦁ ToursByLocals
⦁ Rent a Local Friend
Once you have created your profile on one (or all) of these websites, it is up to you to make the most attractive presentation possible of your local area. Do the same for your skills as a guide, and start bringing customers. Good luck!