in the turbulence zone. How to attract foreign tourists to Russia

Today every city has enough many travel companies and the competition between them is quite high. How do you make sure that customers contact you?

When opening a travel agency, pay great attention to its name and location. original but catchy name would be a small advantage. A place, where the travel agency is located, also often affects the choice of tourists. It is good if it can be reached both by personal and public transport. Do not be afraid of competition and you can open an office where there are already travel agencies. As a rule, people look at several companies before a vacation to find a profitable and interesting offer.

The simplest and at the same time well-functioning way of advertising is word of mouth. When opening a travel agency, tell your friends and acquaintances about it, they can use the services. If customers are satisfied, they will recommend the company to friends, because, as a rule, people turn to travel agencies for the first time based on the reviews of their friends. Do not expect a large flow of tourists immediately, but in a few years your own customer base can form.

Don't forget about business cards and flyers. Making simple flyers is not expensive, and distributing them where a large number of people gather can interest customers. The main thing is that the leaflet should be interesting and original and could interest people.

Before traveling, many tourists look at the Internet, and advertising on the Internet can be effective, and it will be inexpensive. It would be nice to create your own website, which will host not only the proposed tours, but also reviews of tourists about the rest, hotels. Reviews must be true.

contextual advertising also can attract customers to the travel agency. This is one of the fastest and most effective ways to attract customers. If, when typing keywords, the company's website comes out on the first page, then many will definitely look at it. This means that in the future they will be able to become customers of the company.

You can order the creation of a site and its promotion in our agency, see the services section.

Don't Forget Popularity social networks. You can create a group or blog for free. But you need to watch them. Be sure to post interesting and profitable offers, answer questions and comments. Inviting to the group is simple, often in the interests you can see who is interested in tourism, such people are your potential customers.

To attract customers for the holidays, you can organize special, unique tours. And newlyweds, for example, offer discounts and give gifts. Discounts always attract customers, but a good and exciting holiday is often more important than price.

Many travel agencies reduce prices due to great competition, but you can go the other way. Necessary offer really interesting and unique tours. Be sure to report new attractive routes on the website and in the group. Prove that the price of a trip is not the main thing, the content of the trip is more important. Then customers will become interested, and having received a lot of positive impressions on vacation, they will return to your travel agency again.

Video Marketing

Using video is one of the most powerful ways to attract customers. And for this you do not have to buy expensive airtime on television. Equally effective is the placement of videos on the Internet, for example, on the most visited video hosting youtube.

The video can be made interactive, linked to a specific tour, for example:

At the end of the video, a special navigation block is placed with the help of which potential customers can get acquainted with the brightest places of your tour.

Almost every Russian region calls the development of tourism its priority, but few can boast of real success in this matter. Meanwhile, specialists in the field of territorial development believe that regions need to learn how to invest and earn money on tourism using modern business tools. Russian Tourism discussed with experts how to properly attract tourists to the regions.

1. Decide on a goal. The authorities of any region must first decide why they need tourism, Nadezhda Makatrova, general director of the consulting company Konkretika, is sure. The experience of Chukotka is indicative in this respect. It is obvious that millions of tourists will never come to the peninsula (far and expensive for most Russians), so the district authorities have set a very realistic bar - two to three thousand travelers a year. The main task of the development of the industry is to occupy the local population so that they do not leave for other regions and do not become an inveterate drunkard, as, unfortunately, is happening in a number of Russian regions.

But if the main goal is still to replenish the treasury, it is necessary to analyze our own resources and capabilities, the experience of our neighbors, the existing demand, supply and decide on the correct positioning. Often, regions do not even need to invent something new, it is enough to talk with experts and tourists, find out, for example, on forums, why people most often come to this area, what they take pictures of, what they recommend to see friends.

2.Find differences. Sometimes regional administrations do not find an answer to one of the main questions: how tourism here will differ from tourism in other places. Meanwhile, positioning is the basis that determines the vector of development and helps tourists make the right choice. For example, there are practically no mosquitoes in Altai - a significant factor for lovers of outdoor recreation. But this information is known only to local residents and, possibly, tourists from neighboring regions and is not at all obvious to Muscovites. However, neither the authorities of the region nor travel agencies practically focus on this.

“The formed tourist product should become as clear as possible for the tourist. In other words, people should clearly understand why they should go, for example, to the resorts of the North Caucasus, and not, for example, to Turkey,” says Anna Dinelt, director of the Regional Marketing Agency.

