By @mariana.radisic from Lunfarda Travel
When I was studying at college to become a licensed tour guide, I had a teacher who made a profound impact that has carved the professional I am today.
At the time, I was working for a luxury, tailor-made travel agency, and loving every second of it. I had freedom to tell the story of my culture and to provide the ultimate customer service by surprising my guests with deeply local and personal experiences. I had taken millionaires to cheap but tasty chiringuitos by the riverside, surprised guests with a spontaneous bandoneon concert in Puerto Madero and even invited a newlywed couple to try mate and facturas in the garden of my house.
As I was excitedly talking about the experience movement in class, and how it created intimacy and ultimately, memorability, my teacher Marcela stopped me in my tracks: “Mariana; you always want to make your passenger’s experiences memorable, but when you turn my age, you’ll realize the truth: the passenger is only a number that adds up in your spreadsheet by month’s end”.
That day, I vowed to never to become like Marcela. And as I spent the next two years in that private university, being taught how to squeeze people’s money through expensive and un-authentic tango shows, I realized that I was joining a profession, where, as in the world, cash ruled everything around me.
But if you talk to any tour guide, and I mean tour guides at heart, they are concerned not about commissions, but about cultural exchange, authenticity, emotions, and storytelling. Those tour guides will never do a 4 hour highlight city tour, because they know you just can’t. They will not send you to the 200 US tango show, but instead suggest you go to that basement where once a month, local tango guitarists get together to jam. And by doing that, they are unknowingly promoting sustainable tourism.
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