a museum tour guide is called

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• Travel Guide

How To Be A Museum Tour Guide

Published: December 12, 2023

Modified: December 28, 2023

by Rosa Umana

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Introduction

Welcome to the world of museum tour guiding! Being a museum tour guide is a rewarding and exciting experience that allows you to share your passion for art, history, and culture with visitors from all over the world. As a guide, you have the opportunity to educate and inspire others, making their museum visit a memorable and enriching experience.

In this guide, we will take you through the essential steps to becoming an exceptional museum tour guide. Whether you are a seasoned professional looking to enhance your skills or someone who is just starting out in the field, there is something here for everyone.

Museum tour guiding requires a unique set of skills, including in-depth knowledge about the museum and its collections, effective communication techniques, and the ability to engage with visitors on a personal level. We will explore each of these aspects in detail, providing you with practical tips and strategies to excel in your role.

Additionally, we will discuss the importance of managing groups and creating a welcoming atmosphere for visitors. We will also address how to handle difficult situations and answer challenging questions from curious guests. Furthermore, we will share resources and recommendations to better assist visitors in their exploration of the museum.

So, whether you are preparing for your first tour or looking to refine your skills, get ready to embark on a journey that will empower you to become an exceptional museum tour guide.

Step 1: Understanding the Role of a Museum Tour Guide

Before diving into the specifics of becoming a museum tour guide, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the role itself. A museum tour guide is not just a person who walks visitors through the galleries, pointing out interesting artifacts. It is a role that requires a deep knowledge of the museum’s collections, a passion for art and history, and the ability to engage and educate visitors.

First and foremost, a museum tour guide serves as a storyteller. Your job is to bring the museum’s collections to life and connect visitors with the stories behind the artifacts. This involves researching and understanding the historical and cultural context of the exhibits, as well as the artists or civilizations they represent. By weaving narratives and anecdotes into your tours, you can create a captivating and memorable experience for your guests.

As a tour guide, you also play a critical role in educating visitors about the significance of the museum’s collections. Your knowledge and insights can help visitors appreciate and understand the value of the artworks or artifacts they encounter. This includes providing historical context, explaining artistic techniques, and highlighting the cultural importance of the pieces.

Furthermore, a museum tour guide must possess strong communication skills. You need to be able to convey information clearly and concisely, adapting your language and style to suit the audience’s level of understanding. Effective communication goes beyond simply reciting facts – it involves engaging with visitors, asking questions, and encouraging dialogue. By fostering conversation and interaction, you can create a more immersive and participatory experience for your guests.

Finally, a museum tour guide must be a welcoming and approachable presence in the museum. Visitors often have various levels of knowledge and interests, and it’s your role to cater to their needs and make them feel comfortable. Having a friendly and enthusiastic demeanor can help create a positive atmosphere and encourage visitors to ask questions and engage with the exhibits.

Understanding the multifaceted role of a museum tour guide is the foundation for success in this field. In the following steps, we will delve deeper into the practical skills and techniques that will enable you to excel as a museum tour guide.

Step 2: Gaining Knowledge about the Museum and its Collections

One of the most important aspects of being a museum tour guide is having a comprehensive understanding of the museum and its collections. This knowledge serves as the backbone of your tours, allowing you to provide accurate and insightful information to visitors. Here are some steps to help you gain a deep knowledge of the museum:

• Research and Study: Start by immersing yourself in the history and background of the museum. Explore the museum’s website, read books and articles about its collections, and attend any special exhibitions or lectures. The more information you gather, the better equipped you will be to deliver engaging tours.
• Engage with Curators and Staff: Take advantage of opportunities to interact with curators, museum staff, and experts in the field. They can provide valuable insights into the collections, share behind-the-scenes stories, and answer any questions you may have. Building relationships with museum professionals can enhance your knowledge and enrich your tours.
• Take Guided Tours: Go on guided tours yourself to gain a visitor’s perspective and observe the techniques and strategies used by experienced guides. Pay attention to how they engage with the audience, the flow of the tour, and the information they provide. This can inspire you and offer new ideas for your own tours.
• Attend Workshops and Training Programs: Many museums offer workshops and training programs specifically designed for tour guides. These sessions can provide valuable insights into best practices, communication techniques, and interpretation methods. Taking part in such programs can help refine your skills and keep you up to date with the latest trends in museum education.
• Continuous Learning: Remember that learning is a lifelong process. Stay curious and strive to expand your knowledge beyond what is immediately necessary for your tours. Keep up with current art and historical events, attend conferences or seminars, and read about new discoveries or interpretations in the field. This ongoing learning will make you a more well-rounded and knowledgeable guide.

By investing time and effort into gaining knowledge about the museum and its collections, you position yourself as a trusted source of information. This expertise will shine through in your tours, ensuring that visitors have a meaningful and educational experience. It’s the foundation upon which you can build your skills as a museum tour guide.

Step 3: Developing Effective Communication Skills

As a museum tour guide, your ability to effectively communicate is essential in engaging and delivering information to visitors. Developing strong communication skills will enable you to connect with your audience and make the museum experience more enjoyable. Here are some strategies to enhance your communication skills:

• Practice Clear and Concise Speaking: Speak clearly and enunciate your words to ensure that visitors can understand you. Avoid using complex jargon or technical terms unless necessary, and explain them in a simple and relatable manner. Take the time to practice your speaking skills by recording yourself or rehearsing in front of a mirror.
• Use Varied Language and Tone: Vary your language and tone to maintain visitors’ interest and engagement. Avoid using a monotonous voice or reading from a script. Instead, aim for a conversational tone and use intonation, emphasis, and pauses to highlight key points or add excitement to your delivery.
• Utilize Non-Verbal Communication: Non-verbal cues can enhance your communication and make it more engaging. Utilize gestures, facial expressions, and body language to convey enthusiasm, interest, and emphasis. Maintain eye contact with your audience to establish a connection and show that you are attentive to their needs.
• Encourage Interaction: Foster a participatory environment where visitors feel comfortable asking questions and sharing their thoughts. Encourage interaction by posing thought-provoking questions, seeking visitors’ opinions, and actively listening to their responses. This creates a dialogue and makes the tour more interactive and engaging for everyone.
• Adapt to your Audience: Tailor your communication style to suit the needs and preferences of your audience. Consider the age range, cultural background, and prior knowledge of your visitors. Adjust your language, content, and examples accordingly to ensure that everyone can understand and connect with the information you are providing.
• Be Responsive and Flexible: During your tour, be attentive to the reactions and interest level of your audience. Adapt your pace, content, and delivery based on their engagement. If visitors seem particularly interested in a certain topic, spend more time exploring it. Similarly, if they appear disengaged, change tactics and find ways to re-ignite their interest.

Effective communication skills not only enable you to convey information successfully but also create a positive and enjoyable experience for visitors. By honing your speaking abilities, utilizing non-verbal cues, encouraging interaction, and adapting to your audience, you will be well on your way to becoming a proficient museum tour guide.

Step 4: Engaging with Visitors through Interactive Presentations

Engaging with visitors through interactive presentations is a key aspect of being a successful museum tour guide. By incorporating interactive elements into your tours, you create a dynamic and immersive experience for your audience. Here are some strategies to effectively engage with visitors:

• Visual Aids: Utilize visual aids such as images, maps, or diagrams to supplement your verbal explanations. These visual representations help visitors visualize the information and make it more memorable. Consider using props or replicas to provide a tactile experience, allowing visitors to interact with the objects.
• Hands-on Activities: Plan activities that encourage visitors to actively participate in the learning process. For example, you can organize small group discussions, creative exercises, or object handling sessions. These activities promote engagement and allow visitors to connect with the museum’s collections on a deeper level.
• Storytelling: Engage visitors by telling captivating stories that relate to the museum’s exhibits. Share interesting anecdotes, historical facts, or personal narratives that connect with the artifacts on display. Storytelling adds a human element to the experience and helps visitors connect emotionally with the museum’s collections.
• Question and Answer Sessions: Incorporate time for question and answer sessions throughout your tour. Encourage visitors to ask questions and provide thoughtful answers that deepen their understanding of the topic. This fosters a sense of curiosity and encourages active participation from your audience.
• Technology and Multimedia: Take advantage of technology and multimedia resources available to enhance your presentations. Use audio guides, videos, or virtual reality experiences to provide a multi-sensory experience for visitors. These digital tools can offer additional insights and perspectives that complement your verbal explanations.
• Group Activities: Engage visitors in group activities that promote collaboration and interaction. For example, you can organize scavenger hunts, art interpretation games, or group discussions. These activities facilitate social interaction between visitors and create a lively and memorable museum experience.

By incorporating interactive elements into your presentations, you encourage visitors to actively participate and connect with the museum’s collections in a meaningful way. The use of visual aids, hands-on activities, storytelling, question and answer sessions, technology, and group activities all contribute to a more engaging and immersive tour experience.

Step 5: Managing Groups and Creating a Welcoming Atmosphere

As a museum tour guide, it is important to not only provide an informative tour but also create a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere for visitors. Managing groups effectively and cultivating a positive environment can greatly enhance the museum experience. Here are some strategies to achieve this:

• Set Clear Expectations: At the beginning of the tour, establish clear expectations regarding the duration, rules, and code of conduct. Communicate any guidelines for photography, cellphone use, or touching of artifacts. By setting clear expectations, you establish a sense of order and respect among the group.
• Manage Group Dynamics: Large groups can sometimes be challenging to handle. Stay organized by providing a designated meeting point or using visual aids such as flags or signs to help guide visitors. Pay attention to the group’s energy levels and adjust your pace accordingly to maintain engagement throughout the tour.
• Create a Welcoming Atmosphere: Make visitors feel welcome and comfortable from the moment they join your tour. Greet them with a smile and introduce yourself, offering any necessary information or directions. Engage in small talk and try to remember visitors’ names, as this personal touch helps create a friendly and inclusive environment.
• Be Attentive and Responsive: Pay attention to the needs and interests of your group. Be ready to adapt your tour based on their reactions and feedback. If visitors show a particular interest in a certain artifact or topic, allocate more time to explore it in depth. Respond to their questions and comments with enthusiasm and respect.
• Ensure Accessibility: Make the museum experience accessible to all visitors, regardless of their physical abilities or limitations. Provide wheelchair accessibility, offer large-print materials, and use inclusive language in your explanations. Pay attention to visually impaired visitors and offer detailed verbal descriptions of the exhibits.
• Maintain a Positive Attitude: Your attitude and enthusiasm are contagious, so maintain a positive outlook and show genuine interest in the museum’s collections. Smile and be approachable, encouraging visitors to connect with you and ask questions. By radiating positivity, you create a welcoming atmosphere that encourages visitors to engage with the exhibits.

By effectively managing groups and creating a welcoming atmosphere, you ensure that visitors have a comfortable and enjoyable museum experience. Clear communication of expectations, managing group dynamics, creating an inclusive environment, and being attentive to visitors’ needs will contribute to a positive and memorable tour.

Step 6: Handling Difficult Situations and Answering Questions

As a museum tour guide, you may encounter challenging situations and receive a wide range of questions from visitors. Being prepared to handle these situations with professionalism and grace is crucial to maintaining a positive experience for everyone involved. Here are some strategies to effectively manage difficult situations and answer questions:

• Remain Calm and Composed: Difficult situations can arise unexpectedly, and it is important to stay calm and composed. Take a deep breath, maintain a professional demeanor, and remember that you are there to assist and educate visitors.
• Active Listening: When someone expresses dissatisfaction or frustration, actively listen to their concerns. Give them your full attention, maintain eye contact, and refrain from interrupting. Let them vent their frustrations and validate their feelings. This shows empathy and demonstrates your willingness to address their issues.
• Empathetic Response: Respond to difficult situations with empathy and understanding. Avoid becoming defensive or argumentative. Instead, acknowledge the visitor’s concern, apologize if necessary, and offer potential solutions or alternatives to address their issue. Remember that each visitor is unique, and treating them with respect and empathy can defuse a difficult situation.
• Provide Accurate Information: It is essential to have a comprehensive knowledge of the museum’s collections and exhibits. This will enable you to answer questions confidently and accurately. If you are unsure of an answer, do not guess. Instead, offer to find the information and follow up with the visitor at a later time.
• Encourage Curiosity and Questions: Foster an environment that encourages visitors to ask questions. Be open to all inquiries, regardless of their complexity or nature. Respond to questions patiently and provide explanations in a clear and concise manner. If faced with a question that stumps you, admit that you don’t know the answer but offer to research it further.
• Stay Positive and Professional: Maintain a positive and professional attitude when dealing with difficult situations or challenging questions. Avoid engaging in arguments or displaying frustration, even if the visitor becomes confrontational. Remember your role as an educator and ambassador for the museum.

Handling difficult situations and answering questions play a pivotal role in providing visitors with a satisfying museum experience. By remaining calm, listening actively, responding empathetically, providing accurate information, and maintaining professionalism, you can effectively manage challenging situations and ensure that visitors feel heard and respected.

