How To Start A Side Hustle As A Tour Guide

If, like most people, you’ve looked at social media recently, you’ve probably noticed a proliferation of travel content.

Travelling the world has never exactly been unpopular, but more people are travelling than ever before, both abroad and within their own countries.

You might think that your own local area isn’t that interesting, especially if you live in a relatively small town without much in the way of historical or cultural landmarks.

But you shouldn’t forget that, to someone on the other side of the world, even your apparently unexciting hometown may seem incredibly exotic.

Especially if your local town is a reasonably old one, it may attract plenty of foreign visitors. It’s also quite common for a place to suddenly become highly popular if a previously unknown beauty spot goes viral on Instagram.

With so much interest in travel, there are plentiful opportunities for those looking to capitalise on an influx of tourists.

Niche or unusual tours are increasingly gaining popularity - you can find tours dedicated to filming sites for TV shows (for example, Game of Thrones was thought to be responsible for a sixth of foreign visitors to Northern Ireland in 2018), ghost tours, street art tours and even toilet-based tours (seriously).

In short, if you can think of a theme for a tour, you can probably find a market for it.

If that sounds like the sort of side hustle you’d enjoy, read on!

In this article, we’ll cover how to start a side hustle as a tour guide, the logistical challenges you’ll need to consider, and how much you can earn - as well as a couple of alternative side hustles if you decide in the end that guided tours aren’t for you.

Who Can Be A Tour Guide?

Anyone can become a tour guide!

There aren’t any specific qualifications you need from a legal perspective - the most important things are to enjoy working with people and to have a good knowledge of and enthusiasm for your area.

That said, having experience in similar fields, or professional knowledge you can draw on, will certainly help.

If you do have any relevant experience or specialist knowledge, that’s a logical hook to centre your tours on, and a unique selling point for your fledgling business.

Beyond anything else, what you’ll need is a personable manner, tons of energy, and the ability to turn even the smallest landmark into a moment of wonder that’ll stick in the memories of your customers for the rest of their trip.

Do You Need A Licence Or Qualifications To Lead Guided Tours?

You don’t need qualifications to lead guided tours in the UK, but you might need a licence. This will depend on your area and exactly where you plan to take your customers.

You should check local regulations, and any policies of local landmarks you intend to include in your tours, to find out if you need to apply for a licence or permit to lead guided tours there.

You’re also likely to need insurance as a tour operator. There are plenty of insurance companies offering insurance specifically designed for tour guides, which will cover you if one of your customers is injured, for example, or if you’re not able to visit a particular location due to an unforeseen event.

It may be tempting to ignore this aspect of your new business, especially if you’re only planning small scale tours in your free time, but you’d be very unwise to fail to cover yourself. Without insurance, you personally would be liable for anything that went wrong.

How To Get Started As A Tour Guide

1. Research. You might think you know your local area as well as anyone, but the likelihood is that there’s lots more that you don’t know. You might find hidden gems you can introduce your clients to, or interesting snippets of information you could base a tour around.

As well as researching the content of your tours, you’ll need to research the logistics. Do you need any permits or licences to legally lead a tour in your town? What’s the best value insurance? Do local landmarks expect businesses like yours to pay a fee to tour them? Do any major landmarks operate exclusively with other guiding companies, or have their own in-house team?

You’ll need to know the answers to all these questions before you get started, so that you aren’t stymied by unexpected logistical problems when you’re trying to get up and running.

2. Identify your niche. You can’t be all things to all people. As a small business, your best bet is to make a certain niche your own, and stick to it. Do you want to focus on culture? Adventure? Wholesome activities? Nature? Pop culture? There are endless possibilities, but you should decide on one in advance.

3. Create your itineraries. You’ll need to work out detailed itineraries for all tours you plan to offer and, having created them, test them out to make sure they work. If they include visits to specific places, you’ll need enough time for your group to see them properly, and enough travel time to get between landmarks without rushing your groups.

You can also consider collaborating with local businesses - for example cafes, restaurants, or maybe small businesses offering entertainment - to keep your customers fed and having fun while supporting other local businesses and keeping your costs down.

4. Work out your pricing. To get an idea of an appropriate pricing structure, check out similar tours being offered by existing companies, both in other locations and your own area.

You should factor in the cost of group bookings, both for landmarks and transport, and make sure you come out in sufficient profit to actually pay you for your time.

5. Set up a website and market your brand. You need potential customers to find you, after all! Social media will be your friend - especially with the popularity of travel influencers nowadays - but you shouldn’t disdain local advertising either, especially for smaller tours that don’t require pre-booking.

How Much Can You Earn As A Tour Guide?

How much you earn as a tour guide can vary wildly, so it’s difficult to provide reliable estimates.

If you’re based in a very tourist-heavy city, especially one where the cost of everything is high - London, for example - you’ve got a good chance of making quite a lot of money from your side hustle.

People will expect to pay more for tours in generally expensive areas, and there’ll certainly be no shortage of tourists looking for things to do.

On the other hand, you might find it more difficult to make a good income from your side hustle if you live in a popular area.

No doubt towns like Middlesbrough or High Wycombe get some tourists, but less touristy places tend to feature fewer world-famous landmarks, and people will probably be unwilling to pay as much for a tour.

If you speak another language, you can also offer tours in that language, which will increase the rate you can reasonably charge.

You shouldn’t expect to earn a fortune from a guided tours side hustle, regardless. Especially when starting out, you may want to charge as little as possible to attract customers, as you won’t yet have any reviews to tell the world how amazing you are.

Once you get going and receive some good reviews, though, you should be able to increase your prices, and thus your income.

Pros And Cons Of Guided Tours As A Side Hustle

Alternative Side Hustles For Extra Income

If you like the sound of starting your own side hustle, but you’re not sure about guided tours - perhaps your local area just isn’t very interesting, or you’re not thrilled about having quite so much interaction with the public - there are plenty of other alternatives.

You could make gardening your new side hustle, or try out dog walking, if you’re looking for something that’ll get you out of the house. Or, if you’d prefer to work from home, you could take on copywriting, or transcribing audio.

Or you could always try your hand at Matched Betting. It’s a great way to make money online, with the potential to make £300-£1000 a month - all without having to leave the comfort of your sofa!