3. Choose a slogan. This is another one of the territory positioning steps. Moreover, the very common "soul", "heart", "eyes" and other parts of the body of Russia are not very successful. Do not copy famous slogans from other countries. For example, the slogan “Smile, you are in Spain” when transferred to Russian reality can at least cause a comic effect.

5. Don't stop halfway. A good example of the start of promoting the image of the territories can be the actions of two Siberian regions - Omsk and Kemerovo regions. In the first case, the authorities took the path of creating an official brand, which has already begun to draw attention to the region. In Kemerovo, the myth of the existence of the Yeti is actively exploited, and journalists and film crews regularly come to Kuzbass to search for it. Nevertheless, Anna Dinelt admits, these are only the first steps that must be backed up by a strategy: “It is not enough to invent a logo and a slogan. They can be printed on a T-shirt, but what's next? It is important that the region is included in the competition for hosting international events that can attract tourists.”

Think about what makes your city unique? To do this, make a list of all the activities and attractions that are in your city. Tourists are more interested in things they can do and see in a city than where it is located. First of all, tourists will find out what entertainment is available in the city, and only then - where is it located. Examples: watching white nights in St. Petersburg or rock climbing in Krasnoyarsk.

Focus on activities and attractions that are unique to the city. Even a small or odd landmark can draw visitors and attention to a city (from the world's largest paper clip to artificial waves on a river). Ask yourself: “Why is this city worth visiting? What is there that tourists cannot get or see elsewhere?”
Work with the tourism development committee and focus on the top three things your city has to offer. The more facts you provide, the more interesting the city will become for tourists.

Conduct a survey among residents of the city. The survey is an important tool in assessing tourist attractiveness. With it, you can collect information about the city and make sure that the public agrees with the tourist vision of the city. Talk to people face-to-face or conduct a telephone survey. Ask the following questions:

What do you think attracts visitors to the city?
What kind of visitors might be interested in the city?
What can be done to make the time spent by tourists in the city brighter?

Conduct a survey among tourists. You can talk with tourists face to face at a local supermarket. Tourists can also be asked to sign up for a newsletter and send them an email survey. Ask the following questions:

Where are you from?
What interested you in our city?
How did you hear about this attraction?
What institutions have you been to?
What facilities or services does the city need?
The words of previous tourists or current visitors to the city will help to understand how to improve the stay of tourists in the future.

Make a marketing plan. To do this, you need to define target marketing segments. Determine the target places that will attract the largest number of tourists. It can be a well-known hiking trail, an important cultural and historical monument or a museum. Then categorize those places by trip length and identify the customer base that the city might be interested in. Draw a diagram and break it down into the following categories:

Geographic locations with a section for day trips, night trips and long visits.
Recreation in the bosom of nature, such as camping, hiking, fishing and picnicking.
Entertainment - historical monuments, fairs and festivals, shopping and local food.
Other travel purposes such as business trips and family travel.

If you want the world to change, become that change.

Mahatma Gandhi

Any obstacle is overcome by perseverance.

Leonardo da Vinci

Foreword

How can we attract tourists? How not to get lost in the background of thousands of proposals from other cities and countries? How to convince the Russians that it is possible to relax comfortably in Russia, and that a small town far from the Russian capitals is not necessarily a "hole"?

As the practice of recent years shows, these questions can be heard at all conferences, round tables and forums dedicated to the development of tourism in Russia. They also sound during our conversations with representatives of local and regional administrations from different parts of the country. And these issues are of concern not only to officials, but also to the heads of travel agencies, owners of hotels and restaurants, directors of museums, sanatoriums and even local residents who rent out their living space to vacationers ...

So what to do? “Take an example from Myshkin!” - this dangerous advice is repeated like a broken record, all sorts of "gurus". Myshkin is a wonderful city, but, firstly, its strategy is far from suitable for everyone (there are about 6 thousand inhabitants in Myshkino), and secondly, it is pointless to copy the tip of the iceberg without seeing and understanding everything that is hidden from the eyes in thicker than water.

Three or four years ago, participants in tourist exhibitions representing Russian cities and regions said: “We just need money for advertising, and people will come to us!” Money was allocated, tourists did not go ... Today, a more professional understanding is coming that attracting tourists is not so much advertising as a whole task system, that need to be addressed at the regional level. And this book is a story about who and how should solve these problems, what mistakes and “pitfalls” can be here, what resources can be used in the work and how to place accents. And of course, examples of success.

