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Tour Directing Video
Interested in learning more about becoming a Tour Director and if it's the right career for you? Watch the four minute A Traveling Lifestyle Video and other insightful tour directing videos.

- A Traveling Lifestyle Video
- Other Tour Directing Videos

- Symposium 2012 Brochure (PDF)
- Symposium 2012 Registration Form
- Highlights of Symposium 2011
- 30th Anniversary Video

When I was a little girl, I truly believed I was going to see all the world and meet all the people in it," said Joanne Connors of Hingham. "It wasn’t until I got older that I realized how difficult that was going to be." Connors got off to a good start by becoming a flight attendant with Eastern Airlines in the 1960’s. " I saw a lot of airports and a lot of hotels," Connors said, "but very little of the world." When she got engaged to be married, Connor’s flight career was over. "In those days, you couldn’t even wear a diamond ring on the job," she said.

After her marriage, three babies arrived in three years. Connors said she looked her children in the eyes, and promised them 20 years of her life. "I thought of it as a contract," she said. She worked outside the home at part-time secretarial jobs, but dropped everything to attend hockey games and ballet recitals. She never thought of a career.

"I still used to dream about seeing the world," she said. "But with babies and a mortgage and other bills, the world had shrunk down to the size of the Grand Canyon. Maybe I wasn’t going to see the world, but I was going to see the Grand Canyon. Some day."

When one of Connor’s close friends died suddenly, she said it scared the life out of her. "All I could think was ’I might not even see the Grand Canyon."

In 1986, the end of Connors’ 20-year contract with her youngest child was coming up. "I was distraught," she recalled. "My career was ending. I was only 45 - too young to sit in a rocking chair. I didn’t know what I was going to do." Determined to realize at least a part of her lifelong dream, Connors signed up for bus tour of the Grand Canyon. Her husband reluctantly went with her.

"Everyone should see the Grand Canyon," Connors said. "It’s one of the most awesome sights in the world." But there at the front of the bus was a sight almost as remarkable. "It was a woman about my age with a microphone," Connors said. It was a tour director. "I had never even heard the words, ’tour director,’" Connors said. "’You mean they’re paying you to do this?’ I asked her. I couldn’t believe it."

Shortly after she returned from the Grand Canyon, Connors spotted an ad in the paper for the San Francisco-based International Tour Management Institute, which was holding a seminar that Saturday in Boston. "I went to that seminar, and I just about levitated in the class," Connors said. "I haven’t come down since."

Connors graduated from ITMI’s four-week program for tour directors, and since that time, she has been on African safaris, climbed the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal, walked the Great Wall of China and stood breathless in front of Macchu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes. She’s been to Europe more times than she can count, walked the rice paddies of Bali and floated down the Nile on a barge. And she’s been paid for it.

Tour Directors are the business agents for the tour company. They oversee airport, bus and hotel checkins for an average of 40 passengers on their tour, handle customs and airline delays, schedule meals and side trips, and handle the 1,001 details that make for a successful trip.

They are responsible for researching the area where they’ll be traveling, including history, geography, customs and any other information that might be useful, informative or fun for their passengers. They set the mood and act as the congenial host, melding the group together into a happy “traveling family."”

William Newton and Ted Bravos are the co-founders of ITMI. Bravos served as a captain in the Marine Corps, and Newton put himself through college working summers as a tour director in California. The two men teamed up in 1976 to found ITMI. Since then, ITMI has trained more than 4,000 tour directors who work for more than 600 companies worldwide.

Newton said that the ideal tour director is someone who likes people, is bored by routine, is a strong self-starter, and has excellent communication and problem solving skills.

"We like people who can take charge of situation and be responsible", he said. "Most of all, we like people who are just plain fun to be around."

Age is no barrier. Many tour directors are over age 60, and many have either raised families or had other careers before beginning their lives as tour directors.

"This is a career that values life experience," Newton said. "Even though everything is all planned out, we tell our students they’ve got to expect the unexpected."

"They’re not kidding about that," said Tom Dwyer of Hingham. Dwyer became a tour director in 1995 after taking early retirement from NYNEX (now Bell Atlantic).

On his very first trip, one of his passengers arrived for a tour of the Canadian Rockies and Alaska with a broken back. "He was in a cast from the neck to below his waist," Dwyer said. "And unbeknownst to me, he also suffered from vertigo when anyone approached him in his peripheral vision."

Dwyer was talking with the bus driver when one his passengers ran to him and cried, "Mr. Harris is having a seizure down by the river!"

