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Travel Guides

There are many types of travel writing. The most popular guides are the concise and inexpensive ones you pick up at the airport when you realize you don’t even know how to say hello to the locals in the country you’re headed to. These guides cover the bare bones of the tourist traps that are the must sees of this particular destination; they almost always contain a section on practical information which tells you how to say “I’d like two beers please.” They’re excellent for a quick city trip, but let’s admit it, they aren’t very original.

Then there are expert guides that are written with the older and richer traveller in mind; one who is probably travelling first class, staying in the best hotels, drinking the finest champagne and viewing the most exclusive art. Often dry and dusty, they usually fail to represent that the streets of so many cities are now lined with fast food restaurants and trendy cafés and that most travellers don’t want to spend the afternoon at a department store.

One of the new genres is the lifestyle travel guide. They attempt to give the reader an insight into how the experience the writer had when they were visiting the city or country. They usually feel more genuine and real, but the downside is that they make you feel like you’re reliving someone else’s adventure.

The biggest disappointment with most travel guides is that they miss the point. Nowadays, many tourists no longer want to see all of the major sites and check them off an invisible list. Younger travellers especially like to sit outside a cozy café, enjoying the sunshine, sipping a latte and watching the world pass by. They like to spend time observing the locals and they don’t want to follow a flock of tourists if they can help it.

Visitors want to rent a local apartment on AirBnB in a neighbourhood that doesn’t feel touristy, soak up the atmosphere, and really ‘feel’ what it might be like to live there. The ideal travel guides would take visitors gently by the hand and lead them through the streets and areas that only the locals know. They would be everyone’s personal advisor telling them a secret history and sharing insights such as where to find the best food that only locals eat and that can tell the difference between artisan made and mass produced.

Trustworthy information and up to date listings for hotels and restaurants are a key element of any good guidebook. Unfortunately, many series need to be produced on a tight budget and authors do not always have the time and resources to visit and revisit the places they recommend. This can be problematic because after a few years, most of the practical information will be out of date. Plagiarism is another major problem in the world of travel writing. Any destination has been written about before. It then becomes very tempting to skip certain well-known sites and simply rely on what someone else has written, resulting in one of the travel guides referenced at the very beginning of this text.

Whether you work at a hotel, restaurant or in retail, you are likely to encounter the “new” type of tourist, and you are well-positioned to make a positive difference in their experience. Think about the places you like to visit and share them with the visitors you meet. Think about it as going that extra mile on your job. With a bit of luck, another professional will return the favour when you visit their city.