The professional tour guides in France

Post category:South of France

The tour guides of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture are the ambassadors of the territories and tourist sites of our country. They are the only professionals authorized to lead tours in historical centers, classified sites, monuments, and museums. All of them hold a degree from the University (professional license in tour guiding or equivalent). Here are the five skills they possess to ensure you have unforgettable experiences.

The professional tour guides in France

Step 1: Manage your time effectively

Tour guides do their homework in advance. Equipped with social intelligence they understand your needs in order to provide you with a memorable cultural experience.

They are thoroughly familiar with their tours both in terms of scientific content and logistics. They know their routes inside and out and when these include entry to a monument or museum they handle the ticket purchases. This means they take care of you and respect both you and your time. They understand that you likely have connections to make or other scheduling constraints after your visit.

Step 2: Proximity and distance, a perfect balance

Throughout the entire visit tour guides keep the experience lively. They are like a member of your group maintaining just the right balance : neither too distant nor too familiar. With great social ease and undeniable communication skills they ensure that your time is enjoyable.

Your guide also knows how to make you laugh. This is a rare skill that is not only about telling good jokes but also about being an expert on the sites they show you. This is the magic of the profession : knowing how to be serious without being boring and light-hearted while maintaining the rigor required for delivering scientific and factual discourse.

Marseille private tour, Romain Bouchaud, Guided tour in Marseille

Step 3: Simplicity, Precision, and Clarity

Their tours are the result of several weeks of reading and documentary research. The purpose of this preparatory work is to make the places they present understandable. Our professional guides have worked on this clarity for years and continue to maintain it throughout their careers through ongoing training and personal reading. You will understand that they are experts unlike improvised and self-proclaimed guides. Free Tours and Greeters practice our profession without a professional license and without recognized university training.

During your visit to a city or the countryside you will learn a lot about the destination and its specialties. Your guide is perfectly trained to share their knowledge.

Step 4: Confidence and Humility

Tour guides are experts in the places they show you : cities, villages, monuments, or museums. Expertise does not mean omniscience. Therefore your guide will be capable of conducting personal research on a point you may raise to which they couldn’t provide an immediate answer. Typically follow-up contact after the tour is made via email or phone in order to provide you with the answer to your question. Humility is at the core of the professional consciousness of the guide. Unlike a fake guide they do not compensate for their lack of knowledge with grand gestures or emphatic shouting. They work on their question and when they don’t know something they admit it. Then they conduct the necessary research to give you the expected answer.

Step 5: Narrating and adapting to diverse audiences

Eye contact is essential for sharing a story with confidence. Your guide also understands the importance of body language. During their presentations they are not afraid to use various materials : engravings, paintings, numismatics, photographs (both black-and-white and color), and video clips on a tablet. Tour guides know how to bring their stories to life through illustrations. They have kept up with the times: they are proficient with digital tools and can adapt to different audiences including : seniors, young people, children, and teenagers. Some guides even master sign language and can communicate with audiences with various disabilities such as those with hearing impairments.

As you can see the tour guides possess a range of diverse skills. Call on them for your guided tours!