A Tour Guide shows people (often tourists) around a place or area of interest. This could be a landmark building, a nature reserve, or the historical centre of a city. Yet other Tour Guides specialise in a certain sport or activity, such as paragliding or canoeing, and guide and teach visitors when trying this sport or activity.
Typical Tour Guide characteristics and skills to look for in a candidate during an interview include:
- Exceptional passion and enthusiasm for their place or area of interest and the genuine desire (and ability) to introduce visitors to this topic in a fun, engaging, and informative way.
- Great interpersonal, communication, and presentation skills to easily and quickly make visitors feel comfortable and feel engaged with the topic.
- Strong sense of responsibility as during the tour they will be the main point of contact within the group and the person responsible for overseeing everyone’s safety.
Interviewing a Tour Guide
Do you have a few potential candidates lined up whom you want to interview for the role? That’s great news! So now it’s time for you to start preparing for the interview. But to improve the possibility of filtering out the best candidate for the job, you need to ensure you ask the right questions.
Luckily, we’ve done the hard work for you. Below, you will find a list of role-specific Tour Guide interview questions and answers (with PDF download). These interview questions target and test the necessary skills and experience required for this role.
Please note:
These Tour Guide interview questions are suggestions for the earlier stages of the interview process. They are therefore a little more general, but will help you sift through the initial batch of candidates.
How to open the job interview
There’s a good chance your candidate will be nervous at the beginning of the interview. That’s normal and happens to most of us. That’s why we always advise starting the interview with a few easy opening questions.
These questions help put your candidate at ease and allows them to settle into the interview a bit.