Still Hiring: Recruiting and Retaining Tour Guides in an Ongoing Labor Shortage

How two experienced tour operators stand out above their competitors to attract, train and retain the best tour guides

Reading Time: 7 minutes 15 seconds

“Sorry for the wait, we’re short-staffed.” It’s a common refrain in these post-Covid times. With the widespread, persistent labor shortage in tourism, finding and keeping quality guides is an ongoing challenge for operators worldwide.

The problem isn’t going away anytime soon, either: tour operators in Southern Europe — along with hotels and restaurants — faced more than 400,000 vacancies in 2022 as travelers returned to the region in droves, and tourism spending is projected to outpace employment levels for several years to come, as the Financial Times reports

In this climate, it’s a job seeker’s market. “They don’t need us as much as we need them,” explains Despina Savvidou, who heads up guide recruitment, hiring, training and retention as Co-founder of Athens Walking Tours

Many former guides may also never return. “Covid wiped away a lot of guides that went to other industries,” explains Yorick Viche, CEO and Co-founder of Your Tours in Portugal. 

So how do operators find — and keep — good quality guides in this “new normal”? 

Your Tours and Athens Walking Tours have both managed to stand out above their competitors by attracting and retaining guides: Savvidou shares that she has already booked 95% of the guides she’ll need for the coming peak season. Here are some of their top strategies to stay a step ahead of the labor shortage. 

1. Offer Year-Round Work to Guides

For guides the seasonal nature of the work tends to be a challenge. One way tour companies can differentiate themselves from their competitors is by offering guides the option of year-round work. 

Your Tours recognizes the importance of stability for their guides and offers full year contracts. Off-season work has been built into the structure of the company from the beginning: for example, instead of having other staff do projects like generating story content and updating manuals for tours, this work is given to guides in the low seasons. During the pandemic, they had guides developing virtual tours. “Our goal was to be able to create a structure that could keep the guides all year round,” says Viche. 

Offering guides work in the off-season can be a major incentive | Photo: Your Tours

However, it may not be possible for all tour companies to employ all of their guides year-round. Savvidou’s approach with Athens Walking Tours — which does run year-round tours but needs a lot more guides in the summer months — is to offer work in the low season as an incentive for guides who commit to a certain number of days in the high season.

2. Offer Competitive Pay Rates and Other Financial Incentives 

“It’s very important to know your market,” says Viche. “So what the others are paying, what are the conditions that the other companies are offering to these freelance guides? You need to be at least the same or higher because… of course they have a choice.”

Savvidou agrees. “They get paid quite well,” she says of her guides. 

Pay rates are not the only way to ensure your guides are well compensated. Other financial incentives include tips and bonuses. Both Viche and Savvidou encourage their clients to tip the guides. “We are known for clients giving good tips,” says Viche. 

Athens Walking Tours guides also get a bonus for receiving good reviews, and for staying on longer term. “If they get more than 90 days with us we give them a present, a check for Christmas,” says Savvidou. “At Easter we eat lamb.”

ARIVAL 360 | VALENCIA

28-30 APRIL 2025

Insider Pro Access Members Save 20%

THE event of the year for the European in-destination experiences industry

SAVE UP TO €990 as an Insider Pro Access Member

Learn More

3. Invest in Training to Set Guides Up for Success

Training itself can be an incentive for many guides. Training sets guides up for success and also things like familiarization tours where guides get to learn on the road can be a fun highlight in the learning process.

“Many other agencies just send new guides on a tour, no training,” says Savvidou. Guides come to them because they know they get training. Savvidou trains guides on everything from knowledge to how to interact with and entertain the guests to how to customize their tours to guests of different cultures and ages. She offers one of her key pieces of advice for guides: “You’re not going to make historians, you’re not going to make them archeologists. Try to make them happy.”

