The Guild is a thriving membership community for professionally qualified, and internationally recognised, Blue and Green Badge Tourist Guides working in London and throughout the UK.
With around 800 full members and a network of regional and local associations with nearly 1,000 members holding group membership, we represent a community of 1,800 guides, making us the largest national association for the UK’s professional tourist guides sector.
Our aim is simple and it is to provide visitors to the UK with professionally qualified tourist guides that inspire, entertain, inform and simply wow visitors to London and regions across the British Isles. We do this by developing our guides skills and knowledge through an annual programme of over 40 Continuous Professional Development courses, to ensure their guiding expertise is continually being updated. We communicate with our guides weekly to keep them informed of tourism trends and news. We provide professional insurance and health and safety courses to ensure their safety and that of their clients, we keep them connected to the UK travel trade and we lobby on their behalf.
Our members offer professional guiding in over 30 different languages and they come from many professional backgrounds: teaching, accountancy, law, business, journalism, heritage, the arts, medicine, civil servants … the list is almost endless. What they all share is a passion for all things UK – they are cultural & social historians, expert heritage interpreters, contemporary commentators, entertaining story tellers, passionate explorers and they all share a commitment to providing peerless and memory-making tours for visitors to London and the UK.
Since our foundation in 1950, the Guild has been dedicated to raising and maintaining the highest professional standards of its membership and as holders of the Blue and Green Badge they are recognised internationally as the gold standard in site and heritage interpretation and communication skills.
We are recognised as a major player in the travel trade sector and we are proud member of UKInbound the European Federation of Tourist Guide Associations (FEG) and the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations (WFTGA).
Please contact us to discuss your tour requirements.
