The good guide: identifying and engendering generic skills in the training of tourist guides

Book chapter, 2008

This chapter looks at conceiving of, implementing and assessing generic competencies in the training of tourist guides. It argues that tourist guides have an impact on the way tourists can relate to and help sustain tourist sites, many of which become increasingly fragile in terms of both their human culture and physical environment as the numbers of visitors increases. To offset this tourist guides need more than a good knowledge of the site. They require a deep sense of sustainability, a skill to communicate it and responsibility in the way they introduce others the sites they show.