A tourist guide is a profession associated with tourism. A guide should have a good organization skills, good manners, self control and good communication skills. In order to professionally carry out the profession, a guide should know all about the attraction which he presents, the binding regulations and customs in the place, to assist non-oriented tourists whenever necessary.
In addition, the guide should be a lover of tourism, actively cultivating it and have a health condition that allows the conduct of this profession.
The duties of a tourist guide are significantly different from those of a tour guide, and above all do not involve such a large responsibility and mobility. These include, among others:
- guiding excursions in a specific region, city or attractions,
- providing comprehensive and reliable information about attractions, sometimes in a foreign language, informing the tourists about its tourist, cultural, historical, or social features,
- promoting the principles of environmental protection, respect for nature and landscape, as well as the importance of culture in everyday life, respect for monuments,
- providing care over participants during the excursion,
- provide first aid if necessary; in such cases it is extremely important to use proper communication skills, hence the need of good knowledge of a foreign language, especially English due to its universality, as well as a second language in which the tourists guided by the tourist guide speak,
- continuous updating of their knowledge, obeying the principles of the rules for tourist guides.
There are several types of tourist guides:
- a mountain guide, dealing with the guided tour trips in the specific areas of the mountains,
- a city guide, designated for specific cities, or parts thereof or attractions located within them, as well as suburban areas if they are related to the city, for example historically or culturally,
- a terrain guide, covering different regions or areas of administrative units.
Access to the profession of a city guide and a terrain guide starting January 1st, 2014 has become easier. From that day on, as a result of the entry into force of the deregulating Act for candidates for this profession, the requirement of undergoing theoretical and practical training was abolished. Persons wishing to conduct the above profession are also not obliged to take an exam. It is sufficient that they are at least 18 years of age, are secondary education graduates and hold no penal record related to the performance of tasks of a tourist guide or a tour manager. The requirement of undertaking training and passing exams has only been retained for mountain guides.