After living in Bangkok for so long I sometimes forget how lost I was when I first got here. As I wrote in 2001 when I first arrived: “Walking down streets I can’t remember past landmarks I don’t recognize to order food I can’t pronounce.” But now that I’m comfortable here all of that is forgotten – except when I travel out of Thailand. If you relish the raw unfamiliarity of making it on your own in a strange land, more power to you, but I got that out of my system a long time ago. Now when I travel, I often invest in a guide – the human kind. It’s just easer; more comfortable; less distracting. And let me tell you, there’s a huge difference between an okay guide and a great guide. Guides in Thailand are often a crap-shoot, but it appears they’re about to get much worse. Or are they?
Before I get into criticizing anyone, let me say that I’ve acted as a tour guide in Thailand and it’s hard work. Not only do you have to be should you be pleasant, funny, inquisitive, knowledgeable, and a good conversationalist, but you have to worry about what the next five steps are while still being gregarious and informative. A good guide’s train of thought is a mess: “Is our van at the next stop yet waiting to pick us up? Are these people thirsty or hungry? Do they have to go to the bathroom? Are they scared or uncomfortable with anything? Is there a better spot to take pictures that I can tell them about? Make sure that dinner doesn’t contain nuts because the kid is allergic. Do they know what to do in case we get separated?” etc, etc. Mentally and physically, you’re ON the entire day, and it’s exhausting.
And hiring a tour guide in Thailand – anywhere, actually – is always an unknown. You have no idea if they’ll just run through the motions or be a truly wonderful host. So I was pleased a while ago to see this story on the NNT website (which is down now, so I linked to a ThaiVisa page about it) on how the Tourism Council of Thailand is working to make sure things remain at a high quality. From the story:
The Tourism Council of Thailand is calling on the government to help improve the country’s tourism management while the industry continues to grow fast.
That sounds like a good idea. The article says how there just aren’t enough trained  guides to go around. The obvious solution would be to train  more guides, offer more incentives, perhaps raise the wages a bit or throw some of that fat Tourism Authority budget at advertising. Of course, this being Thailand, they went with another solution. From this story in the Bangkok Post just four months after the story above:
The Ministry of Tourism and Sports plans to lower the minimum education level needed to become an accredited tour guide to Grade 4 for three foreign languages.
Now your first instinct might be to smack your head on your desk or, if you’re my buddy Saksith, give yourself a mighty facepalm. But while lowering qualifications doesn’t seem like the obvious choice for improvement, I turned to a friend who has some insight into this. Dan Fraser, co-founder of Smiling Albino, host of Long Krung, and all around decent fellow, has worked in Asia’s tourist industry for nearly 15 years. He says:
The hardest part is finding licensed guides who understand the true interests of westerners, and who can communicate things in a way that is interesting – not just instructing. Finding guides willing to work for the dignity of a fine profession, without relying on shopping schemes or kickbacks is a major challenge. Typically low wages in this field lead to the commission-based guiding, which compromises the free will of the guest. Most guides who have grown accustomed to this have never taken the time to truly understand and adapt to what today’s tourist actually wants.
Going out for dinner with Dan always ends in unexpected ways.
I then asked him what he thought of them lowering the qualifications, and the answer I got surprised me:
A great step forward. Some of the best guides I have ever met are not actually licensed guides at all, and have virtually no formal training. It is about passion and personality, and an ability to communicate and host in a variety of scenarios. This usually isn’t something a guiding academy can teach. You need knowledge of course, but the facts are just details that anyone can learn, but no one travels to Thailand just to hear the facts…
Nice post Greg,
Having worked in tourism in Thailand for a long time I also applaud these changes. That said the most obvious problems that guides face is they simply can’t speak foreign languages well enough. It’s no mystery that Thais are much worse at English than their neighbours and all guides need to really crank up this skill before being ‘licensed’.
Heart and passion as Daniel has outlined are indeed the keys and this is something that’s tough to teach and to my knowledge the TAT spends no time on in training. They teach guides the physical dimensions of Democracy Monument for example but not ow to tell a good, short, digestible story about it. Things they need to teach guides:
– How to read customers mood based on visuals and body language.
– Public speaking and story telling.
– Logistical planning.
– Basic history that matters and visitors care about.
Also, many tour companies themselves have contributed to the issue of bad guides by paying next to nothing in wages and forcing them to constantly up-sell during a trip and take guests shopping rather than traveling with their best interests at heart.
Guides are a mess in Thailand which is surprising and there’s no excuse for it in a country that has for so long had a massive tourist industry.
Scott
Thanks Scott, good insights. Indeed, there’s a lot more to being a guide than simply telling people when a building was built. The issue of up-selling is a huge one too – China just banned these types of trips from taking place, as tour companies were offering incredibly cheap rates but then forcing guests to buy extras when they were on the tour. One good thing is that there are so many bad tours & guides around that the good ones jump out right away.
My experience with a tourguide: booked a tour for the next day at the airport (now I know how dumb that was!). Well, the tour we had seemed more a salestour then an actual tour. The guide was everywhere in a hurry (we could not really enjoy the sights) and he took all his time to try to sell us more tours (which we did not buy any, since we did not wanted to be rushed at all those tours). Oh yes, and of course in the jewelry store he had enough time (and we were in a hurry there).
So, if that guide was with the highest diplomas for a guide I can understand the comment for less diploma and more passion (and a bit more time and less Obvious money hassling).
Thanks Paul. I had the same thing in Hong Kong, although it wasn’t as bad – we had a nice tour but at the end of it they essentially locked us in a gift shop for like an hour. We weren’t forced to buy anything, but we weren’t allowed to leave until they decided enough had been bought. I bought something small, and of course they asked me the name of my guide and they put a number in the register – I’m assuming he got a cut of everything. I guess being a ‘tour guide’ is kind of like being an actor…anyone can say they are, but it’s only when you’re “on stage” that your worth becomes apparent. 🙂
In a new country I try to find the expat part of town find a well dressed older gentleman (or nearest facsimile) and offer to buy a few drinks or lunch and pick his brains. Saves a lot of time and gives you an idea what ot look for and where to start and most importantly current pricings.
Saying that when I was living in BKK there was a ‘guide’ standing about on the street near Sukhumvit 22 who was fluent in English and polite to a fault – he helped foreigners and asked if they needed further assistance and after he knew i lived there we’d chat without further sales talk – so I think lowering the education qualifications might be a good idea for more guys like this fellow to get in, rather than lock them out because their families could not afford the education requirements.
Also saying that you are looking at a ton of (ex) bargirls flooding the scene looking for newcomers to Thailand.
Then again does education often come to anything in Thailand?
Good points Big C, and yeah, sometimes you’ll meet a guy who just happens to be friendly, honest, and show people his city. But he’s usually not wearing a button-down and a tie and sitting in a chair on a street corner talking into his cell phone. 🙂
I just come back from Bangkok and I envy you staying there
Although I don’t have any experience of guides in Thailand, I hired two guides in Vietnam and they were amazing. I did lots of research before hand, and they both really made the Mekong Delta and the DMZ come alive for me, and I saw and heard things I never otherwise would have done.
Thanks Anna, research is something that so many people don’t do and it can really help with finding guides, and a lot of other things. I wonder how many people would still be scammed if they simply read the “Things to watch out for” section of pretty much every book, website and pamphlet of traveling to your country of choice.