Step 7: Providing Additional Resources and Recommendations

As a museum tour guide, your role extends beyond the guided tour itself. One way to enhance the visitor experience is by providing additional resources and recommendations for further exploration. This step allows visitors to continue their engagement with the museum’s collections and deepen their understanding. Here are some strategies to provide valuable resources and recommendations:

• Handouts and Brochures: Prepare handouts or brochures that summarize key information about the museum, its collections, or specific exhibits. Include highlights, interesting facts, and suggested routes for self-guided exploration. These resources serve as a useful reference for visitors to review after the tour.
• Artifacts or Replicas: Consider showcasing replicas or small artifacts that visitors can handle or examine closely. These tangible objects provide a unique opportunity for visitors to further engage with the museum’s collections. Discuss their significance and encourage visitors to think critically about their observation.
• Recommended Reading: Compile a list of recommended books, articles, or websites related to the museum’s collections or the topics covered during the tour. Include a range of resources for visitors with varying interests and levels of expertise. Highlight works that provide in-depth analysis or personal perspectives on the subject matter.
• Virtual Resources: In the digital age, virtual resources are becoming increasingly popular. Share links to online exhibitions, virtual tours, or interactive websites where visitors can further explore the museum’s collections from the comfort of their own homes. These resources allow visitors to delve deeper into the artwork and expand their knowledge.
• Events and Programs: Inform visitors about upcoming events, lectures, workshops, or special programs taking place at the museum. These activities offer additional opportunities for visitors to engage with the museum’s collections in a different context. Encourage visitors to participate and continue their exploration by attending these events.
• Related Museums or Sites: If there are other museums or historical sites in the area that complement the themes or periods covered in your tour, recommend them to visitors. Provide information about their exhibits, admission details, and any special features that may interest your audience. Expand their cultural experience by suggesting other places to visit.

By providing additional resources and recommendations, you extend the visitor’s engagement beyond the guided tour. Handouts, recommended reading, virtual resources, events, related museums, and sites all contribute to a more comprehensive and enriching museum experience for visitors.

Congratulations! You have now completed the journey to becoming an exceptional museum tour guide. Through the various steps outlined in this guide, you have gained an understanding of the role, acquired knowledge about the museum and its collections, developed effective communication skills, engaged with visitors through interactive presentations, managed groups, handled difficult situations, and provided additional resources and recommendations. You are now equipped with the skills and tools necessary to excel in this field.

Being a museum tour guide is a fulfilling and rewarding experience. You have the opportunity to share your passion for art, history, and culture with visitors from all walks of life. Your dedication to creating a welcoming atmosphere, engaging with visitors, and providing valuable information will contribute to a memorable and enriching museum experience for everyone who participates in your tours.

Remember, the journey of learning is never complete. Keep exploring, educating yourself, and seeking new ways to enhance your skills. The museum world is constantly evolving, and there is always more to discover and share with others.

So, go forth with confidence and enthusiasm, and continue to be a guide who inspires and enlightens visitors through the rich and intriguing world of museums. Enjoy the adventure, and may your tours be filled with knowledge, engagement, and a deep appreciation for the wonders of art and history!

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Glossary of Museum Terms *

Accessibility: Giving equitable access to everyone along the continuum of human ability and experience. Accessibility encompasses the broader meanings of compliance and refers to how organizations make space for the characteristics that each person brings.*

Advisory group: An advisory group is a collection of individuals who bring unique knowledge and skills that complement the knowledge and skills of the formal governing authority. The advisory group does not have authority to govern the museum; it cannot issue directives that must be followed. Rather, the advisory group serves to make recommendations or provide key information to the formal governing authority. The advisory group can be standing (on-going) or ad hoc (one time) in nature.

Annual Pass Program: A purchased pass that allows unlimited visits during the year (or another set time period).  Pass Programs can also be set up as a local partnership program which allows purchasers free admission to several participating venues in the area. Often coordinated through a Chamber of Commerce or Welcome Wagon – type of organization, these can be set up to allow one visit to each venue, or unlimited visits during a set time period.

Audience: Groups of people who use the museum’s services by attending or participating at an event, exhibit, program or other presentation. Audiences can be defined by using categories, such as the types of services they use and how they use them (e.g., visitors, members, researchers, program participants, Web site users), or by their demographic characteristics (e.g., families, school groups, seniors, culturally specific groups) or their interests and motivations for participating.

Audience, target: A sub-group of a community with shared demographics or interests that has been chosen as a group to engage with or attract.

Audience survey/study: Collecting data from the museum’s actual and potential audiences to determine their composition and receive feedback. Used to assess the effectiveness of the museum’s activities and services

Best practices: Commendable actions and philosophies that successfully solve problems, can be replicated, and demonstrate an awareness of standards.

Benchmark: A point of reference used in measuring and judging quality or value.

Code of Ethics:   Professional standards of conduct for staff, governing authority members and volunteers carrying out the mission of the museum. A code puts the interests of the public ahead of the interests of the institution or of any individual and encourages conduct that merits public confidence. A code of ethics acknowledges applicable laws and appropriate discipline-specific professional practices in order to help museums meet or exceed them For more information see: AAM Standards regarding an Institutional Code of Ethics

Collections Plan: A plan that guides the content of the collections and leads staff in a coordinated and uniform direction over time to refine and expand the value of collections in a predetermined way. Plans are time-limited and identify specific goals to be achieved. They also provide a rationale for those choices and specify how they will be achieved, who will implement the plan, when it will happen and what it will cost.

Community: Each museum self-identifies the community or communities it serves. These may be geographically defined, they may be communities of common interests, or communities formed around identities or a combination of these types.

Community engagement: Engaging with and collaborating with diverse groups to jointly meet needs articulated by the community and taking actions that truly benefit the community. (see Activity Eight for a more detailed explanation and examples).

Core Standards: The AAM Core Standards were developed in collaboration with other museum organizations and are grouped into the following categories: Public Trust and Accountability, Mission & Planning, Leadership and Organizational Structure, Collections Stewardship, Education and Interpretation, Financial Stability, and Facilities and Risk Management.

Culture: A group of people with shared experiences, beliefs, values, practices and norms.

Curriculum Plan: A written plan containing the framework, goals, and policies that guide the development and delivery of curriculum.

Decolonization: The long, slow, painful, and imperfect process of undoing some of the damage inflicted by colonial practices that remain deeply embedded in our culture, politics, and economies.**

Diversity:   All the ways that people are different and the same at the individual and group levels. Even when people appear the same, they are different. Organizational diversity requires examining and questioning the makeup of a group to ensure that multiple perspectives are represented. *

Docent/Guide: A volunteer or paid staff person who provides interpretation to visitors through a guided tour, talk or presentation. The museum field appears to be transitioning from the more traditional model of docents as volunteer tour guides, to an increasing number of institutions using paid guides. The National Docent Symposium Council now uses the term docents/guides to be inclusive and refer to the education and interpretation function or role, not to employment status.

Educational ecosystem: The formal and informal learning organizations within a community, the roles they each play, who they serve, the dynamics between them, and areas of intersection or overlap in the community.

Education master plan: A written plan that identifies education goals, audiences, content, delivery methods, data gathering and evaluation methods for all education programs and services.

Equity: The fair and just treatment of all members of a community. Equity requires commitment to strategic priorities, resources, respect, and civility, as well as ongoing action and assessment of progress toward achieving specific goals.*

Evaluation: Obtaining valid and reliable information from visitors that helps in the planning of exhibitions, activities, and programs and in determining the extent to which the activities are meeting their intended objectives. Can include observation (tracking) studies, questionnaire, interviews, community meetings, and focus groups. Visitor evaluation can be carried out before (front end), during (formative), and after (summative) exhibition or program development.

Exhibit: The localized grouping of objects and interpretative materials that form a cohesive unit within a gallery and relate a message or idea. +

Exhibition: Exhibitions use a combination of objects, text, graphics, interactives, and/or props to create a physical space dedicated to the exploration of specific themes, messages, and ideas. An exhibition is a comprehensive grouping of all elements (including exhibits and displays) that form a complete public presentation of collections and information for public use. +

Exhibit/exhibition plan or policy: A written plan that identifies exhibition schedules, goals, interpretive guidelines, and policies and procedures as well as policies applying to any object loans, and care and documentation of objects in temporary custody.

Financial resources: The income and expenses of the museum.

Focus group: Interview studies involving a carefully selected sample of eight to 10 individuals whose demographic and psychographic characteristics are of special interest to the museum. A planned but informal discussion carried out with the small group of visitors or community members to discuss a predetermined topic in their own terms.

Forecasting: using data to identify trends and project the future state of a variable. Variables might include broad topics such as the local economy or the demographics of a community, or more specific topics such as available volunteers, school tours attendance, or wifi bandwidth needs.

Friends / Auxiliary Group: A support organization that is separately incorporated and whose primary purpose is the support of the museum. This may involve financial support, volunteers, or expertise.

Full-time staff: Employees who work 35 hours or more per week.

Governing Authority: The entity that has legal and fiduciary responsibility for the museum (this body may not necessarily own the collection or the physical facility) and may include not-for-profit boards, appointed commissions, governmental bodies, and university regents.

Names of governing authority include advisory council, board of commissioners, board of directors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, city council, commission, or tribal council.

Head of governing authority: The elected or appointed head of the executive body to which the director reports. For institutions that are part of a larger non-museum parent organization, the head of the governing authority is considered to be the individual within the institution’s larger parent organization to whom the director reports/is responsible (e.g., dean or provost of a university, director of parks and recreation for a city government, military post commander, etc.).

Human resources: All of the people, paid and unpaid, who regularly work at the museum.

Immersive experience: Feeling deeply absorbed, involved and engaged.

Implicit Bias: Unconsciously held opinions, attitudes and expectations that shape decisions, actions and understandings without full awareness of this influence, which limits the ability to be objective.

Inclusion: The intentional, ongoing effort to ensure that diverse individuals fully participate in all aspects of organizational work, including decision-making processes. It also refers to the ways that diverse participants are valued as respected members of an organization and/ or community. While a truly “inclusive” group is necessarily diverse, a “diverse” group may or may not be “inclusive.”*

Intern: A student or trainee who works to gain experience for a career or profession. Some internships are paid, some are unpaid, some are done in exchange for school credit, housing or other compensation.

Institutional plan: See Strategic plan

Interpretation: The media/activities through which a museum carries out its mission and educational role:

• Interpretation is a dynamic process of communication between the museum and the audience.
• Interpretation is the means by which the museum delivers its content.
• Interpretation media/activities include but are not limited to exhibits, tours, Web sites, classes, school programs, publications, and outreach.
• Interpretation methods and design is based upon museum and educational learning theories. Knowledge of cognitive development, educational theory, and teaching practices are applied to the types of voluntary, personal, and life-long learning that occurs in museums.

Interpretive plan: A document that outlines what stories and messages the museum wants to convey through a variety of media, such as exhibits, programming, and publications. It may include the institution’s interpretive philosophy, educational goals, and target audiences. A museum may develop an overall institutional interpretive plan, or an interpretative plan for an individual component of its operation—for example, for its permanent exhibits or for one of its historic sites.

Inquiry based learning:   A pedagogical method that uses questions, problems and/or scenarios to trigger curiosity and critical thinking.

Learning, Formal: Structured learning that typically focuses on teaching specific, predetermined skills and/or knowledge. Learning outcomes are frequently measured or evaluated, usually through testing.

Learning, Informal: Learning environments or systems that offer self-directed opportunities that can lead to unexpected or unplanned learning, impacts and outcomes.

Learning, Self-directed: Also known as independent learning. An individual takes ownership of their learning process (with or without guidance). The free-choice environment of many museums can be a foundation for creating self-directed learning opportunities through interpretive scaffolding and visitor choices that offer multiple points of access.

Learning styles: Categorizations that differentiate the manner in which a person most effectively comprehends and processes new information. Designing educational materials and approaches to either match an individual’s learning style or to be inclusive of all learning styles is one educational strategy or pedagogical approach.

Learning organizations: Organizations that value continuous knowledge and skills development and actively support ongoing learning for all members as well has for the organization as a group.

Logic model:   A model (usually depicted in the form of a table or diagram) used to plan the resources, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact for a program or event.

Marketing: Marketing is the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you’re continuing to meet the needs of your customers and getting value in return. These activities include market research to find out, for example, what groups of potential customers exist, what their needs are, which of those needs you can meet, how you should meet them. Marketing also includes analyzing the competition, positioning your new product or service (finding your market niche), pricing your products and services, and promoting them through continued advertising, promotions, public relations, and sales.

Material culture: Objects, materials and spaces created by people to sustain, perpetuate or enjoy life as defined by their particular culture or society.

Membership program: A program that offers specific privileges, perks and discounts in exchange for payment of dues or fees (usually annually) as a charitable contribution. A well thought-out membership program can support fundraising and marketing, and can encourage member feelings of belonging, stewardship and loyalty.

Memorandum of agreement/memorandum of understanding: A written agreement spelling out the terms of the relationship between two entities, such as a museum and a support organization, or a museum and a municipality. It is signed by the governing authorities of the organizations.

Mission: A statement approved by the museum’s governing authority that defines the purpose of a museum—its reason for existence. The mission statement establishes the museum’s identity and purpose, provides a distinct focus for the institution, and identifies its role and responsibilities to the public and its collections.

Multiple Intelligences: A learning theory that suggests humans have eight possible different types of intelligence that impact learning styles and capabilities.

