Tour Director Job Description
Overview
Steps to start your career as a Tour Director (and similar roles)
- * Practice and Mastery: Spend significant time practicing your sport or activity to develop expertise. For example, if you're interested in becoming a fishing guide, spend years honing your fishing skills and knowledge on the area you’ll be guiding. * Work with Experts: Gain experience by working or volunteering with established guides or organizations; simply people who have experience doing what you want to do. This can provide valuable insights and practical knowledge about the industry.
- * Practice and Mastery: Spend significant time practicing your sport or activity to develop expertise. For example, if you're interested in becoming a fishing guide, spend years honing your fishing skills and knowledge on the area you’ll be guiding. * Work with Experts: Gain experience by working or volunteering with established guides or organizations; simply people who have experience doing what you want to do. This can provide valuable insights and practical knowledge about the industry.
- * Industry Connections: Network with other guides, outdoor organizations, and industry professionals. Join relevant associations or clubs to build connections and gain industry insights. * Promote Yourself: Create a professional portfolio or website showcasing your skills, experience, and client testimonials. Consider using social media and other platforms to build your reputation and attract clients.
- * Business Skills: Learn about the business aspects of guiding, such as marketing, client management, and financial planning. Understanding these elements will help you run a successful guiding business. * Legal and Insurance Requirements: Familiarize yourself with legal requirements, including liability insurance and necessary permits or licenses for operating as a professional guide in your area.
Pros of Being a Guide
I am a charter guide in Ketchikan, Alaska. I do not work in an office. I only happily work about half the year.
Cons of Being a Guide
Time away from home, time away from family. After COVID happened, it could be 100% on and then 0% off in one year. So it's a volatile, tourism is a volatile market.
How I Got Into This Career
I was a commercial fisherman to begin with. Commercial fishing is dying, it's hard to make money. I had to travel 3600 miles from North Carolina. I fished North Carolina, New York, Louisiana and here commercially and still didn't make it. I saw the tourism industry and the hundreds of thousands of people coming here. So it's a really lucrative place to take people. And as opposed to selling fish for money, whether we catch a fish out here or not, I'm gonna get paid.
Tips to Get Into Guiding
There's so much competition in the lower 48 states for the industry that they don't get paid much. They make very little money to do this there. So I actually recruit from Florida because its sort of like a puppy mill for Captains because it's a real competitive industry with low margins but here (in Alaska) the margins are good. So I would say put yourself in an area that you can make money in and like something where the tourism is just so high that you know all I gotta do is get six people a day out of we got 12,000 passengers in town. So put yourself in an area to succeed.
Career Advice
If everybody at the town that you're trying to become a charter guide at is driving the shittiest truck and complaining and poor, I wouldn't probably try to recreate the wheel there because they've been doing it already and are struggling to survive. So a it's a cutthroat industry, but if you can get out here where there's a lot of people trying to go fishing, you can definitely make it.
Salary
That guy right there is 30 years old, owns that house, he has three charter boats. He net last year $740,000 for his fishing. It's pretty good. He will be a millionaire by charter fishing. He's the only person I'll know that will be 40 with a million dollars in his back account from this industry though. So you know it's tough, but there are places to make it happen.
What skills do Tour Directors need?
These are the most commonly mentioned skills in job descriptions for Tour Director jobs and are ordered by most to least common.
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Education you need to become a Tour Director
These are the most common degrees or certificates earned by Jobtrees users prior to becoming a Tour Director
There may be other required degrees or certifications needed for this job. The below info shows you the most commonly desired education level from employers when hiring for this job.
- Associate Degree in Accounting
- Bachelor of Arts (b.a.) in General Studi...
- Bachelor of Science (b.sc.) in Nursing
- Bachelor of Arts (b.a.) in English
- Bachelor Degree in Health Services
- Associate of Arts (aa)
Annual Pay Estimate for Tour Director and Other Important Info
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Career Paths for Tour Director
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