Table of Contents

1.  Guiding: An Interpretive Approach

• The guiding environment
• An interpretive approach to guiding
• A tourism industry overview
• Types of tours

• Tourist Guides – a group of skilled professionals
• Where do Guides work?
• The roles of a Guide

• Getting to know your audience
• Principles of conducting a tour
• How do you find out about your audience?
• Building a relationship with your audience

• The communication process
• Factors affecting effective communication
• Ensuring effective communication
• Listening – the pathway to understanding
• Working with questions

• Effective presentation techniques
• Working with microphones
• Managing the nervous twitch
• Adding strength and colour to the voice

• Tour structures and tour stages
• Planning and designing the tour
• Conducting the tour
• Evaluating the tour
• OH&S, risk management and liabilities
• Tours as a learning experience
• Perception layering
• Creative thinking

• What is a commentary?
• Structure of your commentary
• Building your commentary
• Enriching your commentary

• Engaging in conversation and remembering people’s names
• Ensuring customer satisfaction through high quality customer service
• Managing difficult situations
• Assertive behaviour in more detail
• What to do when things go awry

• What are extended tours?
• Being a tour manager
• Working with coaches and buses
• Stages of an extended tour
• What could go wrong on extended tours?

• What are stories?
• Why do we work with stories?
• Structure of a story
• Telling the story
• Storyforms
• Character interpretation – telling a story in character