How a Guide develops Tours.

Guide expounds at Caernarfon castle

One of the differences between a professional and amateur guide is the mindset of the tour in both delivery and creation.  An amateur guide will expand their personal interests into a tour and indeed there is a lot to be said for that as clients love a passion but, here is the rub, the guide must always be aware of the clients' needs and interests and moderate the structure and depth of the route, stops and commentary to take account of this.  To a  professional guide the tour is a product. That may sound derogatory but not at all!  A good product puts quality, added value and customer needs first.

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Monk dispenses mead at Knight Shop Conwy

I already had  the outline structure of each of the tours - Family with costumed guide, Wall walking and food tour. These would have to be made concrete both in terms of: routes, stops, facts, variety and getting to know the people of Conwy. It was a good way of giving purpose to my lockdown walks, wandering around and deciding positions for suitable stops - where clients would be sheltered from wind, rain or sun, where we would not inconvenience others and above all, where there was something interesting to talk about!

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Collecting fish and chips from The Galleon Conwy

Clients come to a guide and trust a) the facts are correct and b) they would be imparted in a varied and entertaining manner but there would be some sort of sorting of relevance towards understanding the town. Of course this must not be just learned by rôte but sorted in one's internal memory file to mix and match and slotted in the narrative  according to the clients`' leanings. The guide also has a role of host - i.e. to facilitate introductions to specialists or characters in a town so getting to know locals - especially experts and characters is pivotal. 

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History Points plaque QR code

Next the fun bit - the research! Obviously, being a resident with an interest in history and having studied for my qualification and taken tours around town over the preceding decades, I had a background knowledge. However, to give added value I needed to drill down deeper and find those stories that expanded understanding of the town and were entertaining.  I asked for tales of local characters on the community Facebook page, chatted to locals and wandered around the graveyards.  I also undertook desk research and found the excellent https://historypoints.org really useful. 

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