Professional Tour Management Training
Training for Tour Guides - Tour Directors - Cruise Hosts
Tour Guide Training and Tour Guide Jobs
Press Release October 2007:
ASPIRING TOUR GUIDES DON'T HAVE TO TRAVEL FAR TO GAIN SKILLS FOR TOP-PAYING CAREERS WITH THE "GET PAID TO TRAVEL" ONLINE CLASS
Lake Forest, California -- October 30, 2007 Booming tourism around the world demands more highly-trained tour guides and tour directors than ever before. A unique online class called "Get Paid to Travel" gives hundreds of colleges in the United States and Canada an affordable skill-building class to offer students who wish to pursue a travel guide career.
Tourism accounts for a majority of travel around the world each year. According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), about 52 percent, or around 395 million people, traveled for the purpose of leisure and recreation in 2004. Consequently, the career opportunity for aspiring tour guides, tour directors, and cruise hosts has grown tremendously.
"Get Paid to Travel" is being offered online at more than 1200 colleges in the United States and Canada. The class gives students an opportunity to train as tour directors and guides for local, domestic, and international tours. Students can easily take the class online from a computer without interfering with their other college studies.
The course was developed by Cherie Anderson, owner of Professional Tour Management Training and author of the "Tour Director Training Guide." Anderson has been working in the travel industry leading tours and cruises around the world since 1984. She began introducing her tour management training to colleges in Southern California in 1993, and now many of her past students are leading tours around the world.
Anderson realized the need for an extensive training course that is not only convenient for everyone, but also covers the skills needed for a variety of tourism careers. She feels there are vast differences among travel careers that many people misunderstand and a targeted training course for tour guides, directors, and hosts was long overdue.
"The skills are very different for travel agents and tour directors. For example, a tour director needs special skills to work with tour groups. The director must also understand tour group procedures and how to work with local suppliers, tour operators, tour guides, and assist with challenges and emergencies wherever they travel. On the other hand, the travel agent makes appointments from an office and arranges reservations. The two careers are entirely different, so the skills required are different as well," states Anderson.
"Get Paid to Travel" targets a wide audience of students that are interested in a travel career. Whether they want to become a local tour guide or work abroad, students gain the skills needed to enter their field of choice. Some might prefer to travel around the world and direct a variety of tours from week to week, including African safaris, cruises, European tours, etc.
Though very affordable, Anderson's online class helps students gain the required skills to land a well-paying travel job with a potentially bright future for those who work hard and are dedicated to their career. The average income for an experienced international or domestic tour director is $250 to $400 per day, including salary, tips, and commissions.
Students that have already enrolled in the class were amazed at the detailed training provided. As one student acclaims, "Cherie Anderson’s course 'Get Paid to Travel' far exceeded my expectations. It was very in-depth and concise. This has been one of the most exciting, educational, and rewarding classes I’ve taken in the last five years in my pursuit of my B.A. of Geography with a Travel/Tourism concentration. Cherie is an open and honest person, a quality that seems hard to find these days. Thank You Cherie!"
Anderson says, "'Get Paid to Travel' inspires students that are interested in a travel career to pursue what they love doing most while equipping them with the knowledge they need to become a great tour guide or director."
More information is available at the Web address below:
http://www.tourtraining.com/ New! Want to attend PTMT's Hawaii training and reunion in December 2008? Register below to recieve information on training, reunion and reservations. Contact: TourTraining@aol.com
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Published Article September 2007:
How to Find the Tour Guide Job of Your Dreams
What is a Tour Guide?
Before seeking a job in this field, you should have a clear understanding of the job and its requirements. A tour guide is not merely someone who leads a group of people around at a particular site. They are highly-skilled at what they do. They understand how to communicate and work with people. They know the rules and expect the group to follow those rules. Tour guides study hard to learn all they can about the site or attraction so they can answer questions along the way. They understand the importance of safety and are trained to handle emergencies when they arise.
Types of Tour Guide Jobs
Tour guide duties vary according to the type of job. There are adventure travel jobs where you'll go along with a group of travelers by bus or plane to adventurous places and remain with the group for the entire trip. With this type of job, you must have skills in tour management, knowing tour procedures for handling large groups worldwide. As a tour director for multi-day tours, you'll be responsible for managing arrangements, brefings, procedures, working with suppliers, handling emergenices, documentation and more. On international tours, you'll have a local guide to deliver interesting and informative narration. You might become a tour director for African safaris, mountain hiking, winery tours, walking tours - whatever your desire. So, whether you want to travel abroad or find a tour guide job or tour director job in your local area, there are plenty of opportunities.
Tour Guide Training
A smart first step in finding the travel job of your dreams is to take a tour management training course. Training is available for tour guides, tour directors, and cruise hosts. With tour management training, you'll learn about safety procedures for various travel methods and destinations. You'll also learn about working with tour operators, suppliers, handling emergencies, documentation, delivering informative narration, giving important tour briefings, types employers, getting hired and more. Both tour guide training and tour director training will help you prepare to work with people, become a great speaker, get organized, and be able to act immediately when emergencies arise. It is an important first step for most professional tour directors and guides.
Tour Jobs
Once you are trained and have knowledge of the wide variety of opportunities and types of employers, you will find the tour guide job or tour director job that will fit your personality and desires. Determine the type of position you would like and where you would like to work. Do you want to travel to exotic places or, would you rather be a tour guide in your local area so you can be home at night with your family?
There is online tour management training available through over 1300 colleges worldwide. So, you won't even have to leave your home to learn these valuable skills.
No matter what your career goals, there's a travel job waiting for you! To learn more about subjects like tour guide jobs please visit the web site at: http://tourtraining.com
For more information and informative related articles and links about this subject matter and content, please visit Majon's Travel directory: http://www.majon.com/directory/Travel
"I was thrilled at how thorough and interesting this course was! I feel very confident now that I could interview for and work a job as a tour director. Cherie was one of the best instructors I have ever had. She was very prompt at answering questions on the Discussion Board, and gave us lots of extra information each week to help us learn more about the business of tour directing. Thank you for such a fabulous course!" August 2007
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A great resource for finding cruise ship and tour industry jobs.
