Nowadays, many people travel around the world. They want to discover, explore new places, try new and different foods, learn the history and culture of other places and meet with new people. Baku is becoming one of the popular tourist destinations. Every year, the city hosts many international events, conferences or big racing competitions such as Formula 1 Grand Prix. Tour guiding has since become a popular job especially among youth in Baku. Being a tour guide has many benefits, but it is definitely not an easy job. My name is Gunay and I have worked with Baku Tours by BakuExplorer already for a year. In this article, I will share my personal experiences about the advantages and challenges of being a tour guide with you.

Cultural awareness

Since I joined Baku Tours by BakuExplorer as a tour guide, I met a lot of people from different nationalities, cultures and characters. I can say meeting different people from around the world helps to learn unique facts or information about different cultures and their ways of living.  You can increase your understanding of a wide range of cultural subjects and sciences, including history, sociology, politics and arts, by working as a tour guide. This may be useful in the development of interpretive and analytical abilities that can be useful in other professions. Coming to that…

Professional development and networking

Through those newly discovered and developed abilities, tour guides can expand their professional networks. This can be beneficial in obtaining career advice and guidance while also developing new insights into other careers. While working, you will gather a lot of information about your country and city or even whole region! Believe me, every time you will get surprised at how much history Baku has in every building, street and sculpture. To transfer this knowledge, you will develop strong public speaking and communication skills, which will be useful for you in your future career path. You will get the chance to promote your country, which is what destination marketing is. Being knowledgeable is a huge plus, but when you work as a tour guide, the important thing is how you present this information to the people. One of the major abilities of a tour guide is being entertaining. It is important to make sure that people are having a good time and it’s not boring for them.

More flexible work schedules

Tour guides frequently have unpredictable work schedules. As the busiest travel breaks of the year are weekends, holidays and warmer seasons, tour guides are often required to work on weekends, national holidays and sometimes in the evenings. That’s why tour guides oftentimes take holidays during the business days. Someone who doesn’t want to keep to a regular business schedule might find this kind of schedules interesting and more fitting to their lifestyle.

Leadership skills

Since leading groups is a tour guide’s main responsibility, the job is an excellent opportunity to develop your organizational and leadership abilities. Tour guides organize, direct and lead groups. They may grow into powerful, capable leaders as a result, which is frequently is often an essential talent to have in the workplace. It also helps to improve problem-solving skills. In Azerbaijan, English is not the main language. Not many people can communicate in English, so for me, working as a tour guide really helped me improve my English on the speaking level, as well as developing my confidence in speaking this language.

Working with Baku Tours by BakuExplorer makes my hospitality career journey much more interesting. In this company, the main focus is “making visitors of Baku happy”. So if you are also considering yourself to be a tour guide, I hope this article answers some of your questions about the job.