trafalgar tour guide salary

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Tour Guide Pay and Benefits

So let’s get down to the nitty gritty of what land tour guides and tour directors earn. This industry is by far catered to those who have a passion for travel as opposed to becoming rich, but there are some exciting benefits for those who work hard and acquire various skills over the years, including learning new languages, receiving advanced training, and learning some sporting skills for adventure tours.

Generally speaking, tour guides can earn between $50 and $150 per day taking a lot of factors into consideration such as experience, locations, training, type of tour, and others. Aside from this, many tour companies encourage their passengers to tip the tour guides, so this can bump up your salary dramatically. Some of the more experienced tour guides earn anywhere between $30,000 and $60,000 per year. A regular tipping policy offered is explained by this tour operator:

“ Tipping is a big part of the job – the pay anyway. Our policies differ depending on the tour, and we’ve got two types. The first is the all inclusive tour, where the company gives the guide extra pay as tips and the guests are not expected to pay any form of gratuities, as it is added into the price of the tour. The tips are normally $20 per day as a minimum, but you do get benefits, and these types of tours offer a salaried pay. The other type of tour is the one where guides get paid per day instead of a monthly salary, but then the guests will tip you at the end of every day according to how good you were. Customers almost always tip, and this is a great incentive to keep them happy the entire day of the tour. The last tour I worked, I made over $350 in just 5 days !”

Pay and Benefits

Receptor Service: This is where you meet tour groups at the airports or assist them at the train depot. This job normally pays around $10 to $15 per hour.

Tour Guide: An entry level tour guide or tour director without training will make about $8 to $15 per hour depending on the type of tour, and you get a free trip somewhere for the day. The more experienced tour guides will earn about $20 to $25 per hour with extra pay being offered after 8 hours.

Tour Directors/Managers: Trained and experienced tour directors normally earn between $250 and $350 per day and you also get paid time and a half if you lead overnight tour groups. These can last anywhere from 7 days to 27 days, so you are earning a good salary at the end of the tour.

DMC Tour Guides: The experienced highly skilled tour managers working for incentive houses and DMC’s can earn anywhere from $300 to over $400 per day.

Tips are then added to these payments, so the larger the group, the more money you will make. Take note that there are very generalized figures as the pay varies quite a bit depending on where you work, the company you work for, what benefits you get, how the tipping works, and how much experience and training you have.

Benefits: These include travel opportunities, meeting new people, paid board and meals on long tours, free lunch or dinner on day tours, days off. Let’s look at these benefits in more detail:

• Travel opportunities exist for all tour guides. Whether you are leading domestic tours around your home city, or managing long distance or international tours, you still get the opportunity to travel and see new places. Visiting attractions, beautiful villages, restaurants that you wouldn’t normally go to, attending shows and more can be realized as a tour guide.

It can be hard, however to juggle the responsibilities of finding lost luggage, keeping the group happy, organizing accommodation, booking shows and making restaurant reservations, while trying to find the time to travel, but you have to think that you will be doing all of these tasks while in Hawaii or Bali, India or Australia, so both can be accomplished at the same time in many instances.

• Meeting people is an exciting part of being a tour guide for many people. They enjoy hearing traveler’s stories and networking with people from all over the world, whether they are CEO’s, students, families, or retired couples. This is an integral part of being a tour guide and if you don’t get along with people, then this job is not for you. One tour guide explains: 

“Let’s face it. You go to a destination once and you’re nervous and excited, twice and you love it, but three times and you’re already getting bored. That’s why it’s important to really get along well with the passengers and enjoy their company . . .”

Did You Know? Some companies do not allow tipping, so make sure you find out this information when you apply for jobs.

Land Tour Guide Salary Details

The following table highlights the hourly wage and annual earnings for tour guides and escorts in the U.S. per state according to the U.S Department of Labor:

The average hourly wage in the U.S for a land tour guide is $13 per hour, while the average annual salary for a tour guide is $23,000 in America.

Although the pay might seem low, there is a huge incentive to travel to exotic locations and although you’re working long hours, sometimes 12 to 15 per day, you have very few out of pocket expenses. Your meals are free, your transport on the tour, whether by bus, train or ship, is free, and your accommodation, if required, is also paid for.

Quick Summary:

• Entry level land tour guide pay starts at $8 per hour
• Tour Managers earn up to $400 per day
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The Scoop: What to Know About Trafalgar Tours

With 300 itineraries in 72 countries, trafalgar tours casts a wide net..

The Scoop: What to Know About EF Go Ahead Tours

Here at TourScoop, we’re all about using our real-world, real-person travel expertise—honed over decades of travel—to help travelers make great decisions about travel. Today we’re going deep on Trafalgar Tours, a tour company that’s been around for nearly a century. In this article, we’ve gathered up everything we think you might need to know to decide if Trafalgar is going to be the right tour operator for your next trip.

Trafalgar Tours is one of the grande dames of the tour world, one that has escorted five million guests on trips around the world over the last century and has a solid track record. Today, it has 300 itineraries in 72 countries. Its strength lies in its ability to deliver both standard coach tours and also small group tours and specialized tours that highlight nature, history, food, and other specific areas of interest.

TourScoop Takeaways : Trafalgar

• Countries: 72 countries on six continents
• Tour Size Average: The standard group size is about 40 guests. Trafalgar also offers Small Group Active Tours that have no more than 17 guests. 
• Tour Type: Coach

How to Book

To book a Trafalgar tour, you can go a few different routes. The easiest is to book through Trafalgar ; but you can also opt for a tour-specialist online travel agent like Travelstride , Tourhub , or TourRadar .

