Tour Guide resume example & writing guide

If you want to turn your wanderlust into a career, you may find being a tour guide fulfilling and rewarding. Fellow travelers will look to you for a well-planned and safe itinerary of seeing the sights and learning about local culture. A well-written tour guide resume can help you showcase your skills and expertise, and stand out as a guide any tourism company would be proud to have on staff.

This resume guide, along with the corresponding tour guide resume example, will cover the following topics:

• What a tour guide resume should include

• Advice on each section of your resume (summary, work history, education)

• Adding relevant key skills to your resume

• Choosing the right resume template for a tour guide

What should your tour guide resume include?

An effective tour guide resume highlights your organization, planning, storytelling, and problem-solving skills. From weather to traffic, you never know what the tour day will bring. So you need to demonstrate how you think on your feet and communicate well. While you can’t take the hiring manager on a personal tour, you can do the next best thing and present them with a clear, concise resume that shows off your expertise.

Your tour guide resume should contain the following elements:

• A resume header with your contact information

• A resume summary

• An employment history section

• An education section

• A resume skills section

How can you create a professional summary?

You might be as expert a traveler as Phileas Fogg, but you don’t have to take the hiring manager around the world in 80 days. Use a professional summary! This is your resume’s opening chapter, using two to three sentences to outline your most relevant skills, experience, and value you’d bring to the company. 

The resume summary is not just a list of destination highlights; it’s an expression of your professional mission statement and how it ties to your relevant work experience. This might include your ability to manage group dynamics, your passion for travel, or your commitment to education and cultural appreciation.

If you really want to impress, consider adding an Areas of Expertise list after your professional summary, using bullet points to map out your skill set. This allows you to target both your core travel skills and any other transferable skills you may possess.

See our adaptable tour guide resume summary below:

How should you describe your work experience as a tour guide?

Your work experience section is where you’ll go into specific detail about your tour guide experience. Your guide for this section is the job description itself, which provides you with the information and key details you need to tailor your resume for the job.

Make sure to list your previous jobs in reverse-chronological order, including your job title, years worked there, and main responsibilities. But this won’t just be a list of tasks you completed. To position yourself as an achiever, not just a do-er, include two to three bullet points with your accomplishments at each position, using quantifiable data when possible. 

This will give the reader an idea of the positive impact you had at each position. Remember, a prospective employer doesn’t just want to know what you’ve done, but what you can do for them.

For example, if you have a history of customer satisfaction and repeat bookings, use numbers to illustrate your impact:

• “Developed a new program for training tour guides in storytelling and public speaking, ensuring consistent and high-quality delivery and increasing the customer satisfaction rate by 53%.”

It might feel challenging to come up with hard numbers when working in a people-centric business like tourism. So focus on ways to quantify that aspect, such as repeat customers, feedback rates, or increased bookings.

Take a look at the adaptable tour guide resume employment history section below:

What can you do without any direct experience as a tour guide

If you’re looking for your first job as a tour guide, focus on your transferable skills that would be useful in the role, such as empathy, communication, organization, or travel planning. This could include experience you’ve gained in previous jobs, volunteer work, or personal travel experience.

The key is to illustrate how you used these skills on the job, and the positive outcomes that came from them. Make the connection from these roles to the tour guide position, and how they can be helpful in this new role.

Include a fitting tour guide resume education and certifications section

While few schools offer a major in “tour guiding,” there are a variety of degrees and training that can be vital to a tour guide career. These include languages, history, or marketing, all of which are valuable for a tour guide to have in their back pocket. 

When creating your education section, keep in mind the following tips:

• Keep it simple. List your degrees with only important details under each, such as the name and location of the school and your graduation date (if less than 10 years ago).

• List your education in reverse order with the highest degree first.

• List any certifications you’ve completed or are working towards—e.g., Certified Tour Professional (CTP), International Tour Management Institute (ITMI) certification, language courses—as these certifications demonstrate your commitment to professional growth.

Which key skills are relevant for a tour guide resume?

A potential employer will want to see both relevant experience and skills on your tour guide resume. It’s important to know what each company is looking for, and incorporate those qualifications throughout your resume.

Use the job description as your personal tour guide, as it will usually provide keywords that you can directly include or use to find adjacent skills. If you’re applying to a large company, your resume will likely be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) that scans and ranks resumes based on pre-designated keywords. (To learn more about conquering the ATS, check out our article on resume ATS optimization.)

If you’re stuck for ideas, career.io’s resume templates come with a list of common skills you can use. Make sure to incorporate these throughout your resume, beyond the skills section, by illustrating how you used them on the job in your work history and professional summary. 

Important skills for a tour guide resume might include:

• Communication

• Destination knowledge and expertise

• Flexibility and adaptability

• Problem solving

• Scheduling

• Interpersonal skills

• Customer service

• Storytelling

• Crowd control and safety

• Route planning

• Additional languages

How to select the most impactful tour guide resume template

Like any itinerary you plan, your tour guide resume should be clear, concise, and easy to follow. It should use a visually appealing, modern resume design with well-defined section headers. Since you’re in a more creative position, you can use a pop of color, but don’t go overboard. 

A tour guide resume should also only be one page at most, so keep it brief and relevant. Your goal is to present yourself as a professional, knowledgeable, reliable travel professional that a company can trust to lead its customers safely and in an engaging fashion.

To start exploring the variety of resume templates in our resume builder, choose the layout that best fits you and your work history. Career.io has 100+ resume examples, so you’re sure to find the perfect one that will help you land your next interview.

Copyable tour guide resume example

Key takeaways for writing a tour guide resume

1. If you want to make a career out of your wanderlust, you may find being a tour guide fulfilling and rewarding.

2. While you can’t take the hiring manager on a tour, you can do the next best thing and present them with a clear, concise, easy-to-read resume that shows off your expertise.

3. Tailor your resume for each job you apply for, including relevant keywords from the job description like organization, communication, and safety in each section.

4. Don’t reinvent the wheel—take advantage of our online resume builder to craft your tour guide resume with adaptable templates and AI-powered content. These will make building an optimized resume fast and easy, and your job search less stressful.