Nonoperating income and expenditures: Income and expenditures related to temporarily or permanently restricted funds, such as endowment contributions and pledges; capital campaign contributions and pledges; all realized capital gains and losses that are rolled back into principal; income from capital campaigns; and capital expenditures.

Open storage: Placing stored collections on public view without interpretative materials.

Operating income and expenditures: Income generated by or expenditures supporting the museum’s general operations in a given fiscal year, including exhibitions, education, conservation, collections management, acquisitions, research, training, development, and administration. It includes any portion of income from the endowment that is applied to operating expenses in a given year. It does not include capital expenditures. See also nonoperating income and expense.

Organizational capacity: The ability to effectively use resources to successfully fulfill its mission and goals while honoring its values and maintaining positive social impact.

Parent organization: The overseeing organization (such as a historical society or university) which is responsible for the fiduciary control of the museum.

Part-time staff: Staff who work less than 35 hours per week.

Pedagogy: A method and practice of teaching.

Planning: The creation of policy and written plans. Thomas Wolf (Managing a Nonprofit Organization, 1990) lists two essential prerequisites of planning as, 1) an evaluation/assessment of the organization’s current position, and 2) a clear vision of the organization’s future expressed through a statement of mission and goals. These prerequisites apply to all types of planning, whether it is long-range, disaster, exhibition, marketing, or program.

Professional Practices: A professional practice [aka best practice] is generally accepted in the field as a reliable method or technique for achieving a desired result.

Public trust: The obligation and duty to serve the public interest rather than individual interest or institutional interest.

Purpose: The museum’s broad guiding principle as stated in its governing documents.

Social media: Forms of electronic communication (like Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).

Special events: Concerts, festivals, or special seasonal programs.

Special exhibitions: Usually short-term, temporary exhibitions.

Staff: Unless otherwise noted, refers to full- and part-time staff (paid or unpaid) of your organization.

Stakeholders: People who have influence on your institution or are impacted by your institution.

Standard: Generally accepted level of attainment that all museums are expected to achieve.

Strategic plan: Comprehensive plan that broadly delineates where the institution is going and provides sufficient detail to guide implementation. Sets priorities and guides important decisions that are oriented towards the future. Some museums split this into two parts:

• Multi-year plan: Big-picture plan that sets strategies, goals, and priorities. Sometimes referred to as a strategic or long-range plan.
• Operational plan: Plan that provides the details needed to implement the decisions in the strategic or long-range plan. Usually focuses on a short period of time and is typically geared to the museum’s budget year. Sometimes referred to as an implementation plan. For more information see: AAM Standards regarding an Institutional Plan.

Stereotype: An inaccurate generalization about a person or group based on oversimplified or limited information.

Sustainability: A way of operating that supports the organization’s current needs and can be continued without reducing resources or opportunities for the future.

Tours: Any type of tour of the exhibitions, grounds, buildings or surrounding area. This includes school, self-guided, audio, and guided tours.

Universal design: The design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.

Values: The core belief system that provides a moral compass and framework for an organization’s goals, priorities and decisions.

Vision statement: An aspirational declaration of a museum’s intentions that may include a description of the ideal scenario or successful future.

Visitors: Groups and individuals who go to the museum’s physical facilities to use the museum services.

Visitor motivation: The reason why someone visits a museum, an exhibition or attends a program. A visitor’s expectations and needs are part of a visitor’s motivation to attend or not  attend.

Visitor experience:    A visitor experience begins when a decision is made to visit, and continues through the planning and research, the onsite experience at the museum, and then post-visit activities such as online research or conversations with others about the visit.   A visitor experience includes all interfaces or points of contacts a visitor has with the museum and its facility, services and products.

Visitor services: Facilities or services that provide comfort to visitors, including assistive devices, baby changing stations, checkrooms, dining area/food service, first aid stations, information desk, nursing areas, restrooms, seating, signage, water fountains, wheelchairs, and WiFi access.

Visitor studies: The use of data collection, research and evaluation to better understand and improve the visitor experience.

Visitor survey: A set of questions designed to gather information from visitor that will help a museum improved its programs and services. Surveys may be done using different methods: verbally, online, on paper, by email.

Visual literacy: The ability to observe, interpret, analyze and make meaning from a still or moving image. A shared vocabulary used to describe and discuss an image is generally considered a foundation for literacy.

Visual thinking strategies: A pedagogical method that uses structured facilitation to help students observe and engage with visual art.

Volunteer: An individual who offers time and service to the museum for no salary or wage.

Wayfinding: How a visitor determines his or her location and the best route to take to get to a destination within the museum. Maps and signage are some ways museums help visitors stay physically oriented and aid in wayfinding.

* Adapted from AAM MAP Glossary

*From Facing Change: Insights from the American Alliance of Museums’ Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Working Group Report, 2018. Full Report available in the MAP Portal.

+ Adapted from Dean, David. (1994). Museum Exhibition: Theory and Practice (p. 161). London: Routledge.

**From TrendsWatch 2019, the American Alliance of Museums.

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The Changing Face of Museum Tours

There was a time when the mention of a museum tour evoked images of branded blazers, heavily scripted journeys around a single collection and a marching troupe lead by an umbrella wielding uniformed guide. For some attractions that time is still now but, for many forward thinking museums and individual arts and heritage lovers, there are new types of museum tours that are attracting a new type of visitor.

A quick online search of “museum tours” will bring you back a plethora of options, from behind the scenes tours of your favourite collection to a one on one bespoke tour of a museum you’ve never visited with a local guide. There are no longer heavily prescribed ways to learn about museum collections and I believe that is a thing to celebrate. There are a myriad ways to enter, explore and learn about well-known museums as well as unfamiliar collections and an engaging tour can be a great place to start.

Who Needs a Museum Tour Guide Anyway?

For many years, museums relied on human tour guides to assist their visitors with finding objects, discovering new collections and learning about the history and importance of the objects they cared for but in recent years many have turned to technology to reduce costs and improve the reach of tours. Without the need for a human tour guide the content of the tour becomes much more malleable. Pre-recorded tours can be replayed for those who need additional time to digest, translated into many languages that your staff members do not speak and made cheaper or even free to use.

With the first audio tour available to the public in 1952 at the Stedelijk Museum , Amsterdam it’s hardly new technology but the impact of those first audio tours can be felt throughout the museum industry. Most museums have had a form of audio tour at some point and, whilst many have now been adapted into personal phone technology and apps, the audio tour is still a strong contender today when looking to increase tour throughput. The traditional audio tours options for multiple languages and variable content combined with its reusable and easy to use technology made it an obvious choice for sharing understanding of collections.

Audio tours transformed the way the public interacted with the museum collections. Multiple languages could be used to open up collections to new audiences and visitors could learn more about objects at their own pace, revisiting objects that they wanted to spend more time on and skipping over those that were more familiar to them. Even before the advent of the smartphone the easy to use technology put learning into the hands of many people around the world.

Today over 2.5 billion people own a smart phone and this is allowing many museums to utilise the technology already in the hands of their visitors to reduce hardware costs and instead concentrate on providing content for their apps and downloadable tours. We still need knowledgeable tour guides with the ability to teach and inspire but now they can reach hundreds of visitors at once instead of small groups.

Museum Guides and Play?

Whilst we’ve become accustomed to downloading audio tours, interactive maps and museums apps over the last decade there is still a long way to go to introduce technology that can actively encourage you to explore something you’ve not visited before. Looking to trends like the Pokémon Go! launch in 2016 which used augmented reality to get players visiting and collecting Pokémon in various public locations it would seem that gamifying the exploration of museums might just be the answer.

When Pokémon Go Launched in 2016 it seemed like a blessing to many museums who could count on new visitors looking for the latest Pokémon to capture inside their walls. Whether they were embracing the new found visitors and encouraging them, like The Museum of London with special events and free wi-fi or were just happy to play host like the British Museum who saw around 10,000 sessions of Wi-Fi used per day to play the game . It seemed like augmented reality combined with the chance to ‘gain’ something could really encourage new visitors to museums they wouldn’t normally visit.

As yet no museum has managed to produce the same collecting feeling that made Pokémon Go so addictive however many museums have included augmented reality in their tours and find interesting and new ways to breathe movement and life into stationary, historical objects. Pokémon Go style game play may be a little way off for many museums but we already have similar style apps and tours in a number of museums.

The Museum of Celtic Heritage in Salzburg offer a mixed audio and augmented reality tour in which children and adults can find and meet tiny inhabitants of the museum who tell stories of the artefacts on display. The tours mix classic story-telling with exploration as you find new people around the display cabinets and learn about their contents.

Museum Tours with a Twist

If you don’t like the idea of removing the human element from tours there are still options that don’t require an employee of the museum to show you around. Whilst we all agree that museum workers are vital and important, sometimes you might want to explore with someone who isn’t on the museums payroll and can include elements that an official museum tour guide could not such as a local café stop, multiple museums with the same guide and a place to stay for the night.

In 2016 Airbnb began offering “experiences” with their hosts alongside their regular accommodation offerings. Amongst the many offerings on Airbnb are guided tours of museums, art galleries and historical attractions aimed at showing off a more local knowledge of the museum in the context of its home city so you can combine a museum visit with an overnight stay with the same guide, allowing a more personal connection and social experience for the visitor.

It’s difficult to know yet if this is encouraging more visitors to attend museums they may not normally have ventured into, encouraged by a passionate host. With over 1.5 million bookings for experiences each year it’s not hard to imagine that this could offer a growth opportunity for museums by working with locals to bring in new visitors. Would it be possible for you to reach out to those in your community who are already offering these types of experiences and work alongside them to create a more personal tour for visitors to your local area?

Less likely to offer you a place to stay but equally engaging are Museum Hack; a private company who operate renegade tours of the world’s most famous museums. You can join an existing tour based on a number of pre-created itineraries or hire a guide to create a bespoke tour just for you. Each small group tour includes interesting information about the collections, social activities so you can get to know your group a little better, and is guided not just by your official tour guide but also by the wishes of the group. It brings a fresh perspective to a museum you may have visited hundreds of times as you explore stories from the collections, your guide and the other group members.

Operating throughout the US, Museum Hack, has redefined museum tours for a new audience. Photo opportunities, food and drink stops, personalised content and a whole lot of laughter turn the traditional tour on its head and encourage visitors who would normally avoid museums, such as pre-wedding parties, to learn whilst they have fun. Not only are the tours great fun but Museum Hack intend to put museums back at the core of our communities, breaking down stereotypes and barriers which stop many people form visiting museums in the first place.

It is especially important for younger museum visitors to play a part in producing the tour itinerary themselves. Many visitors are now so comfortable with curating their own lives via social media feeds, personal collections and technological tools that the thought of partaking in a tour that doesn’t include their own preferences is at odds with their world view. Visitors who have grown up with themselves at the heart of whatever content they consume, whether that’s online or TV on demand it’s unlikely a prescribed tour is going to attract someone looking for a personalised experience.

It might seem outside of your control but by thinking about the ways in which these tours are different to what you offer today you may go some way to bridging the gap. Do your tours give options for social time, networking opportunities and personal engagement? Could that be the key to making your tours more popular?

Museum Tours Combining Collections

As we look for ways to make tours more personal it is also worth remembering that just because your collections are arranged in a specific way i.e. by geographical or historical borders there may be other ways of curating a tour that combines what seem to be disparate parts of your collection.

The V&A, London introduced LGBQT tours based on an idea which came from their LGBQT working group. The tours run once a month and are a free guided tour which combines a number of collections to create a thread running through the museum highlighting interesting and sometimes shocking LGBQT content. Whether it’s the artist or the art itself, the tours use the guides own personal preferences and group feedback to navigate the museum. The tour guide can choose to include any items in the vast museum and share stories, anecdotes and personal experiences associated with them.

By creating a tour which catered to an under-represented visitor group, produced by members of the LGBQT community and making the tour free and drop-in, the V&A has made a normally hidden history more visible and accessible. In 2017, the group recorded the tour for their social media followers and in the past 2 years it has been viewed more than 12,000 times. Many people who may have missed out on the V&A because they felt a traditional tour left out their own personal stories were suddenly seen and acknowledged by the museum.

Dawn Hoskin, co-chair of the V&A’s LBGTQ Working Group commented that “ I hope the guide’s personal reflections that may feature in these tours will in turn encourage visitors to feel more confident in reading and responding to objects on their own terms”

How Tours Can Access All Areas

And not content with seeing just what’s on display to your regular visitors, tours that encourage revisits to a well-known museum can include behind the scenes and give an idea of what working in a museum is really like. A visitor may have visited you before but the lure of seeing something not always open to the public can give a seasoned visitor another reason to return.

Behind the scenes tours, like the Spirit Collection tour at the Natural History Museum, London provide their tours with access to areas that a regular visitor would not be able to see. Allowing the public to see the work that goes on behind the collections not only attracts a new audience to your museum but can give a greater understanding of your important work and need for future funding. A deeper understanding of work going on beneath the surface allows visitors to appreciate that not everything in the museum is on display and not everyone working for the museum is public-facing.

These tours can be much more involved, engaging and personal as staff members share their experiences, loves and loathes with the tour group. Allowing for personal interaction that a pre-planned and prescribed tour may miss.

