Every year, TourRadar hosts their annual Guide of the Year Awards to celebrate and recognize exceptionalism in the tour guide community. As the ultimate online marketplace for booking multi-day group tours, we know that without tour guides, the touring industry would be nothing. Guides do it all: they’re personal historians, therapists, event managers, professional public speakers and every career in between.
Adventure guides combine all of these roles and go one step further by completing extensive training over the course of their careers. In an effort to support the industry and further legitimize the achievements of these guides, the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) has initiated the Adventure Travel Trade Guide Qualification and Performance Standard.
An adventure guide is defined by their formal training and experience in the ATTA’s five core competencies:
- Universal Technical Skills (safety and risk management, navigation, natural phenomena interpretation) AND at least one of the Activity Specific Technical skills
- First Aid and Wilderness Medicine
- Group Management and Customer Service
- Natural and Cultural History Interpretation
- Sustainability and Minimum Impact
That’s why this year, TourRadar has introduced an Adventure Guide category to their Guide of the Year Awards, to shine a spotlight on this special category of guides who take their training, and their travellers’ experiences, to the next level.
Why you should apply to TourRadar’s Guide of the Year Awards
So you’re an Adventure Guide and you’ve gone through all the training, spent long hours learning the intricacies of sustainable travel, wilderness medicine and first aid, technical competency and the like. But beyond the incredible memories you’ve made with your travellers, how else will your efforts be recognized? You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to excel at a job you love but you deserve more than just the satisfaction of a job well done. Get registered on TourRadar and enter the running for the Guide of the Year Awards!
It’s easy to enter and simple to compete
TourRadar has over 500 trusted operators live on site, so it’s extremely likely the tour operator you work for is already registered on our site. If they are, all you need to do is sign yourself up as a guide on TourRadar by selecting the operator you work for and choosing the “I’m an Adventure Guide” selection from the drop-down menu on the sign-up page. Once you do that you’re automatically in the running to compete for Adventure Guide of the Year!
Past traveller reviews will determine the winning guide, alongside our panel of judges who are affiliated with the Adventure Travel Trade Association. Encourage your past travellers to leave reviews for you and your tour on TourRadar to help you win!
Check out the panel of judges and everything you need to know to win Adventure Guide of the Year by clicking here.
If your operator isn’t currently registered on TourRadar, send us a note and we will see if you qualify for registration expediting.
You’ll receive international recognition
TourRadar serves hundreds of thousands of travellers around the world every year, each of which base their travel decisions on qualities like familiarity, trust and brand recognition. Travellers are more likely to book tours with guides and operators who have numerous reviews, and who have been recognized across the industry as exceptional experience providers and tour leaders. Getting your name on our Adventure Guide of the Year Leaderboard puts the focus on you and is essentially free publicity for the work you do and the tours you run. Our sponsors will be talking about you, other operators will be talking about you and new opportunities will find their way to your doorstep (or inbox). But there’s more than just bragging rights....
You can win huge prizes
The Adventure Guide of the Year will receive a total of USD $5000 in prizing. This year we’ve secured some truly amazing prizes, all thanks to our generous sponsor, Garmin! If you’re the lucky winner you can expect to receive a Garmin inReach device (including one year of airtime), $1000 in travel credits to book a well-earned vacation of your own, and a charitable donation in your name to a FootPrints project of your choice! Can you say cha-ching?
So what are you waiting for? Sign up today!
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to spread the word about everything you do to make the travel community a better place. Your tireless efforts to make unforgettable adventures safe, easy and fun for travellers all around the world deserves to be recognized. Sign up today and begin collecting reviews to secure your rightful place as 2017’s Adventure Guide of the Year.