LETTER | Everyone knows what a tourist guide is but no one I met could describe correctly the basic job of a tourist guide, including hundreds of licensed tourist guides and thousands of tourism personnel that I have trained over the past decades.

But whenever I asked what the basic job of a postman is, the first respondent would always be spot-on, and that is to deliver letters. But for tourist guide, a large group would offer more than 10 different answers.

They include to greet, smile, lead, guide, escort, inform, educate, enlighten, assist, or entertain tourists. 

Some would say to ensure safety and security, comfort and convenience, introduce and describe places of interest, be friendly and diplomatic to tourists, promote Malaysia or be our country’s ambassador.

Many people could perform one or more of these roles but that do not make them tourist guides. 

In Malaysia, the basic job of a tourist guide is to provide transfers and tours using a tour bus or van. Unless exempted, all tour buses and vans with passengers on board must have a tourist guide.

In order to be a good tourist guide, one must be alert, punctual, friendly, helpful, entertaining, communicate well in the language understood by the tourists, knowledgeable about the local area, and in close contact with local authorities, businesses and residents.

Although there will always be good and bad people in any job or business, tourist guides and tour operators have been finger-pointing in industry meetings, resulting in fruitless arguments, instead of placing national interest first.

Contrary to popular belief, tourist guides do not choose where tourists are taken. When handling foreign tourists, they must adhere to the itinerary set by both overseas outbound and local inbound tour operators.

When tourists have leisure time, enterprising tourist guides may sell optional tours. If made known to the tour company, the optional tour was conducted officially. 

If kept a secret and the tourist guide pocketed all the profits, it would be unethical and against the Tour Operating Business and Travel Agency Business (Tobtab) regulations, as the tour guide was acting like a tour operator without licence.

Apart from earning tourist guide fees at around RM200 per day and much more for those licensed for European languages, the other income streams are tips from generous tourists and shopping commissions, which are illegal under the regulation.

But as long as no one is cheated, it is generally safe, as large reputable firms have continued paying out commissions to tourist guides tour leaders and bus operators over the past decades.

Tourist guides may freelance or work for a company. In first Visit Malaysia Year 1990, I was the fleet operations manager of a large tour company with 15 fulltime tourist guides, 15 tour bus drivers and 15 tour van drivers, plus many more part-time drivers and freelance guides.

Tourist guides can also contribute by working in offices of companies handling inbound and domestic tours, particularly in product development. Many existing companies are run by very experienced but jaded personnel.

Without taking in fresh blood, little will change. The new blood can come from people both young and old but from different backgrounds, as they could imagine or see things in a fresh perspective and not through tired old lenses.

This is particularly critical when tourism is now undergoing a reboot and it will be a long time coming before many tourist guides get to handle foreign tourists again. 

Although the majority of over 15,000 registered tourist guides are not solely dependent on guiding for income, those affected are in dire straits.

After we have eventually won the war against coronavirus, other countries may still be battling the Covid-19 pandemic and it will be quite a while before many aircraft take to the sky, as airlines that have gone bust may not fly again.

The recourse is domestic tours, but tourist guides and associations should stop insisting all tours, even for one person, must use the service of a tourist guide as provided under the antiquated law, which has stifled domestic tours for decades.

The law must be amended and apply only when customers pay for the service of a tourist guide, a licensed one must be engaged. As it is, customers including locals, are forced to pay for a tourist guide they do not need or want or abort the tour.

I believe many innovative tourist guides could help design tours within a district that are so interesting that even the locals would want to take. 

Sadly, this area remains largely untapped.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

Keep up with the latest information on the outbreak in the country with Malaysiakini's free Covid-19 tracker.

Malaysiakini is providing free access to the most important updates on the coronavirus pandemic. You can find them here.

Help keep independent media alive - subscribe to Malaysiakini.