Guided tours in general may evoke memories of school trips and scripted content but I think we can look forward to a future in museums where all interested can be catered for, personalised content can be created and shared en-masse and many more thousands of people can come into contact with your collection on their own terms. More engaging tours, shared widely should help you attract more new visitors to your collections and exhibitions and help you fund your mission for the future.

About the author – Carly Straughan

Carly Straughan  began her career working in tourist attractions on a 3 month contract until she found a “real job” and almost 15 years later she is still here. She now works with museums, arts and heritage, and tourist attractions worldwide and she is a passionate supporter of the industry.

• Reimagining Museum Tours: How Creatives are Transforming the Museum Experience July 15 2023
• International Spy Museum Offers Children in Hospital Virtual Tours June 09 2021
• How the Creative Use of Museum Audio Tours is Attracting New Audiences January 15 2024
• From self-guided tours to event organisation: Goosechase October 17 2023
• New Technological Approaches To Hybrid And Remote Guided Tours May 21 2023

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What is a museum guide and how to become one

A museum guide is a professional who leads visitors through a museum, explaining its exhibits and history. They usually conduct tours, answer questions, and maintain an inventory of the museum's collections. They also develop new tours, interpret collections, and assist with community outreach and membership drives. They may handle cash and credit transactions using a POS system, manage the front desk, and participate in other duties as assigned. They also act as tour guides for museum visitors, increasing sales through merchandise references during museum tours, and monitor visitors' activities to ensure compliance with tour regulations and safety practices.

How long does it takes to become a museum guide?

It takes about 2-3 years to become a museum guide.

• Years 1-2: Earn an associate degree in a relevant field, such as history, art, or museum studies.
• Year 3: Gain the necessary work experience through entry-level positions, internships, or volunteering in museums. This includes duties like guiding tours, answering visitor questions, and conducting research.
• Salary $26,914
• Growth Rate 12%
• Jobs Number 921
• Most Common Skill Gift Shop
• Most Common Degree Bachelor's degree
• Best State Alaska

Museum Guide career paths

A museum guide can pursue a variety of career paths, such as becoming a substitute teacher, instructor, or consultant. They can use their experience to teach children or adults about history, art, or science, and they can also work in management or as a general manager. They also have the opportunity to become account managers or even vice presidents.

Key steps to become a museum guide

Explore museum guide education requirements, most common museum guide degrees.

Bachelor's

High School Diploma

Start to develop specific museum guide skills

Museum guides use their skills in research, communication, and customer service. They use research to provide informational tours and develop new tours. They communicate with customers and answer questions as tour guides. They also handle cash and credit transactions. They coordinate and teach summer camps for children and facilitate workshops. They also promote the museum's philosophy and uphold its policies.

Complete relevant museum guide training and internships

Research museum guide duties and responsibilities.

Museum guides perform a range of responsibilities, including researching local history and providing informational tours for visitors. They also work in gift shops, handle cash and credit transactions, and manage the front desk. They may also be involved in community outreach, membership drives, and developing new programming for exhibits. Additionally, they may lead interactive and educational tours, conduct workshops, and facilitate discussions. As Dr. Haitham Eid Ph.D. , Associate Professor and Director of the Master of Arts in Museum Studies Program at Southern University at New Orleans, says, "Resumes that include specific projects and the candidate's role in these projects tend to stand out."

• Manage the canoe landing including guests, workers, and canoe traffic in a way that all run smoothly and safely.
• Patrol assign area, conduct bag inspection at access post.
• Facilitate a therapeutic outdoor adventure experience for teenagers struggling with a variety of behavioral, mental health and substance abuse challenges.
• Monitor checkout stations to ensure that they have adequate cash available and that they are staffed appropriately.

Prepare your museum guide resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your museum guide resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a museum guide resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Museum Guide Resume templates

Apply for museum guide jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a museum guide job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

• Browse job boards for relevant postings
• Consult your professional network
• Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
• Watch out for job scams

Are you a Museum Guide?

Share your story for a free salary report.

Average museum guide salary

The average Museum Guide salary in the United States is $26,914 per year or $13 per hour. Museum guide salaries range between $17,000 and $40,000 per year.

What Am I Worth?

How do museum guides rate their job?

Updated April 25, 2024

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Museum Guide Related Careers

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What is a museum tour guide called?

Anyone can be a museum tour guide if they are trained by the museum in how the museum works, its mission, and the collections it holds. Many museum tour guides are volunteers, while others are paid by the museum as a full time job.

The role of a tour guide in a museum is to show guests what the museum is about, and some of the artifacts and pieces in the museum's displayed collection.

In American English museum guides are called docents. Docents are usually volunteers who have undergone extensive training, and occasionally conduct research using the museums resources.

If the guide is not simply called a tour guide, he or she may be called a docent.

Add your answer:

How much does a museum tour guide earn in a year?

The average annual salary for a museum tour guide in the United States is $33,000. This can vary by location and employer. The average annual salary for a museum tour guide in Boston is $42,000.

Do you need a tour guide in the Vatican museum?

What is called a person who shows people around a place for example a town or museum.

Davey crockit

What is the a museum guide called in French?

a museum guide is called 'un guide' in French (pronounced 'geed')

it's who shows you round a city or a museum?

What is a tour guide called, what is a female guide called.

A female guide is called a tour guide. This is a person that will show you the area that you have traveled to.

What do you do after you arrive on Nabooti Island?

Go into the Nabooti museum and talk to the tour guide at the Nabooti totem.

What is the person called who gives the tour in the museum?

Who shows people around a place for example a town or museum and gives them information about it.

The person is a tour guide.

What jobs can history get you?

History can help you secure the travel advisor job,tour guide job and a job in a museum.

How do you get on the airplane on Nabooti island?

You get the map for the African locations from the Nabooti totem tour guide. Go to the museum and accept the quest.

Top Categories

The 10 Types Of Tour Guides: Which One Will You Be?

Posted on Dec 11, 2022 at 09:12 PM

You’re about to embark on a new career. You’ve been doing research and found that many tour guide positions are available in cities worldwide. You love people and want to share your passion for your city, so it seems like a perfect fit!

So what do tour guides do? What kind of skills and training is needed? Let’s explore these questions and more. 

What is a tour guide? 

A tour guide is someone who leads a group on tour.

The term "tour guide" is also sometimes used to describe the person who leads a sightseeing tour of a historic building, site, city, or neighbourhood. A tour guide may be employed by a museum, historical society, or other organisation interested in preserving local history and culture.

Tour guides are often called "docents" or "those who show." In addition, they are sometimes called "tour directors" or "tourist escorts," but these terms also have other meanings.

Tour guides work primarily with tourists and visitors but may also work with locals interested in learning more about their city or town.

Tour guides can be found at museums, historical sites, and other locations that showcase unique elements of local culture. Some tour guides specialise in private individuals or specific groups, while others work with larger groups of tourists worldwide.

There are many steps to becoming a tourism guide; check out the 6 best steps to becoming a professional tour guide .

10 tour guide types, which one are you?

There are many kinds of tour guides around the world; some of the most popular categories of guides include:

1. The professional tour guide

The professional tour guide is the most common type of tour guide, and it's the primary type most people think of when thinking about a tour guide. It's usually a full-time job, but it can also be part-time or a side gig. They typically work with international tourists and are licensed international tourist guides.

2. The private tour guide

A private tour guide accompanies paying clients on tours for a fee but doesn't work full-time in the industry. Instead, they use their time off from work or school to make extra money by giving guided tours to tourists in their city or country. They can offer services based on their timetable as their managers.

3. The academic tour guide

This tour guide works at an educational institution such as a university or an art museum, giving tours to students, teachers, and other community members. Academic tour guides earn additional income by educating visitors and sales commissions on books, maps, and other merchandise sold during tours. They usually have an educational background, study galleries and cultural buildings, and are often fluent in many languages.

4. The freelance tour guide

A freelance traveller gives guided tours to tourists abroad on vacation or business trips. They're adventure lovers who love private cruises to nature and other places.

The most convenient thing about freelance operators is that they're their manager and director, have flexible hours, and can choose which client to take on. 

5. The local tour guide 

A local tour guide or escort works at a tourist attraction , such as an amusement park or zoo. They may also be employed by a travel agency that offers guided tours to visitors. Some local guides work independently and receive payment directly from their customers instead of through an employer.

6- The Traditional Guide: 

The definitive guide is knowledgeable about the destination's history, culture, and sights and delivers a structured, fact-filled tour. They may use a microphone and headset to provide information to the group and incorporate interactive activities or demonstrations to engage the group.

7- The Cultural Guide: 

The cultural guide focuses on the destination's traditions, customs, and way of life and provides an immersive experience for travellers. They may take the group to local markets, homes, or community events to give them a glimpse into the daily life of the people in the area.

8- The Adventure Guide: 

The adventure guide leads active and physically challenging tours, such as hiking, biking, or kayaking. They are knowledgeable about the local terrain and wildlife and may provide instruction and equipment for the activities.

9- The Food and Drink Guide: 

The food and drink guide focuses on the destination's local cuisine and beverage culture. They may take the group to local markets, restaurants, or farms to try the local specialities and learn about the ingredients and techniques used in the area.

10- The Local Guide: 

The local guide is a native of the destination and provides travellers with a personalized and authentic experience. They may share their own stories, experiences, and the area's hidden gems and local secrets.

What kind of skills should a tour guide have?

Tour guides should have a lot of skills. They must have strong communication and social skills to communicate with the tourists and answer their questions about the city or country they visit. 

Tour guides also need to be able to explain things clearly and precisely, so tourists understand what they are seeing. In addition, they should be friendly, helpful and easygoing because they will deal with many different people from different parts of the world.

 They need to be organised, have good management skills and have an eye for detail to plan exciting and fun trips for everyone involved.

They should have good leadership skills because they will often entertain groups of people in busy cities or countries where a lot is happening at once. 

Tour guides must be able to keep everyone together and make sure no one gets lost or separated from the group. To do this effectively, tour guides must be able to think quickly on their feet and come up with solutions if something goes wrong during the trip (like legal trouble or a mix-up with security systems)

If you’re interested in being a tour guide but don’t know where to start, here are some hospitality training courses in London .

Tourist guides play a particular part in every tourism experience ; they add their signature to the social aspect of getting to know a new region. 

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Art & Culture Travel Blog

How to visit the museum: a guide for the perfect museum visit.

• Tea Gudek Šnajdar
• Museum Tips

Museums are some of the most popular tourist attractions and usually places many travellers wants to visit on their trips. However, the experience of visiting a museum could also be quiet disappointing if not done right, even for the experienced museumgoers. After doing it wrong many times, and then learned how to visit the museums right, I wanted to share with you this guide for a perfect museum visit.

How to visit the museum

There are many ways to visit the museums right. And many more to do it all wrong. It, of course, depends entirely on your interests and the way you love to explore the new places. However, there are some ground rules you should follow if you’d like to know how to visit the museum right.

⤷ Read more : 15 best museums in Europe you should visit 

What if you don’t like museums?

Then don’t visit them! I’m not a massive fan of adrenaline parks, and that’s why I would hardly ever end up in one while travelling.

It’s the same with the museums. Do you feel like you should go and see Mona Lisa if you’re in Paris ? Despite the fact, you don’t really appreciate the painting? Well, don’t! Your experience isn’t going to be the best, you probably won’t like the picture any more, and you’ll lose a few hours you could spend doing something more fun in Paris .

⤷ TIP : But, if you’d like to give museums a chance, then I have a suggestion for you. Book a private tour and let someone who knows that museum very well guide you around. Private museum tours usually last for roughly two hours. The guide will have your ticket sorted, they’ll show you the most interesting exhibits and will tell you some exciting stories about them. Trust me, they know how to visit the museum right.

A guide for the perfect museum visit

However, if you do like art and history, feel like a real culture tourist, then let me give you some tips on how to visit the museum right. I broke them in three steps that will make your museum visit much more enjoyable.

1/ Before a museum visit: How to prepare for a visit to a museum

A good museum visit starts with a well-done preparation. Here are some of my tips.

# – Chose the museum you’d like to visit wisely

Obviously, we all have different interest. I’d be utterly bored at a museum of sports. But give me an exhibition about fashion, and I’ll be thrilled. You get the point.

If you’re going to a major city that has several museums you could visit, do some research and check which one could be the most interesting to you.

If you love the old masters and are visiting Amsterdam , then the Rijksmuseum is a place to go for you. If you’d like to learn more about Vincent van Gogh during your trip to Europe, then Orsay in Paris or the Van Gogh Museum in the Dutch capital should be on your list.

Researching the best museums according to your interests in a town you’re going to visit, before your trip, is one of my essential tips on how to visit the museum right.

⤷ Read more : Here is a selection of the best museums in Amsterdam , best museums in London , best museums in Paris and best museums in Tournai .

# – Get familiar with the collection it’s home to on their website

Okay, so you’ve chosen the museum or more of them, you’d like to visit.

The next step is to research the museum itself. Visit their website and see what the highlights in it are. Do they host some of the world most famous masterpieces? Or the work of a painter you like? Maybe they have a nice collection of an art style you love? It’s good to check all of that before your trip, so you can plan your museum visit better.