Don’t train your guides to bore guests with facts, train them to make people happy | Photo: Pexels / Julia Avamotive

Your Tours guides are driver guides so safe driving skills is a key component of the training, which also involves 1-2 weeks of theory and 1-2 weeks of on the road training. Guides also get to travel to other parts of the country they wouldn’t normally lead tours in, in order to get familiar with other things they can recommend to their guests. 

“Sometimes they take the training and leave, Savvidou laments, which is of course not ideal for tour operators, but there are ways around it. 

In Portugal, where Your Tours is training driver guides, Viche explains the best way to protect against this is by requiring them to pay back the training investment if they leave within a certain amount of time. “There’s a line in the contract,” he says, however he also recognizes that the best way to keep guides is not with legalities but through a variety of other things that make them want to stay.

4. Offer More Desirable Working Conditions 

In Portugal where Your Tours operators, a lot of companies have multiple pickup and dropoff points and require guides to offer tours in multiple languages, explains Viche. “We have one pick up, one drop off, one language — so it’s better for the guides than long times in traffic to do multiple pickups and work in multiple languages at the same time.”

Savvidou herself worked as a guide for over 20 years and explains one of her ideal conditions is working with smaller groups. “A deep wish of mine was not to work with very big groups and not to work on a bus… to walk with them.” When she co-founded Athens Walking Tours with her husband Yiannis, they ensured the group size was maxed out at 18 to keep the groups small, and more manageable for the guides. 

Despina Savvidou leading a walking tour in Athens | Photo: Athens Walking Tours / Dimitris Papadimitriou

For walking tour guides, coming in to work to lead only one tour can also be a downside. “We give them double tours,” says Savvidou, “two to three time slots on a busy day so they get lots of work in one day.”

5. Focus on Guides’ Needs & Future Potential

Having a flexible schedule is a major pro for guides who are choosing this career over the 9-5 life. So for tour companies, flexibility in adapting to the guides’ schedules and needs is an important incentive. 

“We try to adapt to everybody,” says Viche, and although it can make things more difficult for the company logistically, he believes encouraging the guides to be open about what is important to them and working around their needs for holidays is important and makes them feel more of an important part of the company. “For their birthday they are always off,” he says.

Flexible scheduling and future growth potential are potentially attractive factors for guides | Photo: Pexels / Nina Uhlikova

For Savvidou as well, negotiating the schedule in a friendly way is an important part of the relationship. “When they have a problem they come to me,” she says, and makes sure they know they are always supported.

Having the ability to grow within a company is another important incentive. “If you want someone to stay two years, give them the opportunity to become knowledgeable about more than what they started with,” says Viche. Challenge them, give them projects that help them grow, allow them to try other functions, and be attentive to their needs, and recognize that what matters to them can also change, he advises. “Do not stop doing things for the guides and caring for them.” 

Hiring, Training and Retaining Guides at Arival 360 | Berlin

Both Savvidou and Viche will be at Arival 360 | Berlin in March. Viche will be co-leading a breakout session on hiring, training and retaining guides alongside Luca Perfetto from Towns of Italy, moderated by Mitch Bach from TripSchool. The session will be a roundtable discussion sharing ideas about how to lock in and train a solid and committed team.

Yorick Viche
CEO & Founder
Your Tours Portugal

Insider Pro Access Members can also benefit from the upcoming March 2, 2023 Insider Pro Meetup, where Alan Armijo, TripSchool and Joan Keddell, International Tour Management Institute will be moderating a discussion on how to find, train and retain tour guides…and fast. RSVP required, register here!

Become an Insider Pro Access member today and get access to the full library of Arival research, plus many other benefits such as free consulting sessions, special discounts and 20% off in-person events, starting from $179 per year.

GET ON THE LIST!

Sign up to receive insights tailored for the in-destination industry as well as updates on Arival.

Sign Up

Header photo: Helena Lopez / Pexels

trending

already a member?

Lost your password?

NEED TO REGISTER?

Become an Arival Insider
THE ARIVAL INSIDER PRO ACCESS MEMBERSHIP; YOU GET ALL THIS TO HELP YOU ADVANCE YOUR BUSINESS.

