History of Tour Guiding

Tour Guiding is the one of the oldest professional of the world, it started evolutionally and not revolutionary, from an Ancient Empire, the Middle Ages, The Renaissance and the Grand Tour together with the Modern time of Tour Guide THE ANCIENT EMPIRE The era of the great empires from 3000 B.C to 5000 A.D generated the travel, people traveled in an organized manner , during the era of Greek Empire tourism flourished and the number of guides increased Guides speak a language called “Periegetai” This help them to be in a better condition, citizens got the chance to travel, many travelers continued to travel by land and sea. During the era the Greek Empire, The first great travelers were the Greeks, the role of tour guide were willing to share the findings of their discoveries and observations with the rest of the world, people influenced to travel by this reasons  Festivals  Shows  Olympic Game A large number of Roman visitors travelled to Greece because of its fabled mythology, its monuments and its Olympic Games and other festivals. Hadrian, “the most widely travelled of the Roman emperors” (Casson, 1994, p. 286) restored and enlarge, these encouraged the people to prefer traveling. In ancient Rome, travelers increased in number, they were interested with the beach shore where the Greek ships had been pulled up Historical origin of tourism Page & Connell (2009) notice in the ancient cultures of the Greek and Roman social elite stating that “these early tourists pursued pleasure and relaxation in regions away from the main towns and cities, they epitomize modern-day tourism: the pursuit of pleasure in a location away from everyday life and the use of one’s leisure time for non-work purposes”

MIDDLE AGE It is also called Dark Age. The fall of Rome led to the decline of trade and the economy in general and decrease in the desire to travel, in this stage people delayed to travel due to the economic crisis, despite of economic slump other groups were still travel mainly reasons were

Religious issues. In the Middle world, many thousands of people travelled to sites of religious importance such as the temple of Isis on Philae Island in Egypt and the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi in Greece. Although the majority of these people travelled to these sites to worship and therefore have often been labelled as ‘pilgrims’, seem to have engaged in activities that are more commonly associated with the modern day tourist (Stark, 2009, p. 10). The majority of pilgrimage trips in Greece in the Middle age were made by individuals who, for various reasons, visited a particular holy sites. Holiday primarily for the upper and the middle classes to such places as Canterbury, Winchester and Walsingham Trade related trips, the first people who left of their own will were merchants. Trips made for commercial, that is, trading reasons have been long-established, with some ancient traveller

Both upper class and religious Pilgrimages encountered with the security and robbery impact along the way were very common, so those made pilgrimage were very afraid to travel lonely, there was need to have many Tour Guides so as to direct the visitors who are not familiar to across the borders, Tour Guides were in a good hope and were paid an awesome wages in this stage According to Cosson, one of the historian said ‘‘A guide was paid a large fee because he is not only led the way but also generated safe to the travelers” eventually Tour Guide begun to be suitable and acceptable job.

TOUR GUIDE WITH

THE

GROUP

THE RENAISSANCE AND THE GRAND TOUR The beginning of the Middle Ages that would eventually lead to the period known as the Renaissance, the perspective of tour guide was very much consolidated during this stage, it was this period that people of the upper classes traveled from Britain on the Grand Tour, the image of tour guide developed tremendously among the cities The fragmented feudal society of the Middle Ages was transformed into one increasingly dominated by central political institutions, had an urban and commercial economy, and had lay patronage of education, the arts, and music. Security was a major challenge yet as it was for travelers during the Middle Ages, some of tour guides also failed to accomplish their expectation, they also worry against robberies on the journey while they were impressed with job Upper class people hired Guides in traveling at the other destination, it is believable that, they wanted to be safe and to be controlled by tour guide against any dangerous factors that might threat the visitors The tour guides at this period had the role to show the travelers the changes occurred since Middle age based on Architectural and Urbanization

Source : The Renaissance Early Modern life book. (Florence working tour)

MODERN AGE In 17 to 18 century most of travelers who traveled within the New World were explores rather than leisure travelers, the first travelers were ordinary often Indigent explorers who traveled a lot to seek a new life, to travel from the origin land was very much practiced, finding otheinhabitant, this influenced by trading activities and seeking for conducive life condition Ultimately, escaping from the original land was very common. But, there were some limitations hindered others to travel these are    

Long distance Time Inadequate of money Transportation network

Some scholars like Charles Dickens and Alexis their objectives were to explore the country and write about the country they visited therefore, tour guide profession started to be well recognized world wide to the currently

In conclusion, Although from the perspective of today’s tourism it seems that the ancient period, Middle and Grand period were not appeared to be “the most appropriate time to consider the emergence of tourism” (Vukonic, 2012.), it gave birth to the trips and tour guide motivated engaging in the field, the development of tour guide was not revolution process, it is evolution since An ancient time, Middle, Renaissance and Modern time with the great role of Thomas Cook, the role of Thomas Cook in the evolution of Tour Guide should not underestimated

REFERENCES.

Wynn, J. R. The Tour Guide: Walking and Talking (2011) New York. Chicago: The University of Chicago

Press.

Edmund Swinglehurst, (1974).The Romantic Journey - The story of Thomas Cook and Victorian Travel,

London:

Edmund Swinglehurst, (1982).Cook's Tours - The Story of Popular Travel, London: Blandford Press.

Piers Brendon, (1991). Thomas Cook Years of Popular Tourism, New York: Blandford Press