GuideWeek 2021

Tour guiding can be a very competitive and, at times, solitary enterprise. Fortunately, volunteer-run, not-for-profit tour-guide associations around the world work to support and connect guides in their respective local areas. In this session, GANYC leadership will discuss its various initiatives and programs that promote, protect and connect NYC’s professional tour guides, to illustrate how participating in your local association can enhance your career as a guide.

Your takeaway: For NYC guides, a refresher on all that GANYC offers, plus how and why you should get involved. For guides from the rest of the world, sharing ideas that might be useful for your local guides association, and illustrating how your career will benefit by getting involved in your local guide association.

Price for the customers you want, price for the perceived value of your tours, price competitively, price with OTAs in mind…There’s a lot of advice and formulas out there for how to price your tours. Our panel will conduct a deep dive into how to price myriad types of tours, from public walking tours, to groups, to private luxury tours, discuss successful pricing strategies, and what missteps to try to avoid. .

Your takeaway: Clear methods and best practices for how to price your tours.

Anette Nielsen, Jeremiah Calvino, Marica Brewster

Marketing – the word sends chills down the spines of most tour guides. How do I market myself and my tours? How much time should I devote to marketing? How much will it cost to do it right? In this session, 3 experts who specialize in marketing tours and activities will discuss the principles of marketing, offer examples for what’s worked well in the tourism industry, and answer any questions.

Your takeaway: Have a clear idea of which platforms you want to be on and how you can best utilize them to increase your bookings.

Ariel Viera, Danielle Desir, Patrick Von Roosendaal

If COVID-19 has taught tour guides one lesson, it’s that tourism can be very fragile (and for most of us it has always been seasonal). It has never been more vital to be able to translate your tour-guiding skills into other streams of passive income. This session features 3 veteran content creators who will discuss how to monetize your skills in other arenas, such as blogs, book writing, podcasts and other areas, and how this can improve your tour business as well.

Your takeaway: New ideas on how to monetize your tour-guiding skills.

As important as your tour website is, it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. In this case study, we paired a veteran GANYC guide in need of a website reboot with a professional web designer to outline what elements go into an effective, contemporary website in order to attract and retain clients.

Your takeaway: A list of elements that every website should have, and ideas for finding and working with web designers

Corey Schneider, Akila McConnell, Alex Brainbridge, Alice Shindelar

Virtual Tours offered a lifeline for many tour guides during the pandemic, and appear here to stay in some form, even as we return to in-person touring. So how do you make your virtual tours as good as can be, so good that they can compete with — and complement your own — in-person experiences? This panel features companies that have enjoyed great success with virtual tours, and plan to keep them a part of their regular lineup, as well as professional storytellers from the digital world who are experts at creating content for the virtual space.

Your takeaway: Fresh and practical ideas on how to perfect, optimize, and sell your virtual tours, and where the virtual tour space is headed vis a vis in-person experiences.