ITINERARY

You will learn how to gather, select and arrange information for inclusion in the tour program.

Tour program or Itinerary

Is a written travel schedule made by a travel agency for their client or tourist.

It must contain the following information:

What is the title of the program?

Who are the tourists?

Where are they going and staying?

When are they arriving and departing?

How many and how are they going there are already incorporated in the 4 Wh questions

Sample tour program

Title of tour program: Bohol countryside tour

Name of tourist: Mr. Juan dela Cruz and Party

Number of tourists:2

Name of Hotel: Bohol Beach Club, Panglao Isand, Bohol

Number of room/s required: 1

Sample tour program

Type of occupancy: ____Single

__/__Double

_____Twin

____Quadruple(four in a room)

Type of Room Required: Standard

Arrival Date, time and flight no.: Feb 26, 2015, 10:45 Flight No. XX122

Sample tour program

Departure Date, time and flight no.: Feb 28, 2015, 11:45 Flight No. XX123

Country of Origin: Philippines

Sample tour program

Tour Activities

Tour activities

Date and time

• Feb 26, 2015(Thursday) 10:45

• Feb 27, 2015 ( Friday)

• Feb 28, 2015(Saturday) 10:00

Activities

• Upon arrival at Tagbilaran Airport, we will travel for about 30 minutes to Loboc River where we will have buffet lunch of local cuisine while cruising the river and serenade music. After lunch, we will proceed to the Chocolate hills, a thousand limestone hills that look like scoops of chocolate ice cream in summer. We will pass by the manmade forest along the way. Then, we will visit the sanctuary of tarsiers, one of the smallest primates in the world. We will have some fresh coconut juice before proceeding to historical sites such as Blood compact shrine and Baclayon Church and Museum. We will stop by a souvenir shop and then we will go to Bohol Bee Farm for sumptuos treat of healthy organic dinner and Malunggay Ice cream, before we bring you back to your hotel.

• You will have the following free day at the beach

• We will pick you up at 10AM. We will visit the factory of peanut kisses, Bohol’s famous local delicacy before we proceed to the airport

• Meal service

• Additional service, if any

• Travel agency and contact details

• Breakfast only; other meals on are on paxaccount

• Transfers; tour guide

• Bohol travel mobile no. (xxx)xxx-xxxx

Par account

Refers to the bill or expense items that the tourist must pay directly to the supplier such as the hotel, restaurant, or transport company.

Program title

You can be creative with the program title if the travel agency assigns you to name the tour.

Get the interest of the tourists but at the same time capture what the tour is all about in a nutshell.

Name of the tourist

Written as in the example: “One name” and Party

If you have the chance to go on a package tour to Hong Kong or similar place, you will notice that the travel agency representative at the airport is carrying a signboard indicating one name “and party”.

It is best if the tour guide can remember all the names, it is oftentimes a difficult thing to do especially with foreign names

Name of the tourist

The trick is to remember at least one name to refer to the group and the number of group members

Tour guide must have the complete list of the names of all the members of the tour group for checking purposes and strive to call their names when possible in order to serve them better.

Where are they going

Where are they going is the heart of the tour program. This is the reason for traveling.

Person assigned to prepare and write the tour program must describe the schedule and point of interest in a manner that will excite the tourist.

Place where the tourist will stay is usually the tourists choice

Tour guide must know the place to double check reservation and bring the tourists to where they are supposed to go in a timely manner.

Arrival, departure, transfers and meal service are all part of the logistical arrangements for the tour.

Tour guide must pay attention to these details very carefully.

Gathering and selecting information for the itinerary.

Upon knowing the time allotted for a tour for example, enumerate the tourist

attractions in the area that can be visited within this timeframe

through an actual site visit or familiarization tour.

Gathering and selecting information for the itinerary.

Plan how you will gather information about these attractions such as through their website and brochures; the tourism

office and interviews with key informants, such as local officials and cooperative

tourists who have visited the attractions and are willing to share their insights about

them. Then set out to gather data.

After gathering the information, select the part for inclusion in the tour itinerary.

Use this set of criteria called “5-way test” in choosing the information for the tour itinerary

5-way test1.Is the information

accurate?2.Does the information

address the 4Wh-questions: who, what, where and when?

5-way test3. Is the information

relevant or directly connected to any of the places that are included in the tour schedule?

5-way test

4. Is it easy to understand?

5. Is it interesting?

Paraphrasing techniques

Some of the data you gather will be difficult for tourists to understand.

Example of this type of data is technical data.

Use the method called paraphrasing to clarify or make it more understandable to general audiences.

Paraphrasing

Restating information in your own words.

Do not use words with more than two syllables.