I also love to research the museum website before my visit to see are there any special events taking place during my time there. Temporary exhibitions, lectures or art workshops could be a great way to make your visit even more enjoyable.

In case some art pieces are on loan, or if some galleries are temporarily closed, you’ll know how to plan your museums visit better, too.

# – Check if you could find any videos about that museum

There’s nothing like watching an excellent video about the museum you’re going to before visiting it. You’ll get familiar with the collection and see which art pieces you’d like to see. You’ll also learn a bit about them before actually seeing them.

Watching some museum videos before your visit could also be great to get a feeling of a museum interior a bit.

⤷ TIP : Check out some of Culture Tourist museum videos on a link here to see if I’ve already made some about the place you’re planning to visit.

# – Buy your ticket online

There is nothing worse than staring your visit by queuing in front of the museum for a few hours just to get in. And that’s the sad reality when visiting many of those world-famous museums.

However, be smart and purchase your museum ticket online before your visit. You can often do that on the museum website. Or, you can do as I do, and use the platform called Tiqets (here is the link) to buy all of your museum tickets online.

That way you can go straight to the entrance and get into the museum immediately.

# – Book a museum tour

Visiting a museum on a guided tour makes a huge difference. Especially if it’s a private tour. I used to work as a museum guide for several years and speak from the experience here.

And even though I have a MA in Art History, I always book a tour when visiting a new museum. A good guide is going to tell you about the museum, its collection and will tell you the stories behind some of its highlights in a fun and exciting way. You’ll also get a chance to ask all the questions you have.

⤷ TIP : You’ll find a wide selection of museum tours on a link here – this is where I’m usually booking all of my museum tours.

2/ During the museum visit: How to get the most of your visit to a museum

Okay, so you’ve prepared well for your visit in advance. But, let’s talk now about how to visit the museum right once inside of it.

# – Dress appropriately

This is quite an important advice for visiting museums.

Let’s start with your shoes first. When in the museum you won’t walk that much, but you’ll stand on the same spot a lot. And that could be tiring. Wearing some comfy shoes is definitely crucial for a great museum experience.

Many exhibits are fragile and to prevent their decline, museums have a special cooling system in their interiors. That’s why it’s always a bit fresh at the galleries. So, my advice is to bring a cardigan to put it on when inside.

# – Don’t spend more than two hours at a museum

From my experience, after two hours at the museum, you’ll be too tired to continue exploring it.

That’s why the step of researching the museum collection before your visit is so important. Getting in a museum and just wandering around without any idea of what you’re looking at, won’t be the best experience.

To really enjoy the artworks, learn the story behind them and have a great museum experience, pick only one collection and explore it extensively.

If you’re at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam , spend your time just at the Gallery of Honour. Or, if at the Orsay in Paris, explore only the Impressionist collection . That’s what I usually do, and it makes such a difference, trust me.

# – Focus on details rather than trying to see more

This museum tip is related to the previous one. Rather than trying to see as much as you can at the museum, put your focus on details. Art is all about the feelings it evokes in us. And to get the chance to feel the paintings, focus on details.

Stand in front of the painting and see if you can notice the brushstrokes or a texture artist has painted. How does the frame look like? Is it new or old? You can also get very close to the painting and look to the colours, texture and details. And then take a few steps back and look at it from the distance to see how the whole composition changes.

Pick a few paintings and explore them in this way, and I’m sure your museum experience is going to be much more interesting than usual.

# – Ask questions

One of my favourite things about visiting museums is to talk about the art pieces. If you’ll visit the museum on tour feel free to ask your guide all the questions you have. Why is that painting so famous? How long would an artist need to create a marble statue? Use the advantage of having an expert with you and ask everything that interests you.

If you’re going to visit on your own, you can always ask the museum guards to advise you which part of the museum to explore next. Or even about some exhibits. They usually know a lot about the collections they are taking care of.

And also, discuss the art with your travel companions. Is there something you didn’t like at all? Talk about that! Art is a subjective thing, and it should be discussed. Remember me mentioning how art is all about the feelings it evokes in us? Well, those feelings could be happy, sad, angry or even confusing. And it’s fun to see how the person you’re with perceived the same art piece.

# – Avoid taking pictures

Lose the phone when at the museum!

Museums are places to enjoy at a slow pace. That way, they transfer you to some different world. And although some exhibits could be so beautiful and interesting to you, don’t take photos of them.

First, if using the flash, you’re damaging the paintings that are often hundreds of years old. And since the light is often dim at museums, the quality of your photos won’t be the best.

Museum shops are selling the postcards with the majority of the artworks they host, so you can keep the memory to it in that way. And very often, you can find great high-quality photos of the paintings on their website.

Another thing is that you are ruining the experience to other visitors who are trying to enjoy in those exhibits. And are ruining the experience to yourself, too. So, lose the phone and enjoy a wonderful relaxed museum visit.

3/ After the museum visit: What to do after visiting the museum

So, you enjoyed visiting the galleries and exploring the artworks. But what to do now to enjoy your visit a bit longer?

# – Have a coffee at a museum cafe

Although there are different opinions about them, I love to finish my visit at a museum cafe. I don’t know is it because of a couple of hours of walking, being a bit overwhelmed by all that art, or just because they usually have a beautiful setting, I love to spend a bit more time at a museum cafe after my visit.

# – Take some time off to absorb everything you saw

Having a break at a museum cafe also allows some time to absorb everything you saw at the galleries.

If you’re alone, you can browse through the flyer or a museum booklet you’ve got and keep that feeling of fulfilment with art for a few more moments. Or if you’re in a company, you can talk about your favourite art pieces or the ones you didn’t like/understood at all.

# – Visit the museum shop

There are mixed opinions about them, too. But, I love visiting museum shops at the end of my visit. It’s a nice way to get something to remember the museum and the art you saw there. Perhaps, you could buy those postcards or reproductions of the paintings you liked the most.

I also love the art books selection they have and am always looking for some new editions to add to my collection.

They are also a nice place to look for some lovely local designs products. Museums in London have a great selection of them. And I really love some design products you can find at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam .

# – Read a book or watch a movie about something that you liked the most

If you were entirely amazed by some painter or an art movement you saw during your visit to the museum, check out if you can find a book or a movie about it. There are many great fiction books about the old masters and some lovely documentaries about Impressionism. If you liked the work of Vincent van Gogh, you can read more about the life and work of Vincent van Gogh in my series of articles here.

Visiting a new museum could be a bit challenging at first, but good preparation for your museum visit is key. I hope this guide for a perfect museum visit will help you in organising your trip and understanding how to visit the museum right.

Do you have any other tips for visiting museums? Share them with me in the comments!

*This post includes some affiliate links.

How to visit the museum , Museum Guide , Museums

What’s in a Name?

• Mary Kostell
• February 16, 2021

Having spent most of my adult life writing and editing interpretive content for art museums, it’s fair to say that I am all about language and semantics. Recently I got into the weeds with my colleagues in an attempt to define some key terms internally— Guide vs. Tour. It wasn’t a heated conversation per se, but it was fairly circular. It became clear that we all use these terms to mean slightly different things…

This got me thinking about the ways in which our different understanding of these terms impacts our ability to meet visitor expectations. I mean how can we best communicate the difference between a “guide” and a “tour” to visitors when we cannot land on a shared definition or meaning amongst ourselves? 

As it turns out for many muse-tech people, “guide” and “tour” are interchangeable. For example, “tour” has at least 5 different meanings among Guru staff. For some of us it equates to a feature offered on our platform, for others it is the app itself, while those of us from museum backgrounds understand a “tour” as curated content delivered via a live guide or a mobile device. 

In my mind “guide” and “tour” are two distinct offerings, regardless of how they are delivered. A guide is a wayfinding tool, be it a person, printed map or brochure, menu of locations and what’s on view, or an app that helps visitors navigate through your museum or site.

A tour, on the other hand, presents object or exhibition specific information that is educational but does not necessarily provide a linear path for the visitor to follow. It is a “guided” content experience… see the challenge in semantics here?

I think this is a pretty common definition among tour takers and tour givers but as a field we have broadened the concept of “tour” to include self-guided offerings, which is another ball of wax altogether….

Basically, we (museums and cultural attractions) are collectively suffering from a language barrier. And if we are suffering from a language barrier, how can we guarantee that audience expectations are set up effectively? Even if we can agree that a “guide” is something used for wayfinding and other information, what then, exactly, do we mean when we say “tour”?

Basically, we (museums and cultural attractions) are collectively suffering from a language barrier. And if we are suffering from a language barrier, how can we guarantee that audience expectations are set up effectively?

Scurry down the proverbial rabbit hole a bit further and we get into types of guides: 

Curator-led; Docent-led ; Educator-led; Visitor Services Associate-led; Facilitator-led; Tour Guide (meaning a 3 rd party guide); Audio Guide; Printed Guide

And types of tours: Linear or chronological; Narrative; Themed; Interview-based; Audience specific: adult, kids, teens, verbal descriptions; Collection specific,  Special Exhibition, Behind the scenes or VIP experiences 

Self-guided: via brochures, family guides or scavenger hunts and mobile tours featuring audio or video content on demand

The list goes on and on….

The various ways we interpret what these words or tour types signify does not necessarily align with visitor expectations, so the conundrum is how do we offer guided and/or self-guided tour experiences that actually means what visitors think it means? 

We’ve all been confronted by the unhappy visitor who expected a guided tour and was handed an audio tour (usually at an up charge) or who expected to hear from the curator and was led by a volunteer docent instead. Conversely, there are those who opt into the audio tour only to be disgruntled that the app did not feature a map or that the “thing” they came to see was not included in the tour content. And with more and more museums and sites eliminating contact transactions, who is left to field these complaints? Security and other frontline staff who may or may not be able to troubleshoot effectively depending on their training and bandwidth.

In an effort to ease visitor and staff pain points along the visitor journey, it seems to be in our best interest as a field to establish shared language around tours and guides. Of course, I recognize that we all have bigger fish to fry at the moment, but I hope this rant will provide a starting point for a more thoughtful and inclusive conversation down the line.

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Museum Docent/Tour Guide

SUPERVISED BY: Museum Curator (exhibit training), Educational Programs Coordinator (tour training, including schools), Volunteer Coordinator (tour assignments)

PURPOSE OF JOB: Provide a welcoming, hospitable environment and rewarding learning experience to museum visitors through guided tours.

DUTIES MAY INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

• Conducting museum tours of approximately 1 - 1 1/2 hours in length. Be comfortable speaking to small and large groups of people of all ages.
• Conducting occasional tours, if necessary, of museum and facilities (behind the scenes) for VIPs, special visiting groups, etc.
• Greeting and welcoming tour groups upon their arrival at the Library.
• Dealing skillfully with a variety of visitors under a variety of circumstances.
• Continually keeping informed about changes in museum exhibits.
• Assisting staff at the information desks by providing information to museum visitors and answering their questions about the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, particularly if your tour is late arriving.
• Assisting, on occasion, with evening special event programs.
• In the event that a tour fails to show up, docents might wander through the exhibition gallier to engage individual visitors and families in impromptu tours or conversations.
• Taking responsibility to find a replacement docent if you cannot give a tour that has been assigned to you. A list of current docents and phone numbers is provided to all docents. Tour schedules are completed and docents are assigned tours approximately four weeks in advance. Schedules are then mailed to docents. Docents are required to confirm that they can give the tour(s) they have been assigned.

A minimum commitment of four tours a month for a year is required. Docents are needed for weekday and/or weekend tours. During the summer, in addition to booked tours, public tours are scheduled a month in advance, three every day Monday - Saturday and two on Sundays. Outside of the summer months, booked tours consist of school groups, adult groups, chartered tours, etc.

QUALIFICATIONS NEEDED:

Must be age 21 or older

High School degree

Enjoy meeting and interacting with other people

Personable, outgoing

Reliable, responsible

Extensive prior knowledge of the Truman Presidency is not required, but a prospective docent should have a working knowledge of American history and a desire to learn

Capable of learning new material rapidly and willing to invest time and expend the effort necessary to study material on the Truman Administration and the Truman Library

Able to work independently

Attend a 6-8 week training program

Able to accept supervision

Able to speak comfortably before groups of people

Physically able to lead tours around the museum

Enthusiastic , flexible

TRAINING/ORIENTATION PROVIDED:

Following at least three tours by different tour guides

Viewing several films, including the Charles Guggenheim film being shown in the museum auditorium

Reading material including biographies by McCullough and Hamby

4-5 sessions with the Museum Curator and/or the Educational Programs Coordinator concerning the exhibits, as well as tour and question techniques

Give a sample tour to 4-6 museum visitors accompanied by staff

Docents receive additional training while assisting Visitor Services staff at the museum information counters. This on-the-job training enables docents to learn more about the day-to-day questions that visitors ask.

Total time involved in training is approximately 6-8 weeks.

LOCATION OF JOB:

Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum, Independence, Missouri

VOLUNTEER BENEFITS:

Knowledge about Harry S. Truman, the Library and Museum, and the educational aspects offered to visitors through a variety of programs/exhibits; discount prices in the museum gift shop; invitations to special events; volunteer appreciation programs; free parking; free subscription to "Whistle-Stop," the quarterly newsletter of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute; free admission to the museum for you and your immediate family.

