Hie guyz.

I would like to ask for advises/information/details regarding about become tourist guide in Malaysia.

Is this career is good?

Any pro & con of this career?

How and where to start if i'd like to become one.

Hope you guyz can help me in this. Tq.

any kind advises on my above post? please help. =)

the basic is quite low (RM700-RM1500, depend on company and commission based) but satisfaction is high IF you love to travel...

you perform good, then u have your chance to travel oversea with your group customer...few of my friends (my classmates during Uni study) work in travel agency so they quite often bring customer go holiday oversea...IF you dont shy, love to talk, your communication is fair/excellent then you will succeed

this career ends up with you open your own travel agency and you be the boss...

Thank you for your info. Do i need to study and get license to become tour guide? I found need to study 5-6k course fees before succeed becoming licensed tour guide.

It depends on the company itself some require a tour guide license and some not...Like my frens, they didnt have the Certified license from Ministry of Tourism but they do have a Degree in Tourism from Uni and this enable them to be a tour guide...

if you obtain the tour guide license from the Ministry of Tourism, it makes you looks professional than the Uni graduate

Are they tour guides or tour leaders?

I took minor course of Hospitality and Tourism. Now thinking whether should i get the license or not but need to study for the tour guide course. I know is not fix salary but earning wise, izzit good? are your friends happy doing this job? tq for your info~

tour leader

salary is low like i said on previous post but if you LOVE to travel, then its worth it...my friend had travel to australia, china, vietnam and singapore already (as for year 2012)

Then it's different. Every tourist guide in Malaysia requires a license.

Persons providing services as tourist guides to be licensed
21. (1) No person shall act, or hold himself out, as a tourist guide unless he is licensed under this Part.
(2) Any person who contravenes subsection (1) shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding seven thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both, and in the case of a continuing offence, shall, in addition, be liable to a daily fine not exceeding five hundred ringgit for each day the offence continues to be committed.

Source: Tourism Industry Act 1992

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, you are right, every tour guide are required to have a license...but you know some small company can't afford to hired an individual who possess tour guide license due to the salary & cost issue, and most of fresh grad dont have the licensed...so as an alternative way, they hired fresh grad who have degree in tourism only but yes it is illegal like you said

Got it. Just to give clearer pictures about the Malaysian law to prevent misleading information.

Hi TS,

Greetings. Tourist guide usually pointing to local and inbound travel guide. They bring foreigners all around our local places of interest and shopping + buying local products.

Basic earning of a tourist guide depends on language spoken.
Usually
Mandarin speaking guide is getting paid about RM180-200/day.
English guide RM250-300/day.
Japanese/Spanish/Portugese/Korean speaker will get even higher, but bear in mind, the visitor amount are always lesser compare to English and Chinese tourist groups.

The above mentioned rate are as Yr2008 while I was attending tourist guide course. They are not including sales commissions, tipping yet.

Tourist guide usually are attended tourist guide course which is available in some specific institutions or government appointed institution that carrying FOC course which subsidy by tourism association of Malaysia. Normal course that charges are usually around RM8000++ and duration shall be 6-8mths.

Exam is 70-30, which 70% based on practical and 30% based on assignment.
Practical is kinda crucial especially for those who are not serious, committed in this line. Presentable, humour, talkative is the basic personality that a tourist guide should carries.

I heard the number of new guide is getting lower recently. No doubt there are many licensed guides out there but many has stop working full time. They just participate in some short courses like 1-day course to earn barely sufficient credit hour tp renew their licenses.

Hope it helps.

Outbound Travel Guide aka Tour Leader is different. They usually work in the travel group sales desk attending visitor/ prospects.

Basic Salary will be RM700-1500 in Penang (could be even higher if seniority). Depends on working experience, working and sales performances, capability of handling pressure, enthusiasm and so forth. Some are commission entitlement or so called incentives.

Also, if the company sales is good (means they have alot of travelling groups from time to time to different countries), majority of sales will entitled to lead the group to overseas at no extra cost on this particular employee. Usually the group are at least 15 or 16pax and above to ease the cost of extra one person to lead the tour group.

During peak season especially between CNY, SchoolHolidays, Christmas, NewYear, Whatever Prayer's day(Bangkok), Tour leaders are very busy and packed in schedule. Sometimes they flew to Taiwan for 7days and will be abroad again the next day/ next two days upon their return from Taiwan.

From here you can see, tour leader's income will be highly related to his/ her travel reps. (One month at least once, they can make extra few hundred at least) Source? they are consider sales commissions and tipping. Nowadays tipping is fixed, they may earn extra if traveler giving extra. and sales commissions will be shared in few portion including tour leader, local tour guide, driver and travel agent.

Many grads from Tourism & Hospitality line will either choose to be in Hotel Servicing, Travel agency as ticketing operation, tour guide, tour leader and so forth.

Source from self working experience.

Final addition

Working as tour leader for few years while young is okay and highly recommended (if you are less good in academy). But once you reached 25yrs old and above, it will be hard to change job other than hopping over to other travel agency.

I once heard a senior who was reaching 30, has been working in this line for 12years, making averagely RM36k-40kp.a. he said, its hard to find other job. he has traveled until got bored. Losing the passion in travelling at his age bcoz too many places he has visited. Asia countries, no doubt about it. Europe? Few times, Spain, USA, South Africa, Australia, Portugal, Italy, India... several times. He said, where else can hire me at RM3000-3500 per month (basic 2k ++)

but tour guide is different. They are building different type of pipeline while working. Some can get alot of extra incomes like those served foreigners are convinced and fall in love in Malaysia, would like to apply MM2H, they usually will appoint tour guide to refer them seller. and done deal entitlement usually will be extra RM20-30k... (wow! ) and while they are running around, they build rapport and relationships all around too. In short, their future is much secured.

teraone-sam,

Thank you so much for the information! I'm reading something that I have never heard before.

I'm currently taking tourism degree and after going through 2 internships (that was during diploma, currently doing my degree's 1st internship). I realized that I'm really into hotel reservations, but I don't know why. I just love it. Perhaps I'm not entirely exposed into the entire industry just yet.

Anyway, any idea what is the common salary for a degree holder in travel line? For example, a travel agency.

Just asking. I'm still pretty far from stepping into the reality.

the govt keep saying that we don't have enough korean/russian/german speaking tour guide but they have never offered a proper channel for those speakers to offer their expertise

Really? I don't really know about this. But the travel agency where I'm currently working at, have Russian and German guides and people who could do the translations in these languages. They even hired two Russians to work in the company and communicate with the clients over there.

they need any korean guide?

Unfortunately no. They don't do Korean market.

This post has been edited by Jcheerios: Jan 25 2013, 03:16 PM

Anyone know if there are incentive by govt to study tour guides?