The book “How to attract tourists and become a tourist brand in Russia” is based on an analysis of the experience accumulated in Russia and the CIS, both successful and unsuccessful, as well as the experience of some foreign countries in the development of tourism and promotion of the territory in the tourism market. In addition, some observations and conclusions made while working on the projects of the consulting company "Konkretika" served as material for the book.

This book is methodical, sometimes unpleasant and even offensive, because it tells not only about the possibilities and hidden potential of Russian cities and regions, but also about their typical mistakes and shortcomings. But the main value of the book, in my opinion, is concrete practical recommendations explaining WHAT need to do and HOW to do, as well as 420 real-life examples that provide a rich platform for your own ideas and solutions.

I hope this book will help you in your work. Have a productive reading!

Nadezhda Makatrova,

Director of the consulting company "Konkretika"

Chapter 1
Travel brand: to be or not to be?

Fate leads the one who wants to go, drags the one who does not want to go.

Cleanthes, ancient Greek philosopher (IV-111 centuries BC)

Brands were not heard about in the Soviet Union. But at the same time, all citizens of our vast and multinational country firmly knew that:

If you want to go to the sea, then you have to go to the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus or to the Crimea. With small children - to Anapa or Evpatoria;

If there are no vouchers for the Black Sea, then - to the Azov Sea, to Yeysk;

The intelligentsia preferred the Baltics;

If you need to heal, a direct road to the sanatorium of the Caucasian Mineral Waters;

For lovers of excursions and cultural and historical values - Moscow, Leningrad, the cities of the Golden Ring and, perhaps, Pskov and Novgorod;

Military-patriotic education - Volgograd with its famous Mamaev Kurgan.

All Soviet people also knew about Baikal and Kamchatka, but they didn’t even dream of getting there - the flight is too expensive, a simple Soviet family can’t afford. Here they are - real tourist brands, created, by the way, with the powerful support of the state ...

Of course, there were many other interesting places and routes in the USSR - "hits" of the district and regional scale, where excursion groups from schools, universities, enterprises and institutions were constantly sent, but they could not compete with the all-Union "grands".

25 years have passed since perestroika…

Today, looking at the exhibition MITT or "Intourmarket" in Moscow, you can see on the stands hundreds, if not thousands, of new tourist sites and routes throughout the country. One is better than the other, with an intriguing description and amazing photographs. It would seem that new times - new names.

No matter how!

Ask an ordinary Russian what cities or resorts in our country he considers the most popular among tourists, and you will most likely get the same list. True, Crimea and the Baltic states (as foreign countries) will have to be deleted from it, and St. Petersburg will take the place of Leningrad. Let the interlocutor include foreign resorts in the list, and Turkey and Egypt are guaranteed to fall into the first line. I'm talking about mass routes. Skiers habitually call Elbrus, fishermen - Astrakhan.

"How so? Why? The tourist potential of Russia is not limited to 10-15 popular routes?! We have two orders of magnitude more!” - one of the readers will be indignant. The potential may not be limited, but the perception of a tourist, according to the laws of marketing, alas, is not rubber. The law says: the number of bright, memorable images on the market is limited. I recommend that you reread the highlighted phrase two more times.

It only at first glance seems that it is enough to come up with “something original” and you will be noticed. You can think of anything you want, but here's the question:

- Will they remember this (against the background of competitors' proposals)?

– Will they buy it (comparing different offers)? And buy not one season, but at least ten years in a row.

For clarity, I will give two useful analogies.

1. Each class has its own "excellent", "losers", "clown", "athlete", its own "beauty". And sometimes - your "outcast" (remember the movie "Scarecrow"). It is very problematic to characterize all the other children in terms of their role in the class.

2. In the 90s, many different shops and shops opened in Russian cities, and today most of them have “died”, giving way to network players. By the way, in Europe, about 80% of goods are sold through chain stores.

What is the implication of this for tourism?

In five years, a new pool of tourist brands of all-Russian significance will be formed in Russia. It is clear that Moscow and St. Petersburg will automatically retain their leading positions due to their exceptional starting opportunities (just as there are three main TV channels in the country and ... all the others). Resorts on our warm seas will also be in a privileged position (if there is no sudden change in climate). And who else will be included in the list of the strongest is still in question ...

If the heads of the city and regions mentioned at the beginning had been actively developing over the course of 25 years of perestroika, and did not rely on the tourist resources accumulated over the previous decades, then all the rest would not have been destined to catch up with them in the foreseeable future. However, development was remembered only 5–7 years ago, thus giving a chance to their neighbors.

