7 Tour Guide Business Success Stories [2024]

Pat Walls

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Updated: November 1st, 2023

Start A Tour Guide Business

Can you offer a native perspective of a town you know well? If yes, starting a tour guide business can be a significant business venture. Tour guides charge tourists per tour and provide visitors with an area with local tour narration and navigation.

To start a tour guide business, choose an area you know, and study its history. Visitors will often ask questions and expect you to answer them. Therefore, you have to be well-versed in the areas you will cover.

You can partner with a tour & travel company or a game park near you and offer the visitor's tour guide services.

Here are some real life success stories of starting a tour guide business:

1. Trip Hacks DC ($18K/year)

How much they make: $18K/year
Current team size: 1

How Rob generates 90% of his Tour bookings from YouTube.

A tour guide and founder uses YouTube to make $1,500 per month and gain 26k followers for his private tour business, ranked #9 on Tripadvisor in a competitive market.

About

Rob started Trip Hacks DC about 7 years ago

Revenue

Rob grew the business to $1.5K/month

Read this case study

Read by 668 founders

2. Intrepid Travel ($520M/year)

How much they make: $520M/year
Current team size: 1260

Responsible And Resilient: Intrepid Travel Shows Doing Good Is Also Good For Business

Intrepid Travel is the biggest adventure tour operator that generates $43 million in annual revenue, offering more than 1,150 sustainable and experience-rich trips worldwide and, since 2002, raising over AUD 12 million for 135 charities worldwide through The Intrepid Foundation.

About

They started Intrepid Travel over 35 years ago

Revenue

They grew the business to $43.3M/month

Read this case study

Read by 857 founders

Learn more about starting a tour guide business:

Where to start?

-> How much does it cost to start a tour guide business?
-> Pros and cons of a tour guide business

Need inspiration?

-> Examples of established tour guide business
-> Marketing ideas for a tour guide business

Other resources

Part of

Starting A Tour Guide Business: Everything You Need To Know

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5. Fodors Travel Guide

Fodor's provides expert travel content worth exploring so you can dream up your next trip. The world is a weird and wonderful place—we want to show you around.

Where they're located: St. Lawrence, Jersey
Website traffic: 2.97M/month

6. Intrepid Travel

The best small group tour means you’ll travel the local way. Affordable travel packages and the experience of a lifetime. Book an Intrepid tour today.

How much they make:
Where they're located: Melbourne VIC, Australia
Current team size: 1260

7. Touring Plans

Disney World, Disneyland, Universal Orlando, and Disney Cruise Line Crowds, Wait Time Apps, and Touring Plans

Website traffic: 690K/month