Travel Jobs: Working as Tour Escorts and Directors
Travel jobs are appealing and exciting. Working as a tour escort or a tour director can bring you to a lot of different places and let you meet a lot of interesting people. Tour guides and tour directors are employed by companies to bring tourists to places of attraction and other locations.
A tour escort is a tour guide who guides a group of people who are on overnight trips. It is one of the most challenging seasonal travel jobs. The job of tour escorts require them to have knowledge on the area in which they would like to work in. Like some travel jobs, tour escorts are required to be on the job 24 hours a day. Tour escorts should be knowledgeable enough to be able to take charge of groups, have good communication skills and should be dynamic people.
People with travel jobs like that of the tour escort’s are required to assist in local arrangements of tours, give out descriptions of different locations during tours, and other routine duties. International tour escorts facilitate local preparations only and leave the task of providing commentaries to a local resident. The position also entails efficiency in the handling of various aspects involved in leading tourist groups. In addition to that, tour escorts should be able to deal with problems that may arise from leading the group.
The hourly rate of a local tour guide going on his/her own is around $10 to $15. This is exclusive of the tips. A week of touring with a group can earn a tour guide about $1,200 to $1,400, including tips and commissions. Tour guides traveling with groups also get free meals, accommodations and transportation courtesy of the tour company, which is typical of some travel jobs.
A tour director is different from a tour escort. A tour director is in charge of leading, escorting and facilitating tourists and passengers on trips that last for days. They also proffer information and give out commentaries on the places being visited. Aside from acting as guide, they also make arrangements for lodging, bookings and tourist activities. During emergencies, the tour director takes charge and continues giving explanations to keep tourists amused. A tour director is one of those travel jobs that can cause physical and psychological exhaustion. But despite this, an efficient tour director should remain energetic and optimistic all throughout the tour. As with most travel jobs, tour directors have a lot of advantages like getting a lot of tour operators to contract her services, having the upper hand on deciding on what trips to guide and being free to work whenever she wants. Like some travel jobs, the work of a tour director can be on a seasonal basis.
Tour directors whose main responsibilities center on making arrangements are estimated to earn about $1,000 to $1,250 a week.