The importance of getting into the leader pool is illustrated by the Zipf (Zipf) curve

Picture 1

Zipf distribution (Zipf)

Those cities and regions that find themselves at the tail of this curve may not count on anything serious ... Perhaps they don’t need this, and tourism for them is like birch sap in an ordinary grocery store: they almost don’t take it, but there is an assortment .

At the same time, our conversations with representatives of local and regional administrations show that in many parts of Russia tourism is taken seriously, hoping to use it to give a new impetus to the development of the territory and replenish the budget. For this purpose, short-term and long-term programs are developed everywhere, new tourist brands are announced, advertising catalogs are printed, exhibitions and presentations are held, journalists are invited, etc.

Why can't many cities and regions make a breakthrough and significantly increase the tourist flow? What needs to be changed at work? A detailed answer to these questions will be devoted to subsequent chapters of the book, but here I will only outline the key points.

1. Cities and regions, like people, have desires, but there are “heredity” and “natural inclinations”. When choosing a new image, the second is useful to consider. It is difficult for a tall teenager to become an outstanding Formula 1 pilot or a single figure skater - long legs get in the way. And in volleyball or basketball, high growth, on the contrary, will come in handy. The same principle applies to territories. It is possible to argue with nature, but it is expensive, and not everyone has the patience. (See Chapters 2 and 3 for more on the impact of location on brand building and promotion.)

2. A brand without reference to the target audience is doomed. The strength of a travel brand is not determined by the size of the advertising budget or the amount of promotional products and the big name of the PR agency that came up with the slogans and logos. A good brand is, first of all, a good idea, that is, an idea that makes this object interesting for a specific target audience. And this target audience should be clearly aware of why this object is better for them than others. In other words, a strong idea in itself generates a targeted tourist flow. (For more on positioning and targeting segments, see Chapters 4 and 5.)

3. We need not single solutions, but a system (!) of solutions.

Fact: in the face of fierce competition, single successful finds are copied “for the next season”. Therefore, a strong brand, in addition to the key idea, implies a system of related solutions - it works better to attract tourists, and it is more difficult to copy it.

Have you ever been to a well-organized wedding? And on badly organized? The difference between the first and second is that at a good wedding, the guests enjoy the process without thinking about anything. Everything has been thought of for them. At a poorly organized wedding, guests bicker with the toastmaster, either looking for something to do, or struggling with the consequences of their own or other people's activities. The region is, of course, not a wedding, but the principle of consistency is the same here: big things are made up of little things. (See Chapters 6, 7, and 8 for more on creating tourist sites and useful additional services for tourists.)

4. Interference - inertia of thinking and lack of feedback. Often, residents who contemplate their hometown, town or village day after day cannot break out of the framework of established stereotypes and look at places dear to their hearts through the eyes of a newcomer ... (No wonder there is a saying in American consulting: “The client is in the pan, and the consultant he thinks broader - he is out of the pot.”) If the managers of tourist sites, as well as local and regional authorities, from time to time were interested in the opinion of tourists, travel agencies, investors, and consultants about the attractiveness or unattractiveness of their territory, many problems could be avoided. And invented slogans and brand ideas would not cause sympathetic smiles. (You will learn more about the stereotypes of tourists and travel agencies regarding holidays in Russia in chapters 9 and 10.)

5. To promote a brand, you need not so much money as a working head. In a sense, Russian cities and regions are lucky: there is foreign experience in promoting tourist sites. There are marketing techniques that are successfully used in the most progressive industries, for example, in retail, telecommunications, etc., including in Russia. Therefore, the channels and means of promotion must be chosen critically, and not rely on the advice of a "familiar" advertising agency that earns not on the real attraction of tourists, but only on advertising. Remember how in the monologue of the brilliant Mikhail Zhvanetsky:

“For five thousand rubles, he somehow managed to survive. I was already suffering for ten thousand rubles. But he felt real need when he began to receive sixty thousand rubles.

(For more on effective ways to promote tourism potential, see Chapter 11.)

6. A brand is not created by one person or his team. It is a product of the entire territory as a whole. A brand idea or promotion concept can be developed by one or more professionals in the field of territory promotion. This is fine. But to turn ideas on paper into a working brand, it is necessary to involve both the authorities and the local business community, and the involvement of local residents, and not just the initiatives of travel agencies, museums, hotels and restaurants. A tourist will not be delighted with brand new lanterns if they illuminate a garbage dump or a broken road; if homeless people sleep next to a modern hotel, and inquisitive local teenagers opened the car left in the parking lot, taking part of the contents of the salon as a keepsake. This is a complex work for years to come. (For more on the issues of interaction between the tourist industry, government and local residents, see chapters 12 and 13.)

