For all of those who are driving tours, dealing with tour leaders is a big part of the job. A coach driver’s relationship with the tour leader can make or break the trip, and passengers will be well aware if the two of you are in conflict. This, however all boils down to the characters of both of you.
From what I’ve seen there’s basically two types – the old school tour leader and the people pleaser tour leader.
The old school tour leader doesn’t have to be old. In fact, I’ve met plenty of young ones, but there is one thing they all have in common. They were mentored by someone more experienced – whether it was a senior coach driver or a senior tour leader.
Of course, the tour leaders have much more to their job than what we see on the coach. But in this article we’ll keep to the coach side of things.
One thing that will give you a hunch almost immediately is…
Did the tour guide/tour leader introduce you to the passengers?
I’ve met dozens of tour guides and tour leaders. You’d be surprised how many people just ramble about themselves (and their 5 cats). Or, worse yet, go straight to boring everybody with the year whatever city was built. Like anybody remembers that.
Of course, sometimes the passengers ask for my name – even if I’m just going to be with them for a few hours. Hopefully the guides learned from that.
Introduce them with the driver’s working hours
Most tour leaders know about the driving times, but always a good idea to make a brief rundown just in case.
Explain this to passengers early on, and you won’t have to deal with ridiculous demands. One of them was: “can the driver pick us up from the centre of Prague in 3 AM”. If its a younger group, they also won’t mind doing some walking just in case if you’re really tight with the driving hours.
Depending on where you’re driving, most cities have designated pickup/dropoff locations for coaches and you can in no circumstances do it anywhere else. Europeans and people who are used to walking have no trouble with this. However if they’re used to driving everywhere (e.g. USA) this may be a problem at first and they’ll ask you to pick them up in the middle of a pedestrian zone.
Some tour leaders (the people pleasers) would have the gut to ask the driver to do this. I’m not gonna lie, I would get to the city centre, BUT only after I got a hefty deposit in case of a fine. That’s one way to deal with it. The second one is to give them your supervisor on the phone. Think they’ll wanna talk? Nope, they quit with their demands immediately.
Making it easier for the driver
Experienced tour leaders will even go the extra mile and use public transport or walk if the group is suitable and the time saved is minimal. Not only does it give us more time to rest, but we can also clean up the coach earlier and more efficiently if we have the time. Or we can use our free time to be tourists ourselves.
If you’re a driver, putting the tour leader’s suitcase at an easily reachable location will make it easier and everything will go faster. By the time they’re done giving everyone their keys they can also give you keys of your room. When I had to park far from the hotel, they would gladly take my suitcase to the reception desk.
Good tour leaders are not afraid to set rules
Whether it comes to walking around or riding on the coach – rules make everything easier. Luckily, when it comes to the ride it just comes out to three things – food, toilet and trash.
If the tour leader didn’t do this already, definitely instruct them not to let anybody enter the coach with an ice cream or any messy food. If they’re afraid to do this or give you a funny look – you’re off to a rough trip. Tour leaders like these LOVE to take off their pants and get ******* without any lube.
Took me long enough, did it?
As for using the toilet, depending on the country there might be different regulations. We keep it locked and make stops more often. Keep in mind that if the onboard toilet is in function, you’ll have to dispose of the waste at designated areas and do it often as it gets smelly very fast.
When it comes to trash, the duty of passengers is to pick up all the trash they have and throw it in the trash bin. Your duty is to empty the trash bin every day (or more often if it gets full). Don’t forget to remove the full trash bags from the coach as soon as you find a big container. This makes it less awkward as you wouldn’t need to stuff it in and get dirty looks from bypassers.
Sometimes passengers leave empty bottles in the nets on seats in front of them. I usually give it 2 days until throwing those away because some people like to reuse their bottles and fill them up with tap water.
A question to debate – Do worse tours equal worse quality tour leaders?
While I was thinking about all the tours I’ve driven up until now, I couldn’t help but ask myself if tours with less than ideal conditions had less than ideal tour leaders leading them. This brings it all back to the tour operators – as prices have been going up more and more, where is it easiest to save money? On the driver, of course.
I’m never going to forget one of my tours which had my guests sleeping at 5* all-inclusive hotels. At the same time I was sleeping in 3* hotels (nothing wrong with that) with only breakfast included. Someone would say “That’s what the tip is for!”. Give me a break. Eventually the driver who replaced me ended up sleeping a 30 minute drive away from his passengers. Didn’t even get breakfast.
Of course, none of this is the tour leader’s fault. And she was really alright, despite us having a language barrier. And as for the passengers? They don’t even know and I can guarantee you a fair amount would be absolutely appaled if they knew the conditions we’re sleeping in sometimes. And I’ve seen tour leaders even having worse accomodation than drivers on a few occasions.
We have no choice but to stick together!
To wrap it up, the whole point of this article is that drivers and tour leaders must work as a team all the time. Sometimes the driver will do a favour to the tour leader, and sometimes it will be the opposite. If there is a healthy relationship between the two right off the bat, passengers will see this and feel much more relaxed.
You don’t have to be best friends and you’ll probably have a difference in age and interests. But one thing is definite – you should ALWAYS stick up for each other.
Oh and don’t let the trip go past without buying each other drinks!
Until next time, cheers!