The 21st of February marks the twenty first occasion of World Tourist Guide Day, as established by the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations (WFTGA).
As hot debate surrounds the role of tour guides in a market that is increasingly driven by online searches and direct booking, it is emerging that tour guides are still an important element in translating the cultural understanding of a destination.
Says Cape Town Tourism’s Skye Grove: “Today’s successful tour guides are the ones that unlock experiences that would otherwise take much energy or research to access. Tour guides are the cultural storytellers and those that tell the unexpected and fascinating human, historic and even tragic stories of Cape Town are high in demand.”