'It's great to be practising this ancient art again' – cheer as tour guiding returns to Britain
I’m a Blue Badge tour guide, and last week I took my first tour since lockdown was introduced back in March. The walking tour around my home city of Bath wasn’t quite what I’m used to.
Somewhat ironically, the group consisted of medical students and the tour had an emphasis on medical history – not pandemics, but centred around how Bath’s supposedly curative thermal waters have shaped the city over the centuries.
When I met up with the group in front of the Royal Crescent, rather than my normal break-the-ice chit chat about where everyone was from, I began by offering to wear a mask. No one wanted me to – the whole tour was outdoors, after all – and having been masked up all day at the hospital, the students were mask free too. I was quietly grateful, as guiding engagingly with my face half hidden, to a masked audience, would have been challenging.
I'd limited the group to six, the government's current permitted group size for people from different households, and I'd got everyone's contact details in advance, in case they were needed for track and trace purposes.
I made it clear that I'd keep at least two metres apart from everyone, and encouraged the students to do the same with each other – though it turned out some of them were in a ‘bubble’ so in fact didn't need to. That all worked out fine, though I did have to remind myself not to sidle up too close to chat to people when walking between stops. But on the whole, usual guiding matters like the weather (it drizzled) and, after a four-month break, remembering my best lines (guiding is a performance, after all), felt more of a challenge than Covid-related measures.
Yet these measures are of course essential to work as a tour guide now. I've helped national guiding bodies formulate Covid-19 guidance specifically for tour guiding. I've done a thorough risk assessment of the tours I offer, and I have Visit Britain's ‘We're Good to Go’ certificate confirming I am following government and tourism industry Covid-19 guidelines.
Tour guiding is another tranche of the UK's tourism and hospitality industry that has been devastated by the pandemic. There are around 2,000 ‘badged’ guides in the UK. Most are Blue Badge Tourist Guides – the highest qualified, and thoroughly trained in sensitive group management techniques, an essential skill in these complicated times.
We have had no proper guiding work since March, though some enterprising guides have started offering virtual tours. I'd usually be showing people around my home city day in, day out during the spring and summer. But, like my colleagues, I've had dozens of cancelled bookings – not just for walking tours of Bath, but as a guide specialising in south-west England, also for street art tours of Bristol, days out with American clients in chauffeur-driven vehicles to Stonehenge, Avebury and the Cotswolds, and coach excursions for cruise-ship passengers from Portland in Dorset.
Most bookings with Blue Badge guides are for foreign tourists. Hardly any are expected this year, and significantly reduced numbers are predicted next year and even the year after.
So, for the forseeable future, as guides we are going to need to focus on the domestic market and encourage British people to sign up to our tours to learn more about their own history and culture. I love guiding locals around Bath as I have to really keep on my toes and make sure I can tell them things they don't already know (can they name all of the city's seven Georgian crescents?), and I always learn nuggets of information that I can pinch and reuse.
We Blue Badge guides predict that in the current climate many people will be more comfortable with the prospect of our private tours, but in some towns and cities guides have also teamed together to provide more affordable public tours. For example, Bath Walking Tours, an outfit I work with, is offering both public and private tours, with a maximum of six currently on the public tours due to the government guidelines. At £10 a head, with the limited numbers it's not exactly a big money-spinner for us, but we are getting bookings and walk-ups, and it's great to be out practising the ancient art of guiding again.
Find a Blue Badge guide britainsbestguides.org
Find out more about Fred's tours fredmawertours.co.uk
