How to Deal with Late Guests as a Tour Guide
As a tour leader, tour guide or tour director – dealing with late clients is something you face regularly. No matter how clearly you communicate, or how well information is posted on your website – there are many guests who WILL come late to your tours.
Sometimes it is through no fault of their own, sometimes it’s because of cultural differences (a shout out to my African and Brazilian brothers and sisters!) but sometimes, it’s just because.
Being in the hospitality and service industry, we need effective strategies to deal with these folks. Other people on tour should not have to wait because of one or two people – and it’s our main goal to start on time and keep the momentum of the tour going.
Want to know how many pro tour guides handle these situations? Good – I was hoping you did. = )
-Kelsey T
Q&A Tweetable
Click here to share this week’s tweetable:
I have noticed that the people who are late, are so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them -E. Lucas @beabetterguide
Finished watching?
Let me know in the comments below how you deal with late guests. What systems have you put in place that work the best?
As always, like this video, if you’re inspired and subscribe to join the community!
Transcript:
Hi, this is Kelsey from beabetterguide.com welcomes to this week’s Community Q&A. Our question this week: how to deal with late guests. This is something you’re regularly faced with as a tour guide or tour manager. So, today, I give you five ways to tackle this challenge head-on.
Set precedent. Whatever time you say you’re going to start your tour, as much as humanly possible, start at that time.
This basically boils down to you being there early as a tour guide and ready to deal with whatever comes up. On a multi-day or a longer trip this also lets guests know that you’re taking your timing seriously.
If every time you’re starting 10 or 15 minutes late, people are going to start showing up later and later.
Reminders. Communicate to your clients as many times as possible where they need to be, and when they need to be there.
Ideally, even a little bit before the time you actually want to get started. If it’s the first time that you’re meeting them by text or e-mail reminders, three or four hours before the tour is ideal.
And on longer tours, remind them to say in the evening about the meeting time for the morning, or if you’ve got a two or three-day tour, hand out an itinerary with all the times on it.
If possible, begin your activity or tour in a spot that’s pretty close to your original meeting point. It’s always a good idea to get people moving right away when you start your tour.
Try not to go too far. That way if a latecomer shows up and you’re still giving your introduction or pre-briefing, or whatever, they can join in fairly easily.
Be sure to prepare and have a system ready for late guests because, basically, it’s going to happen. So, communicate the system to your clients in an e-mail or pre-trip documentation.
Whatever that system looks like for you, make sure the guests know about it and that the guides do, too.
Emphasize really important times. Is there a particular time, maybe it even is the start, where it’s absolutely imperative that guests are there? Well, tell them.
They’ll respond to this kind of clear and direct communication. If you say, “Hey, at 8:30, everyone needs to be here because the boat is leaving and at 8:35, the boat is gone,” people generally will be there on time if it’s stressed in this way.
Those are five quick examples just to get you thinking. But the take-home message for today is that you should never have guests just waiting around, especially if they’re the ones who are considerate enough to show up on time.
And that brings us to today’s tweetable.
“I have noticed that people who are late are so much jollier than the people who wait for them.”
–E. Lucas
So, share that tweetable if you’re inspired, or share this video if you’re doubly inspired, and subscribe to join the community.
Now, it’s your turn. Do you have a great system for dealing with late guests? Let us all know in the comments over at beabetterguide.com. Thanks so much for being here, and I’ll see you next time.