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In an audio tour, are you a Docent, or a Tour Guide?

Mar 31 2017

A “docent” is a person who guides people through a museum or such, explaining as they go. So why the heck why aren’t they just called “tour guides”? Why use a $50 word just because it’s a museum???

True, a common word would sound less pretentious, but it would also say less about the guide. “Docent” comes from the word “teacher.” A “guide,” like many VO talent, might just present a script, whereas (in principle, at least) a teacher knows what they’re talking about.

So, are you a docent?

First, let’s elaborate a bit on what we are talking about …

Another reason for saying “docent” is that the word also has other applications. It often designates an unpaid museum volunteer, or a parent assisting on a school field trip. In some countries, it refers to an associate professor.

Let’s also make clear that this question is relevant to more than museum tours, or tours of any sort. It’s also a valid issue in other genres, from eLearning to industrial explainers, and in online virtual tours, as well.

And while we’re at it, you might like to know that “docent” comes (by way of German, “Dozent”) from the Latin word “docēre. ” Incidentally, the English word “docile” – as in “she was a very docile pony” – does not mean “gentle” as some people think; it means “easily taught or trained,” and it comes from the same Latin root.

So now you can docent the word “docent”! (In which case you would also want to know that, grammatically, “docent” is only a noun, not correctly used as a verb. But plenty of people do.)

Where were we?

Oh, the distinction between a “teacher” and a “guide” – that should be obvious. A teacher typically knows their subject intimately. Whether they are holding class in a semester series, or leading tourists through a museum wing, a teacher knows much more about the subject than they are able to tell in such a brief time.

In contrast, a tour guide may be a lot like someone who narrates an audio tour. They may know only what’s in the script. A tour guide might know much more than that; they might even be an expert. But it’s not necessarily part of the job description. They may know just enough to answer some occasional standard questions.

How is it with you? If you specialize in museum tours (or historic walks, etc.), you might know your subject(s) inside-out. (Yes, you listeners of the former radio show “Car Talk,” there are jobs for an Art History degree!) But if you specialize in some other form of narration, or a wide range of audio tours, you can’t possibly be expert in all of the subjects you’re handed.

How, then, do you sound knowledgeable in them? Here’s a quick guide …

Be natural, be yourself, confident and friendly. Don’t be pompous or overly formal. By sounding natural, you sound comfortable – the comfort enjoyed by someone who knows what he or she is talking about. In contrast, if you sound stiff (the way some people think a teacher should sound), you don’t enhance the subject matter, you distract from it.

Be curious. The wider your view of the world, the deeper you’ll enjoy looking into all sorts of subjects, and the more likely you’ll know about a topic at-hand. It may also make you readier for new opportunities. But curiosity goes still deeper than that. The more interested you are in learning about things that are new to you, the more comfortable you’ll feel in your reading about them – whether aloud or to yourself.

Focus on your best prospects. If your client is a museum of modern art, it’s good to know about Rembrandt and Goya, but better to be up on your Giacometti and Lichtenstein.

Know your audience.

Are they the average tourist, or are they highly educated or sophisticated individuals? It may decide your approach to tone, but also to your interpretation of the script. Take, for example, an ironic reference to van Gogh’s ear. Some people aren’t aware that he lost it. Others will know and catch the irony. Others may consider any such ear reference to be a tasteless or corny joke. The same principle applies if your audience consists of medical experts, or people in a particular industry, and so on.

Remember your VO training. Exhibit-goers often include visitors from other countries, and the subject matter may involve unusual words or references. Your narration needs to be natural, but especially clear and unrushed. Appreciate the importance of emotion and nuance. An audio tour is more like hearing one side of a conversation, rather than it is a lecture. At appropriate points, give your listener time to pause, view or react.

In other words, be a docent. Sound — as if you were there in person — like you’re ready, eager and able to answer their questions.

Do you have a comment or suggestion? Please send to [email protected] .

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What does a Tour Guide do?

Published November 1, 2022 4 min read

A tour guide is someone who shows visitors around a place. They might work at a museum, a historical site, or a tourist attraction. They might give tours in person, or they might make audio or video recordings that visitors can listen to or watch.

Tour Guide job duties include:

• Greeting guests and providing them with information about the tour
• Answering questions from guests about the tour or destination
• Keeping track of the group and making sure everyone stays together
• Making sure everyone stays safe throughout the tour
• Pointing out interesting facts or landmarks along the way
• Providing historical or cultural context for the tour
• Helping guests take photos or videos
• Dealing with any problems that may arise during the tour
• Saying goodbye to guests at the end of the tour

Tour Guide Job Requirements

A tour guide is someone who provides guided tours to groups of people. They are responsible for providing an enjoyable and educational experience for their guests. Tour guides typically work for tour companies, museums, or historical sites. Many tour guides are freelance and work on a contract basis.

Most tour guides have at least a high school diploma, although some jobs may require a college degree. Certification is not required to be a tour guide, but many companies prefer to hire guides who have completed a training program. Many tour guides have several years of experience working in the tourism industry.

Tour Guide Skills

• Flexibility
• Good memory
• Excellent public speaking skills
• Ability to keep a group together
• Ability to deal with difficult people
• Knowledge of history and culture
• Passion for your work
• Good organizational skills
• Physical stamina

Related : Top Tour Guide Skills: Definition and Examples

How to become a Tour Guide

A tour guide is someone who shows visitors around a place, providing commentary along the way. Tour guides typically work in popular tourist destinations, such as museums, historical sites, and natural attractions. If you’re interested in becoming a tour guide, there are a few things you need to do.

First, research the requirements for becoming a tour guide in your area. Some places may require you to have a certain amount of knowledge about the history or culture of the area. Others may require certification from a professional organization. Once you know what’s required, you can start working on meeting those requirements.

If you need to brush up on your knowledge of the area, consider taking classes or attending lectures at local museums or historical societies. If you’re not sure where to start, ask a museum staff member for recommendations. Once you feel confident in your knowledge, start practicing your commentary. A good tour guide is articulate and engaging, so work on speaking clearly and concisely.

It’s also important to be able to handle groups of people. Practice leading small groups of friends or family members around your neighborhood or local park. Pay attention to how long people can walk or stand without getting tired, and plan your routes accordingly. As you gain experience leading groups, you’ll be able to gauge how much information people want and how long they’re willing to listen to your commentary.

Once you feel ready to start working as a tour guide, look for opportunities in your community. Many museums and historical sites offer volunteer positions for docents or tour guides. These positions can be a great way to get started and gain experience in the field. You can also look for paid positions with tour companies that operate in your area.

Working as a tour guide can be a fun and rewarding way to share your love of history or culture with others. With a little preparation and practice, you can become an excellent tour guide and help visitors enjoy their time in your community.

Related : Tour Guide Resume Example

Related : Tour Guide Interview Questions (With Example Answers)

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Brenna Goyette

Brenna is a certified professional resume writer, career expert, and the content manager of the ResumeCat team. She has a background in corporate recruiting and human resources and has been writing resumes for over 10 years. Brenna has experience in recruiting for tech, finance, and marketing roles and has a passion for helping people find their dream jobs. She creates expert resources to help job seekers write the best resumes and cover letters, land the job, and succeed in the workplace.

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13 Museum Guide Skills for Your Career and Resume

Learn about the most important Museum Guide skills, how you can utilize them in the workplace, and what to list on your resume.

Museum guides are responsible for providing visitors with information about exhibits and collections. They also help to create a positive and enjoyable experience for all who visit the museum. Museum guides must have excellent customer service skills and be able to communicate effectively with people of all ages. If you’re interested in becoming a museum guide, learning more about the skills required for this position can help you determine if it’s the right career for you.

Customer Service

Public speaking, time management, organization, communication, interpersonal skills, organizational skills, problem solving, exhibit design, art history, museum collections, tour guide training.

Customer service skills are important for museum guides because they help you connect with guests and answer their questions. You should be friendly, welcoming and willing to help your patrons have a positive experience at the museum. Your customer service skills can also help you resolve any issues that may arise during your shift, such as when a guest gets lost or if someone needs medical attention.

Public speaking is the ability to communicate effectively in front of an audience. Museum guides often speak to groups of people, so it’s important for them to be comfortable with public speaking. Public speaking skills can help museum guides connect with their audiences and explain information clearly. It also allows them to answer questions from visitors more confidently.

A museum guide needs to be a strong leader who can help patrons navigate the exhibits and answer their questions. Museum guides often work in teams with other guides, so they need to know how to lead others and delegate tasks effectively. They also need to be able to take charge of situations that arise unexpectedly and diffuse any potential conflicts between visitors.

Time management is the ability to plan and execute tasks in a way that ensures you meet your goals. Museum guides often have many responsibilities, including answering questions, leading tours, checking guests into their museum passes and ensuring all visitors are safe. Having strong time-management skills can help you complete these tasks efficiently so you can provide excellent service to your patrons.

Organization is the ability to keep track of and prioritize tasks. Museum guides often have many responsibilities, including leading tours, answering questions, monitoring visitor safety and maintaining a clean and safe environment for visitors. Being organized can help you manage your time effectively and ensure that all museum guests receive the attention they need.

Communication is the ability to convey information clearly and concisely. Museum guides often have to explain complex topics in a way that their audience can understand, so it’s important for them to be able to communicate effectively. This skill also helps museum guides answer questions from patrons and provide detailed explanations of exhibits.

Museum guides often work with a variety of people, including patrons and other museum staff. Interpersonal skills like empathy and compassion can help you connect with others and understand their needs. Museum guides also need to be able to communicate clearly and effectively with patrons and colleagues alike. Your interpersonal skills can help you navigate the many relationships you may have in your career as a museum guide.

Organization is a skill that can help you be an effective museum guide. You may need to keep track of multiple tasks at once, such as leading tours, answering questions and keeping the exhibits clean. Being organized can help you stay on task and ensure your guests have a positive experience. It’s also important to remember details about the museum so you can answer guest questions accurately.

Problem solving is the ability to identify and resolve issues. Museum guides often use problem solving skills when visitors have questions or concerns about a particular exhibit, artifact or piece of art. For example, if a visitor asks you how an object was made, you may need to research the answer and explain it in detail.

A museum guide’s ability to design exhibits is important because it allows them to create a visual representation of the information they’re presenting. This can help guests understand complex topics and encourage them to ask questions that the guide can answer. It also gives the guide an opportunity to showcase their artistic abilities, which may be useful when designing displays for private tours or other special events.

Art history is the study of art and its creators. Museum guides often need to know about the artists whose work they’re explaining, as well as the time period in which it was created. This can help you answer questions from visitors who want to learn more about a particular piece or artist. It’s also important to understand how each piece fits into the museum’s collection so that you can explain why certain pieces are displayed together.

Museum guides often have a background in art history or anthropology, which means they know the significance of different objects and artifacts. They can use this knowledge to explain why certain items are important to a collection and how they relate to each other. For example, if you’re working at an art museum, you may be able to tell patrons about the artist’s style and what influenced their work.

Tour guide training is the process by which you learn about the history of a museum and its exhibits. This can include learning about the background of the museum, how it was built and what types of artifacts are on display. It’s important to know this information so that you can answer any questions your group may have as they tour the museum. You also need to be familiar with the layout of the museum so that you can lead groups through the building in an efficient manner.

How Can I Learn These Museum Guide Skills?

There are a few ways that you can learn the skills necessary to be a museum guide. Many museums offer training programs for their volunteers, which can teach you the basics of customer service, public speaking, and leadership. You can also learn time management, organization, and communication skills by taking classes or attending workshops. Additionally, working with a museum collections team can give you insight into exhibit design and art history. Finally, being a tour guide at a museum can also give you the opportunity to hone your skills in customer service, public speaking, and time management.

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Glossary of Museum Terms *

Accessibility: Giving equitable access to everyone along the continuum of human ability and experience. Accessibility encompasses the broader meanings of compliance and refers to how organizations make space for the characteristics that each person brings.*

Advisory group: An advisory group is a collection of individuals who bring unique knowledge and skills that complement the knowledge and skills of the formal governing authority. The advisory group does not have authority to govern the museum; it cannot issue directives that must be followed. Rather, the advisory group serves to make recommendations or provide key information to the formal governing authority. The advisory group can be standing (on-going) or ad hoc (one time) in nature.

Annual Pass Program: A purchased pass that allows unlimited visits during the year (or another set time period).  Pass Programs can also be set up as a local partnership program which allows purchasers free admission to several participating venues in the area. Often coordinated through a Chamber of Commerce or Welcome Wagon – type of organization, these can be set up to allow one visit to each venue, or unlimited visits during a set time period.

Audience: Groups of people who use the museum’s services by attending or participating at an event, exhibit, program or other presentation. Audiences can be defined by using categories, such as the types of services they use and how they use them (e.g., visitors, members, researchers, program participants, Web site users), or by their demographic characteristics (e.g., families, school groups, seniors, culturally specific groups) or their interests and motivations for participating.

Audience, target: A sub-group of a community with shared demographics or interests that has been chosen as a group to engage with or attract.

