Lead Tour Guide

Big Bus Tours LTD Los Angeles United States of America Operations
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Company Description

Big Bus Tours is the world’s largest operator of open-top sightseeing tours, fuelling the spirit of adventure in 21 world-famous cities across four continents. Beginning its journey 27 years’ ago, with a fleet of only three buses, Big Bus Tours has swiftly expanded to a global fleet of over 400 hundred  open-top buses, turning 5 million tourists into explorers, every year. Big Bus Tours operates in London, Dubai, Hong Kong, New York, Las Vegas, Chicago, Abu Dhabi, Budapest, Istanbul, Miami, Muscat, Rome, Paris, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Darwin, Sydney, Vienna, Washington DC, Dublin and Singapore, with a sightseeing concept designed to provide a flexible approach to city discovery. Each open-top bus tour provides a hop-on, hop-off facility at a variety of interesting locations, with complimentary additions to enhance the visitor sightseeing experience. In February 2015, private equity firm Exponent purchased Big Bus Tours, with a shared vision to make Big Bus Tours the number 1 thing to do in each world-famous city.  In 2016, Merlin Entertainments PLC became a shareholder, offering a natural synergy with Big Bus Tours and Merlin attractions and experiences around the world. With entertaining guides and commentary and knowledge of the latest events in each city, the Big Bus City Crew leaves every passenger with a story to tell.

Position

Background

Los Angeles is one of the most fabulous and eclectic cities in the world, and we believe that Big Bus can add a great new experience for visitors by utilising our expertise of providing tourists with a never before available experience and the perfect introduction to this world-famous city, helping them to discover and explore the wealth of things to do and places to see.

By expanding into Los Angeles, we are making this our 22nd city that we operate from. This is an exciting opportunity for you to create something very special as you will be part of the opening team and be involved in setting up the operation and infrastructure of the business.

Overall Purpose

To provide an engaging, entertaining and educational tour. We don’t just tell great stories but give great stories to tell. In addition to the regular tour guide responsibilities, the lead tour guide is also responsible to provide the supervision, training, teaching and coaching of the tour guide team.

 

Value Linked Objectives

 

Warmly Welcoming:

  • Present a great first impression
  • Engage city visitors in a friendly and welcoming way
  • Learn why they are here and what they want from their city adventure
  • Complete the interaction with phenomenal enthusiasm and friendliness.

 

Memorable Storytellers:

  • For many of our customers, this is their first time exploring the city and we want our guides to answer any of their questions, about the tours and attractions we offer, along with directions to eateries and famous sights in a way that leaves them with a great experience.
  • We aim to turn tourists into explorers and as our guides are often the biggest part of the Big Bus experience, the way our guides share stories about their city ensures our customers in turn have great stories to tell

 

Always Entertaining:

  • Delivering knowledge in an engaging and inspiring manner to create entertainment is essential to being a good guide.
  • A natural communicator with a positive attitude is a must. We want people to enjoy every interaction with Big Bus. 

 

Dedicated:

  • We want to be the No 1 thing to do in every world famous city and we need dedicated and driven professionals to work towards this vision.
  • We work as a team with our Drivers to create a flawless experience for our customers.

 

Never Satisfied:

  • We want guides who are achievement driven and never satisfied: who are constantly looking for ways to improve their city knowledge, their skills and our customers’ experience.

 

Key Areas of Accountability and Responsibility

Area of Accountability /Responsibility

Key Responsibilities

Key Areas

  • Promote the core values of the Big Bus Tour brand, keeping quality, honesty, integrity, passion, loyalty, competitiveness, team Spirit and customer focus in mind at all times.
  • Provide our customers with outstanding customer service through “Subject Matter Expert” type knowledge of our cities.
  • Maximize company revenue through appropriate upselling of our core packaged products
  • Provide our customers with genuine approach to customer service and entertain them during their experience.
  • Provide exceptional customer service including directions, advisement on attractions and eateries, general information
  • Monitor and maintain an environment where customer and team member safety is a concern at all times
  • To carry out other tasks as may be reasonably requested.

Basic Requirements

  • In addition to the tour guide regular responsibilities, the tour guide lead is also responsible for assisting the Head of Operations with the overall supervision and management of the Tour Guide team
  • Assist with hiring tour guides/guide training
  • Oversee the continuing education and evaluation of the Tour Guide team
  • Quality Control- strategically assess all tour guides performance and provide feedback to both guides and Head of Operations
  • Lead, support and encourage tour guides through trainings, evaluation, and assisting supervisors when needed

Requirements

Skills

  • Customer first approach
  • Excellent verbal communication skills

Experience/Qualifications

  • Clearly spoken English
  • Legally able to work in the US

Competencies

  • Customer  Service
  • Approachability
  • Personal Effectiveness
  • Integrity and Trust
  • Outgoing and engaging personality

Other information

Physical Requirements

  • Continuous commentary during tours
  • Standing and sitting for long periods of time
  • Walking up and down stairs quickly and safely
  • Cleaning debris / restocking supplies after tours
  • Required lifting up to 25 lbs.