TALES FROM THE ROAD

My journey into tourism began at a Toastmasters club. At the time, I belonged to Battle Toastmasters club in the United Kingdom, and then-club president Giles Robinson suggested I enter the club’s Humorous Speech Contest. I took his advice, ­controlled my nerves as best as I could, and won! Winning that speech competition changed my life and gave me the confidence to take a risk: I switched my career path to tourism.

Enter the International Tour Management Institute (ITMI) in San Francisco, California, founded in 1976 by Ted Bravos. Encouraged by my local club and my head still spinning from the competition, I found myself enrolled in the school and on a plane to California.

Most of the students in the class, who were from all over the world, used filler words, looked awkward standing on a makeshift stage and held microphones in the wrong position. So it was no surprise that one of the first bits of advice Bravos gave us was to join a Toastmasters group in our respective regions of the world. As a member for two years already, one who had been regularly embarrassing myself in Table Topics, I felt I had a great head start.

Shortly afterward, on my maiden trip as a tour guide, traveling around the U.K., I was asked by a guest what sort of trees we were seeing from the motor coach. I didn’t know. But a Toastmaster would never say “I don’t know” during Table Topics. I picked up the microphone and said, “These trees on the left are wooden ones! They’re rather special trees, actually—we plant them on the left-hand side of the road in England. But let’s talk about trees in a few minutes, because there’s a stretch of Roman wall coming up on your right with a legend attached to it …”

I was so glad to have the storytelling and improvisation skills I learned in Toastmasters in my back pocket. My mentor at the Battle Toastmasters club taught me to put the audience first. Every time I pick up a microphone to talk with people on a tour, I think Am I going to give them something of value? Is this fun or relevant, or am I wasting their time? Or, worse still: Am I annoying them with a boring speech? A colleague of mine once talked for hours to a group after they’d had lunch, and eventually a guest shouted, “Can you please shut up?!”

As in Toastmasters, there comes a time to pass on knowledge and mentor newer members. So in 2016 I co-founded EastguidesWest, a company that trains guides and tour directors in emerging destinations. In Asia, Africa and Latin America, tour operators are marketing to the West, wanting to draw travelers from that part of the world. However, as my Dutch business partner, Sjannie Hulsman, and I discovered on a reconnaissance trip to Central Asia, we had to avoid basic preparation and communication mistakes.

Our trip to Kyrgyzstan was an induction by fire. “Toilets?” repeated Marat, our driver guide. He appeared puzzled, gestured toward an expanse of roadside trees and said casually, “In the nature.” Sjannie frowned and scribbled “restroom” in her notebook. For a country hoping to cater to more Western tourists, this was an eye-opening start. Marat then drove us to a hotel that was closed.

It seemed a good time to evaluate our first “speaker.” Sjannie and I commended Marat on his driving skills, suggested he work on “need-to-know” information and pre-tour preparation, and finished our evaluation with, “Really, we don’t know how you drive on these roads. You’re amazing.” Commend, recommend, commend.

Buoyed, Marat attended our guide training in Bishkek, the capital of the Kyrgyz Republic. Our program helps new guides learn the kinds of communication skills that people learn in Toastmasters. A month later, responding to increased word-of-mouth business, he was able to increase his prices.

Better communication means better service, which means increased tourism revenue. Who says you can’t get paid to travel?