Tauck has an intense training program in which escorts (who range in age from 21 to 60) learn how to deal with potential problems and emergencies. A rookie is put together with a more experienced driver and escort. Also, Tauck maintains special telephone lines should escorts get into difficulty along the way. The guides do a complete narration. "Clients expect a guide to know everything," Sundby said.
Tour escorts at Tauck typically make $250 to $450 a week before tips (but tips can amount to two thirds of the escort's income). Tauck also provides group health insurance benefits to tour escorts, which is unusual.
Some tour escorts are married, but this arrangement generally does not work out well for long. Married couples will sometimes work the same itinerary but for different groups (but they still do not get to see each other more than once a week).
The work is emotionally and physically demanding. It involves working 15 to 25 weeks straight, 7 days a week, with no days off and only a limited amount of free time. There is little chance to sit down when you have to help lift out luggage and run around keeping everyone happy.
Despite this rigorous schedule, Tauck has a fairly low attrition rate. People either leaves after one season or stay a decade. "It suits your personality and lifestyle or it doesn't," said Durband.
It can be a lonely job. But, "you develop camaraderie with the hotel people," remarked Sundby. "You develop friendships in the towns you visit, and it is like going home each time."
Normally, a tour escort will run one itinerary exclusively for one year; the next year, two itineraries; the next, three. With seniority comes more choice of itineraries, but selections are made by performance.
Out of 500 resumes, Tauck may hire 20 or 25 escorts. So many resumes come in unsolicited that Tauck does not have to do any active recruiting. "Persistence is the key," Sundby noted. "I tried to get into Tauck four or five times before I got in."
Because so many resumes come in, "it's difficult to tell a good candidate," Sundby advised, "so try to make personal contact." Friends who work in hotels or who are escorts can provide leads. It is also important to demonstrate some kind of familiarity with the product (the tour) and the destination.
Some companies may require a master's degree in botany or some other specialty. "But for most tours, good general knowledge suffices," said Sundby. "I became an expert in wildflowers and trees just by doing the same tour over and over and researching the questions the passengers asked."
The International Association of Tour Managers (IATM) has
20 thousand members worldwide. Only 100 of these are in the United States mainly because most domestic tour companies employ local guides rather than escorts (who accompany a trip throughout its itinerary).
Most tour escorts are freelance, working for such companies as American Express, Trafalgar, and the like. They earn a mini mum of $50,000 a year.
Dom Pasarelli, who is the main contact for IATM in the United States, noted that the association, which often acts as a referral service, has stringent membership requirements including five years of experience working as a tour manager. This kind of "chicken and an egg" situation can be overcome by working like an apprentice parallel with someone experienced and starting with a small tour company or a travel agency that operates groups. Membership also requires that the tour manager spend 180 days on the road and that escorting be the primary source of income. The vast majority of tour managers in the United States work part time; only about 1,000 are professionals.
It is a highly specialized field and one that is fairly elite. The IATM membership roster includes people who have doctorates, speak various foreign languages, and specialize in architecture, art, culinary arts, and the like. Also among the IATM members are three barons, two counts, and a prince.
"We're all crazy, eccentric," commented Pasarelli, who holds a doctorate in foreign cultures and has been a tour manager since 1962. "There is tremendous responsibility; you have the lives of 48 people in your hands. You have an awful lot of power; like a ship captain, you can put someone off the tour. I've had to ship some home, including one in a body bag. And people end up in hospital or lose a passport."
Though some passengers may initially regard their tour escort as a kind of lackey to help with the luggage, this image changes. "You live with them for many days; they get up when they are told, eat where and when they are told; listen and learn. You function as an interpreter, a Big Sister, and their 'bridge over the cultural gap.' It's fun, and you get paid for it," summarized Pasarelli.
But, he warned, tour managers can also be held liable and some have been sued.
Starting Your Own Tour Company
Most tour companies start in a small niche and grow slowly. A small company can be set up with about $50,000. A company that aims to reach a national market needs about $2 million to start primarily because of the expense of printing and distributing the volume of brochures necessary for a national market, as well as advertising and promoting the product.
Moreover, there have been failures even among big, household name companies, such as Rand McNally, when they ventured into the market, mainly because they under estimate what tour operations is all about, tend to throw money into the trappings and fail to give enough attention to winning the loyalty of travel agents.
More worrisome is the recent failure of well established and well respected tour companies with a great following among travel agents and consumers, such as Lindblad Travel (whose name was synonymous with adventure travel) and Four Winds Travel. Their demise demonstrates the difficult financial waters that tour operators must navigate. They simply couldn't survive the multiple assaults of a declining economy that cut demand for travel, spiraling costs, and fear of terrorism, which caused Americans to all but cease traveling abroad altogether.
Much of the problem can be traced to the peculiarities of the business. For example, tour operators' biggest competitors these days are the airlines that they depend upon for space and good rates. Many major airlines have their own in house tour operations, such as American's Fly Away Vacations and TWA's Getaway.