Audience survey/study: Collecting data from the museum’s actual and potential audiences to determine their composition and receive feedback. Used to assess the effectiveness of the museum’s activities and services

Best practices: Commendable actions and philosophies that successfully solve problems, can be replicated, and demonstrate an awareness of standards.

Benchmark: A point of reference used in measuring and judging quality or value.

Code of Ethics:   Professional standards of conduct for staff, governing authority members and volunteers carrying out the mission of the museum. A code puts the interests of the public ahead of the interests of the institution or of any individual and encourages conduct that merits public confidence. A code of ethics acknowledges applicable laws and appropriate discipline-specific professional practices in order to help museums meet or exceed them For more information see: AAM Standards regarding an Institutional Code of Ethics

Collections Plan: A plan that guides the content of the collections and leads staff in a coordinated and uniform direction over time to refine and expand the value of collections in a predetermined way. Plans are time-limited and identify specific goals to be achieved. They also provide a rationale for those choices and specify how they will be achieved, who will implement the plan, when it will happen and what it will cost.

Community: Each museum self-identifies the community or communities it serves. These may be geographically defined, they may be communities of common interests, or communities formed around identities or a combination of these types.

Community engagement: Engaging with and collaborating with diverse groups to jointly meet needs articulated by the community and taking actions that truly benefit the community. (see Activity Eight for a more detailed explanation and examples).

Core Standards: The AAM Core Standards were developed in collaboration with other museum organizations and are grouped into the following categories: Public Trust and Accountability, Mission & Planning, Leadership and Organizational Structure, Collections Stewardship, Education and Interpretation, Financial Stability, and Facilities and Risk Management.

Culture: A group of people with shared experiences, beliefs, values, practices and norms.

Curriculum Plan: A written plan containing the framework, goals, and policies that guide the development and delivery of curriculum.

Decolonization: The long, slow, painful, and imperfect process of undoing some of the damage inflicted by colonial practices that remain deeply embedded in our culture, politics, and economies.**

Diversity:   All the ways that people are different and the same at the individual and group levels. Even when people appear the same, they are different. Organizational diversity requires examining and questioning the makeup of a group to ensure that multiple perspectives are represented. *

Docent/Guide: A volunteer or paid staff person who provides interpretation to visitors through a guided tour, talk or presentation. The museum field appears to be transitioning from the more traditional model of docents as volunteer tour guides, to an increasing number of institutions using paid guides. The National Docent Symposium Council now uses the term docents/guides to be inclusive and refer to the education and interpretation function or role, not to employment status.

Educational ecosystem: The formal and informal learning organizations within a community, the roles they each play, who they serve, the dynamics between them, and areas of intersection or overlap in the community.

Education master plan: A written plan that identifies education goals, audiences, content, delivery methods, data gathering and evaluation methods for all education programs and services.

Equity: The fair and just treatment of all members of a community. Equity requires commitment to strategic priorities, resources, respect, and civility, as well as ongoing action and assessment of progress toward achieving specific goals.*

Evaluation: Obtaining valid and reliable information from visitors that helps in the planning of exhibitions, activities, and programs and in determining the extent to which the activities are meeting their intended objectives. Can include observation (tracking) studies, questionnaire, interviews, community meetings, and focus groups. Visitor evaluation can be carried out before (front end), during (formative), and after (summative) exhibition or program development.

Exhibit: The localized grouping of objects and interpretative materials that form a cohesive unit within a gallery and relate a message or idea. +

Exhibition: Exhibitions use a combination of objects, text, graphics, interactives, and/or props to create a physical space dedicated to the exploration of specific themes, messages, and ideas. An exhibition is a comprehensive grouping of all elements (including exhibits and displays) that form a complete public presentation of collections and information for public use. +

Exhibit/exhibition plan or policy: A written plan that identifies exhibition schedules, goals, interpretive guidelines, and policies and procedures as well as policies applying to any object loans, and care and documentation of objects in temporary custody.

Financial resources: The income and expenses of the museum.

Focus group: Interview studies involving a carefully selected sample of eight to 10 individuals whose demographic and psychographic characteristics are of special interest to the museum. A planned but informal discussion carried out with the small group of visitors or community members to discuss a predetermined topic in their own terms.

Forecasting: using data to identify trends and project the future state of a variable. Variables might include broad topics such as the local economy or the demographics of a community, or more specific topics such as available volunteers, school tours attendance, or wifi bandwidth needs.

Friends / Auxiliary Group: A support organization that is separately incorporated and whose primary purpose is the support of the museum. This may involve financial support, volunteers, or expertise.

Full-time staff: Employees who work 35 hours or more per week.

Governing Authority: The entity that has legal and fiduciary responsibility for the museum (this body may not necessarily own the collection or the physical facility) and may include not-for-profit boards, appointed commissions, governmental bodies, and university regents.

Names of governing authority include advisory council, board of commissioners, board of directors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, city council, commission, or tribal council.

Head of governing authority: The elected or appointed head of the executive body to which the director reports. For institutions that are part of a larger non-museum parent organization, the head of the governing authority is considered to be the individual within the institution’s larger parent organization to whom the director reports/is responsible (e.g., dean or provost of a university, director of parks and recreation for a city government, military post commander, etc.).

Human resources: All of the people, paid and unpaid, who regularly work at the museum.

Immersive experience: Feeling deeply absorbed, involved and engaged.

Implicit Bias: Unconsciously held opinions, attitudes and expectations that shape decisions, actions and understandings without full awareness of this influence, which limits the ability to be objective.

Inclusion: The intentional, ongoing effort to ensure that diverse individuals fully participate in all aspects of organizational work, including decision-making processes. It also refers to the ways that diverse participants are valued as respected members of an organization and/ or community. While a truly “inclusive” group is necessarily diverse, a “diverse” group may or may not be “inclusive.”*

Intern: A student or trainee who works to gain experience for a career or profession. Some internships are paid, some are unpaid, some are done in exchange for school credit, housing or other compensation.

Institutional plan: See Strategic plan

Interpretation: The media/activities through which a museum carries out its mission and educational role:

• Interpretation is a dynamic process of communication between the museum and the audience.
• Interpretation is the means by which the museum delivers its content.
• Interpretation media/activities include but are not limited to exhibits, tours, Web sites, classes, school programs, publications, and outreach.
• Interpretation methods and design is based upon museum and educational learning theories. Knowledge of cognitive development, educational theory, and teaching practices are applied to the types of voluntary, personal, and life-long learning that occurs in museums.

Interpretive plan: A document that outlines what stories and messages the museum wants to convey through a variety of media, such as exhibits, programming, and publications. It may include the institution’s interpretive philosophy, educational goals, and target audiences. A museum may develop an overall institutional interpretive plan, or an interpretative plan for an individual component of its operation—for example, for its permanent exhibits or for one of its historic sites.

Inquiry based learning:   A pedagogical method that uses questions, problems and/or scenarios to trigger curiosity and critical thinking.

Learning, Formal: Structured learning that typically focuses on teaching specific, predetermined skills and/or knowledge. Learning outcomes are frequently measured or evaluated, usually through testing.

Learning, Informal: Learning environments or systems that offer self-directed opportunities that can lead to unexpected or unplanned learning, impacts and outcomes.

Learning, Self-directed: Also known as independent learning. An individual takes ownership of their learning process (with or without guidance). The free-choice environment of many museums can be a foundation for creating self-directed learning opportunities through interpretive scaffolding and visitor choices that offer multiple points of access.

Learning styles: Categorizations that differentiate the manner in which a person most effectively comprehends and processes new information. Designing educational materials and approaches to either match an individual’s learning style or to be inclusive of all learning styles is one educational strategy or pedagogical approach.

Learning organizations: Organizations that value continuous knowledge and skills development and actively support ongoing learning for all members as well has for the organization as a group.

Logic model:   A model (usually depicted in the form of a table or diagram) used to plan the resources, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact for a program or event.

Marketing: Marketing is the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you’re continuing to meet the needs of your customers and getting value in return. These activities include market research to find out, for example, what groups of potential customers exist, what their needs are, which of those needs you can meet, how you should meet them. Marketing also includes analyzing the competition, positioning your new product or service (finding your market niche), pricing your products and services, and promoting them through continued advertising, promotions, public relations, and sales.

Material culture: Objects, materials and spaces created by people to sustain, perpetuate or enjoy life as defined by their particular culture or society.

Membership program: A program that offers specific privileges, perks and discounts in exchange for payment of dues or fees (usually annually) as a charitable contribution. A well thought-out membership program can support fundraising and marketing, and can encourage member feelings of belonging, stewardship and loyalty.

Memorandum of agreement/memorandum of understanding: A written agreement spelling out the terms of the relationship between two entities, such as a museum and a support organization, or a museum and a municipality. It is signed by the governing authorities of the organizations.

Mission: A statement approved by the museum’s governing authority that defines the purpose of a museum—its reason for existence. The mission statement establishes the museum’s identity and purpose, provides a distinct focus for the institution, and identifies its role and responsibilities to the public and its collections.

Multiple Intelligences: A learning theory that suggests humans have eight possible different types of intelligence that impact learning styles and capabilities.

Nonoperating income and expenditures: Income and expenditures related to temporarily or permanently restricted funds, such as endowment contributions and pledges; capital campaign contributions and pledges; all realized capital gains and losses that are rolled back into principal; income from capital campaigns; and capital expenditures.

Open storage: Placing stored collections on public view without interpretative materials.

Operating income and expenditures: Income generated by or expenditures supporting the museum’s general operations in a given fiscal year, including exhibitions, education, conservation, collections management, acquisitions, research, training, development, and administration. It includes any portion of income from the endowment that is applied to operating expenses in a given year. It does not include capital expenditures. See also nonoperating income and expense.

Organizational capacity: The ability to effectively use resources to successfully fulfill its mission and goals while honoring its values and maintaining positive social impact.

Parent organization: The overseeing organization (such as a historical society or university) which is responsible for the fiduciary control of the museum.

Part-time staff: Staff who work less than 35 hours per week.

Pedagogy: A method and practice of teaching.

Planning: The creation of policy and written plans. Thomas Wolf (Managing a Nonprofit Organization, 1990) lists two essential prerequisites of planning as, 1) an evaluation/assessment of the organization’s current position, and 2) a clear vision of the organization’s future expressed through a statement of mission and goals. These prerequisites apply to all types of planning, whether it is long-range, disaster, exhibition, marketing, or program.

Professional Practices: A professional practice [aka best practice] is generally accepted in the field as a reliable method or technique for achieving a desired result.

Public trust: The obligation and duty to serve the public interest rather than individual interest or institutional interest.

Purpose: The museum’s broad guiding principle as stated in its governing documents.

Social media: Forms of electronic communication (like Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).

Special events: Concerts, festivals, or special seasonal programs.

Special exhibitions: Usually short-term, temporary exhibitions.

Staff: Unless otherwise noted, refers to full- and part-time staff (paid or unpaid) of your organization.

Stakeholders: People who have influence on your institution or are impacted by your institution.

Standard: Generally accepted level of attainment that all museums are expected to achieve.

Strategic plan: Comprehensive plan that broadly delineates where the institution is going and provides sufficient detail to guide implementation. Sets priorities and guides important decisions that are oriented towards the future. Some museums split this into two parts:

• Multi-year plan: Big-picture plan that sets strategies, goals, and priorities. Sometimes referred to as a strategic or long-range plan.
• Operational plan: Plan that provides the details needed to implement the decisions in the strategic or long-range plan. Usually focuses on a short period of time and is typically geared to the museum’s budget year. Sometimes referred to as an implementation plan. For more information see: AAM Standards regarding an Institutional Plan.

Stereotype: An inaccurate generalization about a person or group based on oversimplified or limited information.

Sustainability: A way of operating that supports the organization’s current needs and can be continued without reducing resources or opportunities for the future.

Tours: Any type of tour of the exhibitions, grounds, buildings or surrounding area. This includes school, self-guided, audio, and guided tours.

Universal design: The design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.

Values: The core belief system that provides a moral compass and framework for an organization’s goals, priorities and decisions.

Vision statement: An aspirational declaration of a museum’s intentions that may include a description of the ideal scenario or successful future.

Visitors: Groups and individuals who go to the museum’s physical facilities to use the museum services.

Visitor motivation: The reason why someone visits a museum, an exhibition or attends a program. A visitor’s expectations and needs are part of a visitor’s motivation to attend or not  attend.

Visitor experience:    A visitor experience begins when a decision is made to visit, and continues through the planning and research, the onsite experience at the museum, and then post-visit activities such as online research or conversations with others about the visit.   A visitor experience includes all interfaces or points of contacts a visitor has with the museum and its facility, services and products.

Visitor services: Facilities or services that provide comfort to visitors, including assistive devices, baby changing stations, checkrooms, dining area/food service, first aid stations, information desk, nursing areas, restrooms, seating, signage, water fountains, wheelchairs, and WiFi access.

Visitor studies: The use of data collection, research and evaluation to better understand and improve the visitor experience.

Visitor survey: A set of questions designed to gather information from visitor that will help a museum improved its programs and services. Surveys may be done using different methods: verbally, online, on paper, by email.

Visual literacy: The ability to observe, interpret, analyze and make meaning from a still or moving image. A shared vocabulary used to describe and discuss an image is generally considered a foundation for literacy.

