Tourist Guide: Cultural | Career Planet

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What is a Cultural Tourist Guide?

Cultural Tourist Guides fit into 2 main groups:

Cultural Guides: will take a group of tourists to different places with a particular cultural interest. For example: art and crafts tours, gastronomy tours (food), historical tours, indigenous community tours and township tours, etc
Cultural Site Guides: will remain at one site and will share their wealth of knowledge with private visitors and bus loads of tourists that visit throughout the day. For example: Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (Gauteng)

What does a Cultural Tourist Guide do?

Cultural Guide:

meeting and greeting members of their tour
co-ordinating accommodation and transport
being enthusiastic and helpful at all times
dealing with enquiries and complaints from their tour group
loading or unloading baggage or other equipment
making sure that tour members are comfortable and safe
attending to problems (lost luggage, late arrivals etc)
being able to deal calmly with emergencies (eg heart attacks, car accidents, etc)
making themselves available to their group at all times (24-7)
keeping up to date with information which would make their tour more interesting

Cultural Site Guide:

meeting and greeting their tour
receiving of paid tickets
giving an interesting talk while guiding the group safely through the site
answering questions
monitoring the group at all times that they don’t wander off or damage property
making sure all members of the group are accounted for at the end of the tour
being punctual for the next group

Are you … ?

a person with good communication skills?
extremely knowledgeable and passionate about your subject?
a peoples’ person?
observant?
friendly?
patient and easy going?
able to control groups of people?
physically strong and fit?
neat and professional?
considerate, friendly and polite?

How do I become a Cultural Tourist Guide?

To become a Tourist Guide a person must complete one (or more) Tourist Guide qualifications registered with CATHSSETA. They must be registered with the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.

NOTE: It is illegal to conduct guided tours without the proper qualification or registration.

See under ‘Tourist Guide’ on our website for more details.