Included in Free Membership

Included in Arival Pro Membership

The Arival on-demand video library archive
Access to the entire library of over 150 video sessions and webinars

Arival.guides
Short, digestible research & trends reports delivering insights into our industry, such as The Tour Operator Outlook for 2021.

Arival.travel articles
Topical articles about marketing, tech, operator business and operator stories in all areas of tours, activities & attractions & experiences

Job board access
Find a job from our regular listings, post a resume to the talent network and learn strategies from the job resources articles

New webinars
Helpful, instructional sessions covering subjects such as Mastering Facebook Ads, Grow Your Business and How To Work With OTAs — topics to help advance your business.

Discounts on all Arival in-person events
20% Discount on all Arival in-person events (save up to $300)* based on business type

Arival ProShield – Insurance program
Access to tailored insurance solutions by Granite Insurance is available exclusively for Arival Insider Pro Access Members. Insider Pro Access Members also have access to a suite of resources from Granite Insurance including templates, forms and other informative documents.

Insiders Pro Access member exclusive webinars
Paid membership-only webinars to deepen your understanding of important industry topics.

Job postings & talent directory
Post jobs & connect with candidates most applicable to your business.

Private roundtables to connect, learn and engage
Small, focused and intimate discussions exclusive to Arival Insider Pro Access members.

Full access to Arival’s library of in-depth reports
Up to date, deep analysis of tourism topics ranging from Self-guided Tours to Sales & Distribution Trends and Outlooks, based on the data that defines the industry.

The latest on-demand videos
Over 350+ on-demand videos featuring hot topics in tours, activities & attractions

Insider discounts in digital marketing, tech, e-learning, and more
Save money on additional tools, services and learnings you need to run your business. Exclusive to paid members.

Membership Overview
ARIVAL CODE OF CONDUCT​
CONFERENCES AND COMMUNITY SPACES​

At Arival, we believe travel can make the world a better place. Our mission is to establish and inspire a diverse community of individuals and companies in the In-destination Industry by providing opportunities to gain insight, share knowledge and build connections. To make it possible for true collaboration, creativity, innovation, and idea exchange to thrive, we are committed to facilitating a welcoming and respectful community for all. This Conference Code of Conduct shares our community expectations and applies to all attendees, employees, exhibitors, speakers, sponsors, volunteers, and other participants at Arival- produced and sponsored events. We empower all participants in our community to actively engage in creating a friendly, inclusive and safe environment for all.

Arival’s core values include the following, and create an expectation for conduct at our events and in online community spaces:

We demonstrate a deep respect for human beings inside and outside our company and for the communities in which they live.
We value integrity and strive to consistently interact with others in ways that are authentic, ethical, and fair.
We are dedicated to transparency, committing to clear, open and honest communication.
We actively pursue and advocate for inclusion, diversity and representation of varying cultural backgrounds, perspectives and ideas

Arival welcomes people from all cultural backgrounds, and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, gender (including pregnancy, perceived pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions), gender identity, religion (including religious dress and grooming), marital status, domestic partner status, genetic information, age, national origin or ancestry, military or veteran status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Accordingly, participants must refrain from displaying any demeaning, harassing, aggressive, or intimidating behavior or materials that would interfere with others’ experience and participation in our community.

If you witness or are subjected to inappropriate or disruptive behavior or have any other concerns, notify an Arival staff member as soon as possible.

Inappropriate or disruptive behavior will not be tolerated. Arival reserves the right to refuse entry to or remove any party from any event or community space at any time when participation or behavior create a disruption or hinder the event or enjoyment of the event by other participants. All determinations are at the sole discretion of Arival, and the decision of the Arival team will be final. Severe breaches of this Conference Code of Conduct may result in disqualification from participating in future events. Individuals expelled due to violating this Conference Code of Conduct will not be eligible for a refund or other consolation.

If you have questions regarding this Conference Code of Conduct or its implementation, please contact us at [email protected].