Example of technical information

Tarsiers are arboreal and nocturnal. They are the only extant entirely carnivorous primates, primarily insectivorous. Their dentition has not changed much, except in size, in the past 45 million years. The Philippine tarsier is endemic to the country (Encyclopedia of life n.d.)

Paraphrased information:

Tarsiers live on branches of lower tress and are more active at night, hunting for food. They only eat meat, mainly insects. They are the only all-meat-eating primates alive. Their teeth and mouth have not changed much, except in size, in the past 45 million years. The Philippine tarsier can only be found in the country and nowhere else in the world.

ARRANGING ITINERARY

In previous lesson, you learned how to collect and select information for inclusion in the tour itinerary. In this lesson, you will learn how to arrange this information in a logical manner.

Logical Arrangement of a Tour and Its Importance

To arrange a tour logically means finding sound reasons and criteria to arrange the tour schedule based on the location of attractions and the flow of the tour story.

Look at the following map:

D. Ancestral House of a

National Artist

C. Museum B. City hall

E. Local Handicraft showroom

A. Church

How can you “logically” arrange the tour itinerary for this city if you want to go to all points, from A to E?

One way to do the tour is to start at point A and then move on to B,C,D, and lastly E. Another way is D-C-B-A-E.

However you can not go to D-B-E-C-A. Why?

This route require the tourist to pass by the city hall and church are at least twice.

It would be a waste of time, energy and resources, so avoid arrangements like this as much as possible.

Another consideration is the logical flow of a story.

If you want to focus on the life of the national artist, you can start the tour at the ancestral house.

Then you can proceed with the samples of work displayed at the museum and how he contributed to the development of the church and local economy.

But if you want to focus on the influence of religion on the lives of the local people, you can go from A to E.

Note:Logical arrangement of tour

itinerary follows the flow of an interesting story in an efficient and time-saving manner.

Efficiency means achieving the best results using the least time and resources.

In planning a tour the following elements must be considered: Time and distance

Flow of the story

Profile of the guests

Weather

Cost

Time and DistanceA. Time to move within the attraction –

How long will it take for the tourists to move within and gain appreciation of a particular tourist attraction? For example: how long does it take for an average person to have a tour inside BaclayonChurch Museum in Bohol?

Time and DistanceB. Time to move from one attraction to

the next – How long will it take the tour group to move from one attraction to the next? For example: how long does it take to move from the Baclayon Church Musuem to the jump-off point for the Loboc River Cruise?

Time and DistanceC. Time to start and end of the tour – What

time does the tour start and finish? Is meal served before, during or after the tour? In arranging the Bohol Countryside tour, one particular consideration is the time of the day when the tour starts, because lunch at Loboc River Cruise is one of the tour’s main attractions and it only accommodates guests from 10:00am to 2:00pm

2. Flow of the story

A. Interpretation – does not only refer to translation from one language to another.

- Refers to the provision of meaning and explanation to tourists to help them gain better appreciation and understanding of a particular attraction.

2. Flow of the story

- A tour guide helps tourists understand the meaning of the things within the tourist attraction. For example: without a guides interpretation church ruins would be just a pile of stones for non-believers. This is the difference between guided tour and a non-guided tour.

2. Flow of the story

B. Keeping the guest’s interest and attention- tour guiding is like storytelling.

- There are five parts of the story: characters, setting, plot, conflict and resolution

2. Flow of the story

- In tour guiding:- setting includes the general

information about the country and the city, its people and culture, and how these relate to the tourists background.

- Plot is the itinerary

- Characters can be famous people like celebrities and heroes, but they can also be tour guide and the guests depending on how the tour guide will tell the story.

2. Flow of the story

- Conflicts are interesting addition to tour commentaries; these can include intriguing facts or challenges in the local community faces. But at the end, commentary must offer a resolution to the conflicts presented, such as how tourists can contribute to the local economy by buying locally made souvenirs.

Note that unforgettable commentaries and tourists experiences stem from the ingenious arrangement of the tour commentary. Tour guides must therefore prepare commentaries that provide meaning and unfold like a story as the group reaches each tourist attraction.

3. Profile of the Guests

Know your tour group – how old are they? Can they climb stairs? Are they women who love shopping? Are there children in the group? How will their profile affect the itinerary?

4. Weather

Know the weather on the tour day - it pays to check the daily weather forecast about one week before a tour.

It can greatly affect the arrangements of a tour

4. Weather

Example: while it is sunny all year round in Bohol, sometimes it showers in the afternoon. Hence, visiting Chocolate Hills is usually first in the itinerary, as it requires a hike to the top of an open-air hill where the viewpoint is located.

the tour guide or tour planner can either prepare plan B for inclement weather conditions or prepare an all-weather itinerary.