Yes, things are not as simple as we would like with travel brands…

Unlike sales of everyday products (tea, sausage, bread), here you need to build a strategy for years to come, and then achieve its step-by-step implementation. Is it possible otherwise? It is possible, but it will resemble Brownian motion... And your neighbors-competitors will learn from your mistakes.

It has its own rules of the game and its own methods of work, in some ways similar, but in some ways different from other areas of the economy, so you will have to master a new area of knowledge - territory marketing.

And I want to end this introductory chapter with words from Holy Scripture, partly consonant with the ideas expressed above: “So the last will be first and the first last, for many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 20:16; 22:14).

So it's time to roll up your sleeves...

Chapter 2
About marketing tasks of tourism development

We rarely fully understand what we really want.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld, French thinker and politician of the 17th century.

It is believed that a well-posed problem is a half-solved problem. If we analyze the situation with attracting tourists and creating tourism brands in our country, we will find that the task of "develop tourism" with the same wording carries a different meaning for different cities and regions. There are, of course, subtasks common to all: in particular, increasing the awareness of specific tourist sites, positioning the territory in the tourist market, or setting it apart from competing neighbors. But there are also special tasks that depend on the level of tourism development in the region, on the image of the region in the eyes of Russians, and on the guidelines that the authorities of the territory have set for themselves in the field of tourism. If we take as a basis the experience of developing tourism in the territory and analyze the tasks that arise at different stages, then we can conditionally divide all territories into five groups:

Group 1. "Old Guard". These are the regions and municipalities that Russians strongly associate with certain types of tourism, where a steady tourist flow has formed over many decades. These include the cities of the Golden Ring, the resorts of the Krasnodar Territory and the Caucasian Mineral Waters, Dombai and Elbrusye, Karelia, Altai, Baikal, of course, Moscow and St. Petersburg and a number of other territories and natural objects. The promotion of these territories has been actively carried out since Soviet times, but they also have an urgent need to develop new types of tourism, create new attractions, improve the level of service, etc. Why? To ensure that energetic competitors do not "steal away" their tourist flow, as well as to increase tourism revenue. Marketing tasks relevant for this group of territories are presented in Table 1.

Table No. 1

The solution of each of the listed tasks is not limited to advertising and PR, but implies a whole list of interrelated activities, including organizational and technical ones. The tasks mentioned above will also be useful for territories from other groups, but for them they are not top priorities.

Group 2. "Hidden reserve". This includes territories that really have significant objects of display, but did not have powerful advertising support in the past - "promotion" from the state - and for this reason are not very popular among Russians, and even more so among foreign tourists. Exceptions are residents of their region and immediate neighbors. These include: Perm Territory, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Buryatia, Adygea, the South Urals, Bashkortostan, the Arkhangelsk Region, Khakassia, etc. interaction with travel agencies, etc. Overcoming them is a matter of time and the will of the territory's leadership. As for advertising and marketing tasks, first of all, you need to pay attention to the tasks presented in Table 2.

Table number 2

Group 3. "Adapters". These include cities and regions, the tourism industry of which was based on a certain topic, which has lost its popularity among Russians over the years. As a result, there are attractions, but few tourists. The most striking example here is Ulyanovsk.

This group also includes those territories, the flow of tourists to which has become noticeably smaller compared to the Soviet period due to fears, misconceptions, and misunderstandings that have appeared in society. This applies, in particular, to the regions of the North Caucasus, as well as to those regions where there have been emergencies involving tourists. These seemingly different groups have the same task - to move from an already established niche in the minds of Russian tourists to a new, more promising one. The key tasks for representatives of this group, as a rule, are the tasks presented in Table 3.

Table No. 3

Group 4. "Hermits". These are the territories that, for all their uniqueness, remain aloof from vigorous tourist activity due to the remoteness and high cost of passenger transportation from large Russian cities. This group can include Kamchatka, Chukotka, the Kola Peninsula, Yakutia, Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, etc. Sometimes the situation is complicated by a special access regime. Along with attracting Russian tourists, such regions should immediately establish work on the international market due to the greater solvency of foreign tourists and their increased interest in places untouched by civilization. Specific tasks for representatives of this group include the following (see table No. 4):

Group 5. "Clean sheets". These are cities, districts and regions that have embarked on the path of active tourism development quite recently, and in relation to which the bulk of Russian tourists have not yet developed any intelligible ideas. This includes the Republic of Komi, Mordovia, Udmurtia, Bryansk, Voronezh, Tambov, Kursk, Belgorod, Kirov, Omsk regions and a number of other republics, territories and regions. Of course, these regions also have something to be proud of and something to show to tourists. These are museums, temples, monasteries, reserves, ancient city buildings and estates, sanatoriums and boarding houses, etc. However, for a long time all these objects were focused mainly on residents of their region, and not on the flow of thousands of guests from all over the country - hence absence of stereotypes.

