7 Tour Guide Business Success Stories [2023]
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
Where they're located: Washington D.C., DC, USA
Current team size: 1
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.
2. Intrepid Travel ($520M/year)
How much they make: $520M/year
Where they're located: Melbourne VIC, Australia
Current team size: 1260
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.
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
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 placeβwe want to show you around.
- Website traffic: 2.97M/month
- Business rank: #25.4K
Check out their full website β
6. Intrepid Travel
The best small group tour means youβll travel the local way. Affordable travel packages and the experience of a lifetime. Book an Intrepid tour today.
- Estimated revenue: $43.3M/month
- Business rank: #41.5K
Check out their full website β
7. Touring Plans
Disney World, Disneyland, Universal Orlando, and Disney Cruise Line Crowds, Wait Time Apps, and Touring Plans
- Website traffic: 690K/month
- Business rank: #225K
Check out their full website β
Hey! π I'm Pat Walls, the founder of Starter Story.
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