5. CostTourism is business –

itineraries should match the budget of the tourists and the costs of going to particular tourist attractions.

- moreover, the travel agency must make a modest profit from the tour without making the tourists feel ripped off.

PREPARING TOUR COMMENTARIES

A tour becomes a lot more meaningful to a tourist with the help of tour guide because of the commentary that a tour guide provides. In this lesson you will learn to arrange information for a tour commentary.

Tour commentary: Also known as “guidespeak”

Refers to what tour guides say in front of the guests when describing

an attraction.

It includes general information about the country as well as local tales,

events and personalities related to the attraction.

Steps in preparing a tour commentary:

1. Know your guests interests and expectations

2. Know the itinerary

3. Look for reliable sources of information about the attractions included in the itinerary and gather information from these sources.

Steps in preparing a tour commentary:

4. Write your tour commentary based on the information you gathered

5. Practice and revise your commentary as you see fit.

Steps in preparing a tour commentary:

For easy to recall, use the acronym GIS-JOE, which stands for:

Know your Guests, Itinerary, and Sources of information (GIS)

Then Jot it down and Execute (JOE)

Type of Commentary

There are four types of Commentary:

Required

Informative

Requested

Optional

Type of Commentary

1. Required – is memorized script usually provided by a company for its guides.

- Deviations from the required commentary are highly discouraged, if not prohibited by the company.

Example: is the spiel delivered by guides in a theme park attraction.

Type of Commentary

2. Informative – sometimes referred to as interpretation, an informative commentary highlights the guide’s role as an educator.

- Through an informative commentary, the tour guide explains to the visitors the meaning and relevance of the things and symbols in the environment in a language that the visitors could easily understand and relate to.

Type of Commentary

3. Requested – when requested or asked, tour guide shall provide commentary to address particular needs and inquiries of the tourists.

-although this type of commentary can be called for on an ad hoc basis, tour guides must still come prepared.

- In this regard, it is important for tour guides to know their assigned city or location very well.

Type of Commentary

4. Optional – highlight the guide’s engaging and entertaining traits.

- Like s requested commentary, an optional commentary allows for the tour guide’s deeper involvement in a conversation and analysis.

- - in this way, the tourists can have a better appreciation of the tour and the attraction

Parts of commentary

Commentary usually has five parts:

1. Introduction

2. Body

3. Reaction

4. Reminders

5. Closing

1. Introduction

Greet the tour participants, introduce yourself( and the driver) and get to know the members of the group.

Provide an overview of the tour schedule and what to expect during the tour.

Provide general information about the country and the city as well.

2. Body

Upon arriving at a particular tourists attraction, describe the attraction and its relevance, what to see or do there, how long the group will stay there and the time everybody is expected to be back at a specific meeting point.

Do this for all other attractions.

3. Reaction

Give the tour participants a chance to ask questions before setting them free.

Allow for question and answer during the tour.

Encourage tour participants to voice out their reactions after the tour.

3. Reaction

Do not argue with the participants, but do try to address their concerns.

When receiving a question or remark, confirm it first by paraphrasing before responding and then ask again if the concern is properly addressed.

3. Reaction

Do a recap after delivering the body of the commentary and calling for reactions.

A recap is a brief summary of what has been discussed.

4. Reminders

Make sure that the tour participants take care of themselves and their belongings and respect each other’s time and space.

Always remind them to be on time and protect themselves from various elements in the environment that may harm them.

5. Closing

End the tour by thanking the tour participants for joining the tour and whenever possible, ask them to join the tour again with their friends and other tours that the company offers.

Some companies request guests to fill out a feedback sheet at this point, while others provide simple tokens of gratitude like local items or group photos

Steps in Preparing Tour Commentaries

Putting information together for tour commentaries entails the same methods for arranging the tour schedule in a logical manner.

Steps in Preparing Tour Commentaries

Steps:

1. Get a map of the tourist site and plot the location of all the tourist attractions that the tour group is going to visit

2. Plot locations of toilets, food stores, souvenir shops, security office and clinics.

Steps in Preparing Tour Commentaries

Steps:

3. Identify a starting point and a meet-up point at the end of the tour.

Steps in Preparing Tour Commentaries

Steps:

4. Think of a logical arrangement for visiting the tourist attractions such that you will visit the closest one to the starting point first and then work your way through until you reach the meet-up point making sure that no effort and time are wasted because of crisscrossing paths and backtracking.

Reviewing and editing tour commentaries

Use the following steps in reviewing and editing tour commentaries:

1. Is the grammar correct?

2. Does the commentary follow the same flow as the itinerary?

3. Are the words and sentences used interesting and compelling?