"Thank goodness, we had a doctor in our group, "Dwyer said. "We were on top of a 1,000 foot-high mountain in the middle of the wilderness!"

With the help of other passengers, Dwyer managed to maneuver the stricken man onto the bus, and as they drove down to lower elevations, the man regained consciousness.

"He insisted on finishing the tour with the rest of us," Dwyer said. "He said he had a wonderful time."

Tour directors say most group travelers are good-natured and fun-loving, but there’s always the occasional snob or troublemaker. That’s why, in addition to airline procedures and customs regulations, ITMI courses emphasize diplomacy, conflict resolution and people skills to help smooth ruffled feathers on the road. They also caution tour directors that, although they are on call 24 hours a day, they need to find some quiet time alone while traveling.

To avoid burnout, most tour directors say they try for a sense of balance in their home and personal lives too. "This job can be physically and emotionally exhausting," Newton said, "but the beauty of it is that you can choose how much you want to work. Only about 30 percent of tour directors want to work full time - 150 to 200 days a year. Most others want to work part time, to supplement retirement, school or other part time jobs. A few only want to work one to two trips a year. It depends on their family and home situation."

Judy Donovan is the divorced mother of five grown children. Last year, she was on the road for 36 weeks, traveling to China, Africa, Russia and other points on the globe. In between trips, she crashes at her Weymouth apartment and visits her grandchildren, but she said her real life is on the road. " This a glamorous job, and I love what I do, but there are costs involved," she said. "When you work as much as I do, you really have no social life. You lose track of your friends; you miss weddings and family get-togethers. I don’t seem to suffer too much from jet lag; but it’s a real problem for some people."

Traveling brings changes in food, water, and climate to deal with - and threat of illness. When Donovan returned from an African safari feeling ill, it was several days before local doctors diagnosed malaria. "I was out of work for two months with sick leave," she said. "We don’t even have health benefits unless we buy them ourselves." Still, she said she can’t imagine returning to the newspaper job she used to have. Next month, she’s off on a tour of Africa from Capetown to Cairo. She’ll be on safari in Botswana; see the pyramids and cruise the Nile for several days. Later this year, she’ll take two tour groups to Russia. Although she doesn’t make large amounts of money, Donovan said that her expenses are altogether different from most people’s. "I don’t have a car," she said. "I have a small apartment that I share with another woman. I rarely buy groceries. I don’t need money for the things most things people do. I wouldn’t live any other way."

Dwyer said his wife "tolerates" his job because she knows he loves to travel, but after two particularly busy years on the road, Dwyer has cut back to three to four trips a year as a tour director. He recently opened a CruiseOne franchise in his home, booking cruises for clients. "I’ve taken a zillion cruises, and I know how to match up a client with the right destination and the right ship," he said.

Connors has cut back on her traveling, too. After her husband had a heart attack last year, she decided to spend more time at home. Although she still travels as a tour director, she also works as a travel consultant with Allied Percival International (API) in Chatham. "I’ve been all over the world," she said. "But most people take only one or two big trips in their lifetime. I wanted to help people make better choices when they travel." Connors said she hasn’t finished traveling herself, though. Her grandchildren are growing up now, and she envisions launching a series of tours for grandparents and grandchildren.

"If you can capture the imagination of children, let them get our there and see the world, they’ll realize we’re part of a global community," Connors said. "You can’t come home from a country and then want to drop a bomb on them. You’re more willing to go to the table and settle your problems." "People often ask me if I speak a foreign language," Connors added. "I always tell them I speak all languages. I’ve never had any trouble understanding when someone is happy or frightened or in pain or in need. These are the important things we say to one another. Travel is a great way to learn that."

Dwyer said prospective tour directors should be aware that, although the traveling is great, they’re not our there on vacation. "You’re working all the time," he said. "You’re a walking encyclopedia, a mother hen, a guru. You’re always on call. Like any job, it has its good points and its bad, but for me, the good far outweighs the bad." Dwyer’s favorite destination was Alaska. "Or maybe the Scandinavian countries." He pauses. "Of course, Turkey was fascinating. and I always love Hawaii." Later this year, he’ll cruise the Danube and visit Saint Petersburg, Russia. He shrugs and smiles. "Hey, it’s a tough job," he said, "but someone’s got to do it."

Connors said she’s seen more of the world than she ever even imagined when she was a young girl with wanderlust in her heart. "Millionaires don’t live as well as I do. I’ve seen the world, and I have my family at home when I come back to my real life, " she said. "Becoming a tour director was like a dream for me. I always tell my grandchildren, if you don’t have dreams, how are they going to come true?"