Visual thinking strategies: A pedagogical method that uses structured facilitation to help students observe and engage with visual art.

Volunteer: An individual who offers time and service to the museum for no salary or wage.

Wayfinding: How a visitor determines his or her location and the best route to take to get to a destination within the museum. Maps and signage are some ways museums help visitors stay physically oriented and aid in wayfinding.

* Adapted from AAM MAP Glossary

*From Facing Change: Insights from the American Alliance of Museums’ Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Working Group Report, 2018. Full Report available in the MAP Portal.

+ Adapted from Dean, David. (1994). Museum Exhibition: Theory and Practice (p. 161). London: Routledge.

**From TrendsWatch 2019, the American Alliance of Museums.

Tour Operator Terminology

On this page we’ll try to clearly define the terms you need to know to run a tour business, and interact in our  Tourpreneur Facebook Group .

General Tour Industry Terms

• Tour This is a catch-all term that implies a type of travel experience that takes place over time, generally visiting multiple sights. It could last 1 hour or 30 days, and be done as a walk, or in vehicle. It could be a solo traveler or a group of 50 people. Other words might be used to describe the same thing:  tour, experience, journey, excursion , etc. It usually implies something organized, either by the traveler themselves, or a tour operator, who designs and delivers a tour for a traveler or group of travelers.
• Guest/Customer/Client/Passenger/Participant/Traveler Thanks to Disney,  guest  is what we generally use to refer to our customers. Why the difference? “Customer” implies a financial relationship, whereas  guest  relates more to a personal connection and a sense of welcome and hospitality. But it’s the same as customer, passenger (PAX), traveler, etc., and different companies will prefer different terminology.
• Guide / Tour Guide / Tourist Guide “tour guide” is used more often in Anglophone countries, especially in the U.S., whereas “Tourist Guide” is used in Europe and elsewhere globally.
• Tour Leader/Tour Director/Tour Manager/Tour Escort/Trip Leader This role goes by many different names. It refers to a guide who works over multiple days, usually traveling with a group of guests to multiple cities or regions. In addition to delivering commentary about the locations visited, a tour leader also handles the tour logistics, including working with the motor coach driver, staying on schedule, checking into hotels, meals and activities on time. 
• Interpreter A guide working often at National Parks or heritage sights; interpretation theory is a 100-year old body of theoretical work focused on strategies for helping individuals make their audience connect with and care for the site that’s being interpreted.
• Docent The name sometimes used for a guide usually in a museum or cultural heritage sight.
• Day Tour A type of experience that begins and ends in the same day. Usually used to distinguish an experience from a multi-day tour.
• Multi-Day Tour Any type of experience that lasts for more than one day. Often includes hotels, meals, short activities, and a form of transportation.
• Package Tour A kind of experience (usually multi-day) in which several different components are bundled together: it may or may not include airfare, hotels, guided experiences, meals, etc.
• Group Tour You’ll see these terms used differently to a kind of experience in which separate individuals or smaller groups come together to share an experience. Group tours can be  public  or  private .
• Public Tour As the name implies, this is a tour that’s open to the general public to sign up. The tour therefore consists of a variety of people who don’t already know each other. A public tour is usually offered at a set time and day.
• Private Tour A tour that is sold specifically to an already-organized group of travelers who don’t wish to experience the tour with others. A private tour might be a couple, a small group of friends, or a large church group. Private tours might be at a set time, or organized according to group’s specific needs.
• Custom Tour A custom tour is usually also a private tour.  Custom  refers to the operator crafting an experience customized to the specific demands of a client. A tour operator might be engaged by a client to design a unique experience, for one person or a large group.
• Pre-Formed/Affinity Group These are commonly used terms in the multi-day tour space to refer to a group tour not made up of individual solo travelers & couples, but instead of an alread-formed large group of travelers. An “affinity group” shares a common trait—they belong to a church, a retirement community, or a family reunion traveling together, for example. A pre-formed group might also be created by a “Group Leader” who sells a tour  for  a tour operator ,  often in exchange for a free trip or a commission.
• Escorted Tour Used most often in the multi-day tour space, an escorted tour means you’re traveling with an escort (old fashioned term), more commonly referred to today as a tour manager, tour director, tour leader, or trip leader. The TM’s job is to handle the logistics of keeping the group together, checked into hotels, arranging meals, etc. They work  for  the tour operator.
• Guided Tour In short, an organized excursion led by an individual or individuals. “Tour Guide” is the generalized term, but a guide could be a museum “docent” or an adventure guide, tour leader, etc.
• Self-Guided Tour This has two different meanings, one related to technology, one related to nature. When talking about mobile phone apps, a self-guided tour is one usually done in-destination using audio recordings and GPS data to guide an individual along a tour route, sharing recorded stories. In the world of adventure tours, a self-guided tour happens when an individual hires a tour operator to provide guidance in the form of itineraries, maps, possibly technology, all to facilitate an extended journey involving walking, hiking, biking, etc.
• FAM Tour A “familiarization” tour, focused on helping one set of professionals (travel agents, for example) learn about a destination, or about vendors in an area. A group of tour guides might take a FAM tour to a new attraction that opened in town, to become familiar with it. A group of travel agents might sign up for a FAM to a destination that they’ll then sell to clients.
• FIT Tour Very confusing term. It’s evolved over time. It once meant “foreign independent travel” but now is more often thought of as “flexible independent travel.” The goal is to distinguish this kind of independent traveler from someone who buys into a packaged group tour. FIT is more associated with a client who engages with a travel agent or operator to design something that suits their specific customized needs. 
• Activity An activity is usually different than a tour in that it is less about guided sightseeing and more about doing something, well, activity based. Examples might be watersports, biking, hiking, etc.
• Attraction Think amusement parks, museums, and the Eiffel Tower. What do they all have in common? They require tickets, they’re single place-based experiences, and rather than do them in groups, thousands of people pour in at once, with no specific booked time requirements (unless doing so for crowd control or pandemic related reasons).
• “Tours & Activities Industry” This is just one of many ways to talk about our industry. You’ll also hear Tours, Attractions & Activities, 
• DMO/CVB/Tourism Board A Tourism Board or Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) or Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) are all essentially the same thing. — an organization (public, private, or a mix) whose goal it is to promote a destination, be it a city, region or country. Examples include  NYC & Company  and  Visit Scotland .
• MICE Pronounced like the animal, stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events. From a tour perspective, this is where an operator might work with a CVB (see above) to organize tours for business customers hosting or attending a conference in a location. Incentive tours are reward experiences that a company offers a group of employees.
• B2B Tour operators who work with other operators 

Types of Tour Operators

• Tour Operator A business that organizes and sells tours. They sell to a customer, and possibly work with vendors (hotels, restaurants, vehicle companies, etc.) to create an organized tour experience. In short, operators do the grunt work.
• Travel Agent/Agency In general, an agency works with travelers, and books travel components to relieve the traveler’s burden of figuring it out on their own. An agency might book a tour operator’s tour as part of the services they provide the travel, in exchange for a commission from the operator.
• [insert word here]  Operator Tour Operator is a general term, but that’s not the only kind of operator out there. You might also be an adventure operator, watersports operator, ATV rental operator, you name it. But in all cases, you’re not an agency booking someone else’s service, you’re providing the service yourself.
• Day (or Multi-Day) Tour Operator Both are subsets of “tour operators” in general. It might be used in the Tourpreneur community when we’re referring to the specific challenges of a specific kind of operator, since the products and challenges of each type of tour can be very different.
• Inbound / Receptive Operator /  DMC (destination management company) These are all versions of the same thing, with terminology that is sometimes preferred over the other words for various reasons. This kind of tour operator creates experiences in a certain location (often a specific city or a region or country), working B2B with tour operators or corporate entities needing local knowledge and connections.  Receptive operator  is an older term meaning they “receive” clients who are coming in (or inbound) from somewhere else.
• Outbound Operator This version of tour operator (usually multi-day) designs experiences that take guests elsewhere. An outbound operator might be based somewhere (Australia, for example) but focus on creating trips that send their Australian customers outbound to other countries.

Sales, Marketing & Software Terms

• SEO Search Engine Optimization—the art of optimizing your website and online presence to bring your content to the top of search engine results (principally Google).
• PPC Means “Pay-per-click” and references the kind of digital advertising done by companies like Google: you create an advertisement to appear in search engine results, for example, and you pay for that ad a specific market rate each time someone clicks on your link.
• OTA Online Travel Agency—this is a catch-all term for a wide variety of online marketplaces servicing the travel industry, selling everything from rental cars to flights to hotels to tours. An OTA in the general industry might refer to big players like Expedia or Booking.com; in the tour industry, it refers to companies like Viator (the largest tour OTA) and GetYourGuide. There is a long tail of “niche OTAs” that serve specific types of tours and activities (like watersports) or a specific region.
• Online Marketplace / Platform This is a more general term for the kind of website platform (like Viator) that sells a wide variety of tours online. Think Guide Marketplaces like ToursByLocals or Withlocals, companies that curate large amounts of guides, but aren’t traditional OTAs like viator.
• Restech/Booking Software You’ll hear “restech” (alternately reztech, rez-tech, etc…) as a fast way to refer to the software industry centered around creating helping tour operators accept online bookings, and keep those bookings organized. The largest companies in this space work mainly with day tour operators.
• Tour Operator Software Different than booking software/restech, TO software offers an extended suite of features meant to help operators across their whole business, from operators to itinerary proposals to budgeting and pricing. This software may include a booking/payment component, but is a much more fully integrated and holistic (and expensive) solution.
• SaaS Short for “Software as a Service” — this is how the tech industry refers usually subscription-based websites or software that help you do something. Examples of SaaS include booking software and CRMs.
• Supplier In the language of selling tours to customers on a platform, tour operators are suppliers; you  supply  tours that are then  re-sold  by the platform.
• Connectivity This is the dark art of how you, the operator (supplier) connect to sales channels.
• Distributor/Reseller These are sales channels that sell tickets to your tours on behalf of you. They could be everything from an online marketplace like Viator and GetYourGuide, to a personal travel agent or hotel concierge..
• Channel Manager This is software that helps you manager all your different sales channels in one place.

Dementia-friendly Closer Look Tour (2024)

Join our specially trained guides for a dementia-friendly tour and learn the stories behind some of the v&a's most fascinating objects..

• Monday, 24 June 2024 – Monday, 25 November 2024

V&A South Kensington

Monday, 24 June 2024

Monday, 29 July 2024

Monday, 26 August 2024

Monday, 30 September 2024

Monday, 28 October 2024

Monday, 25 November 2024

14.00 – 15.30

Cromwell Road London, SW7 2RL

Art Studio, Learning Centre

Download programme

Come and explore a wide range of objects and artworks from different collections at the V&A. These bespoke dementia-friendly tours will be run by our expert guides, on the last Monday of each month (excluding Bank Holidays).

Please note that some tours will be repeated, please download the brochure on the right to check the schedule (subject to change).

Meeting Point: Art Studio, Learning Centre.

These tours are designed for those living with early stage dementia and their family and friends. The tour begins with refreshments in the Art Studio and the tour on gallery will last 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Please book online or call +44 (0)20 7942 2000 (The Contact Centre is open from Monday-Sunday 09.30 – 17.30).

For any further questions or queries regarding the tours, please contact us at [email protected]

Become a Member and enjoy free access to exhibitions, previews, priority booking, freshly curated content and much more.

Explore the range of exclusive gifts, jewellery, prints and more. Every purchase supports the V&A

Here's What Taylor Swift Did With All Those Friendship Bracelets She Received on Tour

Ever wondered what Taylor Swift did with the tons of friendship bracelets she received from fans on the Eras Tour?

The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum now features a display using Eras Tour friendship bracelets in the Taylor Swift Education Center.

The display features all of the tour posters from each U.S. city Swift visited on the tour and three rows of candy-colored, fan-made beaded friendship bracelets, effectively turning the fans’ hard work into artwork.

New art piece in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum consisting of all US VIP city posters and friendship bracelets Taylor received over the Eras Tour by u/IngrownThighHairs in TaylorSwif t

Fans called the art “beautiful” in the comments section.

The display is part of some brand-new additions to the museum’s Swift-focused artifact section.

Aside from the bracelet artwork, some of Swift’s early instruments are on display, such as a custom guitar she played during the Red Tour’s acoustic set in 2013 and 2014 and the banjo she used during her 2012 Grammy Awards performance of “Mean,” which features a hand-drawn “13” and handwritten “Mean” lyrics.

READ MORE: Why Are Taylor Swift Fans Trading Bracelets at the Eras Tour?

The exhibit also features a BCBG Max Azria silk handkerchief dress with sequins and metallic boots that the singer wore all the way back in 2006 at the start of her career when she performed at the CMA Music Festival and appeared at the ACM Awards.

Plus, the center has an interactive exhibit where guests can create various pitches with a dulcimer.

According to the museum, the Taylor Swift Education Center opened in 2013 thanks to a “generous donation” from Swift.

The unique center has classrooms, interactive galleries, learning labs, youth art installations, and songwriting programs. The center also has virtual learning resources available that reached more than 236,000 people in 2023.

Click here to view photo gallery