6 Tour Guide Service Business Success Stories [2023]
Tour guides are members of the hospitality and travel industry. Professional tour guides ensure itineraries are met and that tourists are informed entertainingly. Tour guiding businesses lead guests on excursions that would otherwise be unavailable to them.
To start a tour guide business, explore your location and its potential for attracting tourists. Understand the regulatory environment and create a business plan detailing your services and how you intend to deliver value to the customers.
Here are some real life success stories of starting a tour guide service business:
1. Rayna Tours ($6M/year)
Manoj Tulsani (from Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates) started Rayna Tours about 17 years ago.
Manoj: Kamlesh Ramchandani and I (Manoj Tulsani) are the founders of Rayna Tours and Travels. Fueled by our deepest interest in travel and entrepreneurship, we kicked off our business journey a decade ago from a small travel counter inside a five-star hotel in Dubai.
Kamlesh: We’ve been in the industry for over a decade and have now become a niche provider of destination management services in Dubai. As a one-stop, customer-oriented business for all travel needs, our main organizational goal is to design and craft travel services and packages in such a way that each of them ideally responds to the dynamic market trends as well as our clients’ specific travel requirements. We offer our full suite of travel solutions through our wholly-owned Rayna Group.
2. Trip Hacks DC ($18K/year)
Rob's side hustle was crushed by the pandemic, but he found a winning spinoff buried deep in his YouTube stats and Google Analytics. This one will definitely have you thinking about the simple long-tail search questions you can answer — and monetize — for your own audience. Full show notes
Rob Pitingolo (from Washington D.C., DC, USA) started Trip Hacks DC about 6 years ago.
Trip Hacks DC was founded in 2017 by Rob Pitinglo to offer travel advice, insider knowledge, and 100% private guided tours to tourists visiting Washington, DC.
Rob primarily uses YouTube to advertise his tour-guiding business, from which he makes about $1,500 per month.
His channel Trip Hacks DC has over 26k followers on YouTube and his videos have more than 2,982,600 views to date.
The sole purpose of his YouTube videos, like Washington DC for under $20, is to persuade viewers to visit the location and not just to sell his own trips.
Rob is ranked #9 on Tripadvisor out of several businesses despite operating in one of the most competitive markets.
Read the full article on tourpreneur.com ➜
Learn more about starting a tour guide service business:
Where to start?
-> How to start a tour guide service business?
-> How much does it cost to start a tour guide service business?
-> Pros and cons of a tour guide service business
Need inspiration?
-> Examples of established tour guide service business
-> Tour guide service business Instagram captions
Other resources
-> Tour guide service business tips
4. ToursByLocals ($97.3M/year)
The tours and experiences market is projected to be worth $183 billion this year, and today a startup that has made inroads into the space through bootstrapping is announcing its first outside investment. ToursByLocals — which sources local guides in some 162 countries, then helps tourists search and book them for either individual or small […]
Paul Melhus (from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) started ToursByLocals over 14 years ago.
Paul Melhus is the CEO and founder of ToursByLocals, one of the top suppliers of private tours worldwide.
ToursByLocals offers exceptional travel experiences in more than 190 countries worldwide. It connects discerning travelers looking for customized private tours with handpicked tour guides.
This company now operates in more than 130 countries with 1700 carefully chosen tour guides.
They have provided their guide partners while serving more than 220,000 customers.
Read the full story on medium.com ➜
5. Intrepid Travel ($520M/year)
James Thornton, CEO of the Melbourne, Australia-based Intrepid Group, believes that the company’s dedication to responsible tourism is one of the main drivers of its stunning growth in recent years.
Darrell Wade and Geoff Manchester (from Melbourne VIC, Australia) started Intrepid Travel about 34 years ago.
In the late 1980s, Darrell and Geoff Manchester established Intrepid as a brand new way of exploring the world.
Intrepid Travel offers more than 1,150 trips on all seven continents that are sustainable and experience-rich.
They didn't set out to build the biggest purpose-led adventure travel brand in the world, but they have done so now, by generating $43 million in annual revenue.
They are the biggest adventure tour operator in the world, operating a network of 26 DMCs and a nonprofit foundation.
Since 2002, their nonprofit organization, The Intrepid Foundation, has raised over AUD 12 million for 135 charities worldwide.
Read the full story on forbes.com ➜
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