Credibility Check

Trafalgar has a Feefo rating of 4.6/5 and received the company’s Platinum Trusted Service Award for 2022. On TourRadar , Trafalgar has a rating of 4.5/5 and is a gold partner, meaning the brand has a high rating and is recognized to promptly respond to queries. According to Trafalgar, it has a repeat guest rating of 53% with a 97% satisfaction rate.

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The brand has won over 80 awards including Travel Weekly’s Readers’ Choice Awards and USA Today’s 10Best Tour Company. It also hosts unedited reviews from its customers on its site. 

Tour Destinations

Trafalgar offers trips to 72 countries across six continents, with over 300 itineraries . Among its most popular tour destinations are England, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, Egypt, Ireland, Argentina, the United States, and Thailand.

Trafalgar offers both general guided vacations and special interest tours. Its special interest tours include food and wine tours such as Taste and Sound of the South , family tours including Pioneer Adventures of the Old West , religious tours such as Land of the Gods , battlefield tours including WWI and WWII Battlefields , safaris such as Wonders of Kenya , and women’s only tours in destinations such as Turkey and Egypt .

Trafalgar also offers active travel tours with options for more rigorous hiking and biking activities than the average tour. These trips include Trafalgar’s new Small Group Active Tours that include itineraries such as Yellowstone, The Tetons and Glacier National Park and California Coast Food and Wine Trail .

Tour Guides

Tour directors come onto the job with three to five years of road experience, and receive a ton of training including diversity and inclusion training, well-being training, customer service instruction, and administration. All of this is geared to help these tour guides be as professional, organized, helpful, and personable as possible.

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In addition to all that training, each year, travel directors also receive a week-long professional development program in which they are placed in the position of the guest for a week of touring and training on the ground and in the classroom. Trafalgar has travel directors who have been with the company for 30 years; the longest serving Travel Director has been with Trafalgar for 45 years .

Inclusions/Extras

Trafalgar trips include all accommodations and transportation during the trip plus most meals. Most activities are included in the itinerary, though Trafalgar also offers optional experiences for additional fees. Transfers to and from the airport are offered in the majority of overseas countries free of charge. Trafalgar can help arrange flights (not included in the base price) at the beginning and end of a trip.

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On select trips featuring Be My Guest experiences, Trafalgar includes one-of-a-kind experiences such as meeting with locals for lunch and learning about their way of life, staying in accommodations such as castles or historical hotels, or gaining early entry into bucket list attractions such as the Vatican.

Typical Travelers

The majority of Trafalgar guests are 50 and up, though on family tours children as young as five participate. Trafalgar has a robust solo travel program with free or reduced single supplement prices for tours in Europe, North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand. Travelers come from all over the world, and in recent years, post-trip guest-managed Facebook groups have cropped up, allowing guests (and their travel director) to stay in touch. 

Communication 

After booking a Trafalgar tour, guests get access to MyTrafalgar , a gated part of the Trafalgar website where guests can provide details about any dietary restrictions, upload emergency contact information, and connect with their Travel Director. About a week before the departure date, guests receive access to all travel documents for the trip plus instructions for joining a group chat with Travel Directors and other guests.

Loyalty Program

Trafalgar has switched from its former VIT loyalty program to the Global Tour Rewards program, which allows guests to collect and spend rewards across all the TTC tour companies, including Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Luxury Gold, Costsaver, Brendan Vacations, and Contiki.

Private Options

Groups of 10 or more can work with the Trafalgar team to create customized private itineraries that cater to specific budget and interests.  

Sustainability Efforts

Trafalgar works with the TreadRight Foundation on projects focused on conserving the planet, preserving cultures throughout the world, and protecting wildlife. In 2020, Trafalgar, along with TreadRight, launched the How We Tread Right (HWTR) sustainability strategy that the brand is hoping to achieve by 2025. These goals are in line with the UN’s Global Goals and address climate change, sustainable food production, waste reduction, travel experiences, diversity and inclusion and wildlife. 

Trafalgar offers opportunities on trip for guests to work towards those sustainable goals through its MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences. These experiences are meant to leave a more positive social or environmental impact on the communities they visit.

Trafalgar (and the other TTC companies)  recently became the first global tour operator to “secure validated short and long-term net zero targets through the Science Based Target Initiative – SBTi, a partnership with CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute and the World Wide Fund for Nature.”

Health and Safety Practices

Trafalgar’s teams offer always-on support and are always up to date on the latest regulations. Should any issues arise, there’s 24/7 incident response that means the Trafalgar team can and will assist and work directly with local medical support and local authorities. Trafalgar updates its health and safety practices regularly, so check the website for the latest policies.

Family Companies

Trafalgar is a part of The Travel Corporation’s family of brands, which also includes Insight Vacations , Contiki , Uniworld , and about a dozen other brands.

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Tour Guide Salary in the United States

Tour guide salary.

How much does a Tour Guide make in the United States? The average Tour Guide salary in the United States is $66,955 as of March 26, 2024, but the salary range typically falls between $57,766 and $76,394 . Salary ranges can vary widely depending on many important factors, including education , certifications, additional skills, the number of years you have spent in your profession. With more online, real-time compensation data than any other website, Salary.com helps you determine your exact pay target.

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A tour guide (U.S.) or a tourist guide (European) is a person who provides assistance, information on cultural, historical and contemporary heritage to people on organized tours and individual clients at educational establishments, religious and historical sites, museums, and at venues of other significant interest, attractions sites....

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Tour Guide Salary in The United States

The average Tour Guide Salary in The United States is $33,600 per year . Salaries range from $26,900 to $58,700 . The average Tour Guide Hourly Wage is $10.50 per hour . Hourly wages range from $8.40 to $19.43 . Salaries and wages depend on multiple factors including geographic location, experience, seniority, industry, education etc.

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