This document provides an overview of touring guide training methods that combine practical, hands-on learning with theoretical instruction. The training teaches guides to craft experiences that last beyond the travel itself and engage networks. Guides learn through collaborative practice, research, and feedback to develop tours that connect people and organizations. Semiotic staging of tour locations is discussed as a way to create a welcoming host-guest relationship rather than just a commercial exchange.

1.
Touring guide training
Introduction & exerpts
Below are some exerpts from the different levels of touring guide training I give­ both
practical and handson, aswell as in theory. For groups and individuals,
There are several added values to my method of teaching:
See ​http://la­clappeye.nl/workshops­cursussen/citytours/
● I am your partner, not so much teacher;
● I’m present on location (in Europe), knowing both ends of the combined networks
● I actively deploy my own professional network
My tours are never just about the moment of travel alone.
● They teach
● They show
● They connect
● They engage networks
● They transport instead of travel.
When hired, I devise concepts that reach far beyond just a tour or travel. They transport
meaning, the combine and intertwine networks, they couple NGO’s to volunteers, citisens to
(civic) journalism, students to teachers, exclusion to inclusion.
Combining techniques from tourism, cultural studies, urbanism, placemaking, imagineering
and marketing­ aswell as year of experience, I craft experiences that last longer than just the
time it takes to travel them.
Who is it for?
● Creators of travel related digital content, through apps and travel blogs;
● Volunteers and workawayers

2. ● NGO employees or volunteers
● Students (for instance Erasmus programme)
● Tourism startups
Collaboration and co-production
Don't be a guest, be a movement.
When designing co­productions, barterdeals or collaborations, do'nt produce yourself as a
tourist/tourism or even touring­company, but as fully grown, social and culturally aware
project driven organisation, depending on widely shared values­ through travel,
Couchsurfing etc.
The community pf practice, mentioned under ​Training the tourguide​ extends also to external
relationships. You will find it is much easier to get cooperation if you act as producer and
connector, instead of "occupier" of space.
Being a project-based organisation
Steady and trustworthy projects
There is a danger of being perceived as untrustworthy by local possible stakeholders, due to
the fleeing character of travel, the tours and tourists. It is important to construct solid
cooperations with local organisations­ not solely through barter and small time deals for
tours, but meaningful relationships with cultural institutions and others. Especially when
collaborating on larger projects, the quality of relationships with contacts, relies on earlier
collaborations within an embedded network. This last term­ embeddedness of contacts ­ is
absolutely crucial.
Tours Servicedesign Collaboration and co­production Being a project­based organisation
Steady and trustworthy projects Training the tourguide On global perspective
Working­scenario’s On­site Setting up shop: Location­ and site­management Semiotic
staging of the tour­location
The guides will learn through several modes
On global perspective
● Basic essentials: Centralised touring training, using standard company resources:
○ Using a visual arc
○ Storyboard software
○ "Live" company knowledge base
○ Timelines
Tour­development

3. Ideation phase into actionables, including long/short­term planning
Proper research­phase, following a basic structure
Construct tour > research > Feedback­sessions > Make it happen / Tours > Additional
modular training / peer­control
● Visual research
● Pastiche/collages
● Constructing the tourists visual image of the place
● Creating a community of practice: Experiential collaborative learning through
continued interaction
○ Creating common qualities
○ Having a home­base in the city
○ Collaborations and co­productions link to local touring­constructs
Communities of practice are groups of individuals with a shared concern or interest, who
develop their knowledge and expertise through continued interaction. They are usually self
selective, membership being depentent on a sense of cooperation, mutual identification to a
common goal and commitment to the creation of shared knowledge. Communities of
practice are idealised and ideologically loaded forms of relationships between individuals.
Ideal for travel and social travel. However, they need spaces for knowledge creation,
physical ones, virtual ones, formal and informal ones.
● Professional training through practice and peer­quality control
● Maintaining professionalism
● Professional coaching on personal level
● Bodystorming and embodiment
Semiotic staging of the tour-location
Especially at xxxxxx where you are quite at home ­it is important when arriving with paying
tourists, not to show too much connection to xxx , as it puts you on the commercial side of
the deal­ teaming up with Schuim. It is important to note that not every exchange of drink is
the same as a hospitable action. You've got 2 things working "against you" : The time of the
pub tour and the place. Time is generally acknowledged to be "a drinking time", and the
place is there for drinking. So neither of those elements are an act or can be perceived as an
act of hospitality. But they CAN be tailored to be that.
The host­guest­relationship involves a complex construction of exchange and reproduction.
The exchange in which one party gives, the other one receiving, creates a
host­guest­threshhold, through which other acts of hospitality can flow. If there is no
connection in hospitality exchange, other than the promised free shots, there is only a linear
commercial engagement left.

4. There are numerous ways to conduct and stage a location, space and time, using for
instance the material qualities of the location, or make sure you design the experience
beforehand­ up to a point, that is. For instance, on entrance you can sit at a table with a
"reserved" label on it, including special drinking glasses or tour­merchandising. This forces
the guests to sit at a table and receive whatever is coming from the bar, from the guide and
the room itself. Actually participating in producing drinks or food on the spot, as a guide, will
get you lots and lots of kudo's. This setting has created a host­guest­threshhold which is
very fluid and easy to cross, on both sides. Introducing a game­element works in the same
way. It also gets your guests to utilise the room again. Reciprocating also works through
material subjects, through food and drink, through attributes on the table, the music, the
aurality of te place.

6.
La Clappeye Acts
p/a Sint­Lucasstraat 16
5211 ZG, ‘s­Hertogenbosch
acts@la­clappeye.nl
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Twitter: la_clappeye en
Hostelconcepts
Referenties Renk van Oyen
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