Unlike the others, this group of regions should start not so much from their own resources and ambitions as from what others do not have, i.e., look for free niches and close them. It's difficult, but there is no other way.

It is possible that the idea to develop tourism in these regions is nothing more than a fashionable fad in connection with the next “party task”. If so, then there is no need to waste your efforts. It is better to invest the allocated funds in landscaping or social projects. If the leadership of the municipality or region takes tourism seriously, then it is necessary to start with the marketing tasks presented in Table 5.

Table No. 5

The formulation of tasks is, of course, good, but how to solve them and what exactly to do? We will talk about this in the following chapters of this book. And summing up this chapter, I will mention three more tasks that all territories face to one degree or another:

1. Attract investors to create tourism infrastructure (this applies to both external investors and interaction with local businesses).

. This type of distribution was originally discovered in linguistics and reflected the relationship between the frequency of use of words and their popularity. But later it turned out that such a distribution is also characteristic of biology, economics, sociology, science of science, etc. More details: Vikentiev I.L. Living dictionary of a business coach: 300 terms, 190 examples. - St. Petersburg: TRIZ-CHANCE, 2007. P. 149.

The proposed classification was developed by the author and, like any classification, is a simplified model. However, it helps to better understand the differences in setting goals for territories with different “tourist heritage”.

The term "price justification" was proposed by S.V. Sychev, director of the company "Sychev and K" (Rostov-on-Don). Justifying the price implies a convincing answer to the question why the price of a given product or service is the way it is, and why the investment of these funds is justified.

During the tour, tourists get distracted, stop listening and look around, and not at all where you are pointing? This situation is not uncommon, so every guide needs to master the techniques of attracting attention.

1. Tailor your material to a specific audience

This advice is often perceived one-sidedly: only age differences are taken into account. Accordingly, they build a story for a child and an adult in different ways. However, it is also worth making adjustments to the narrative related to the professional activities or hobbies of clients. A site for meeting tourists and guides will help you find out this information: when negotiating an excursion, not only answer the traveler's questions, but ask him your own.

2. Use acting and public speaking

Nothing is more conducive to dissipating the attention of sightseers than the monotonous speech of the guide and the lack of gestures. Therefore, use various expressive means from the arsenal of speakers and artists:

play with intonation and tempo of speech: switch from a peppy tongue twister to a sincere tone, emphasize important phrases with your voice, etc .;
talk about sad and joyful events with appropriate emotions;
make pauses between the semantic blocks of the narrative, otherwise the listeners will stop assimilating what was said;
support speech with gestures: express emotions with them, point to interesting objects.

3. Do "lyrical digressions"

Allow yourself to periodically digress from the topic: tell us about some everyday details, love stories, exciting incidents. Of course, digressions should be related to your story in one way or another. Such "sketches" maintain interest in what is happening.

Works well with the reception of a personal relationship. Your admiration, rejection or surprise about some historical character or event will be remembered by tourists for a long time. Just do not use this method in a story about modern realities, so as not to provoke a conflict.

4. Ask questions

Do not turn a tour into a lecture when only "teacher" speaks. In such a situation, listeners are distracted very quickly. Encourage clients to discuss, and to do this, ask questions about what they know about the events, buildings and characters from your story. This will make people get involved in what is happening, activate their memory, which means that no one will look around and ignore the guide.

5. Joke

Don't be too serious when walking with clients: please them with historical anecdotes, funny cases from practice, funny comparisons. Laughter allows you to relieve tension and listen to the guide with renewed vigor. And humor “on the topic” helps to remember information: tourists will soon forget dry facts, and a joke will remain in memory for a long time.

6. Use electronic technology

Modern gadgets will help you maintain interest: tablets, netbooks, smartphones. The most fruitful work with them is obtained on personal excursions, because in a group of 30-40 people it is unlikely that everyone will consider what is happening on the screen. And when communicating "tete-a-tete" this method is effective.