IMPORTANT NOTES FOR COLLEAGUES -

Dear my colleagues,

I am Yusuf, the owner of the websites “travelingturks” and “officialguides”. I am in collabration with more than 100 licensed guides in 8 cities (Istanbul, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Dubai and Bangkok) bringing travelers with professional guides together in 28 languages.

On this page, you can find the answers on how to make our collabration more useful and effective and also will be answering some of your possible questionmarks.

Basic information for ideal workflow

Please do not forget to indicate to the guest that “you are contacting them via the form they filled out on the web”. I will also give your whatsapp number to the guest, please inform me if you do not prefer this.

Please advise me when you will not be available for a tour request.

You can also recommend another colleague when you will not be available.

The 15 % commision apply to guiding fee and vehicle services only. Not applied for entrance fees and tickets.

If you don’t want to spend time by dealing with the guest you can write down your rates, tours, conditions and FAQ’s on a document to copy-paste and forward it by mail or on whatsapp. This will save your time.

We occasionally send out surveys to learn the satisfaction of the guest and the amount they paid. As you may know our collabration mostly based on mutual trust. For me it is not easy to achieve receiving these demands by competing with the giants like tripadvisor, viator etc. There is a huge competition in Google and I work hard to keep my website rankings high…and in return I require from you to transfer the commissions properly. Otherwise I may prefer to end the collabration.

Recommendations for more confirmation

The guest needs to trust you. A smiling photo with a visible guiding licence in your whatsapp profile will help you (or attach a personal photo into your mail). Sometimes the guest may also would like to speak with you on the phone just to see your level of language, this happens. But furthermore if a guest can’t see your face or hear your voice, it will be difficult to decide, even if your price is reasonable.

If you are not available for the required dates, please offer the guest your available days, this also works.

Try to reply the request as quick as possible like within 1 or 2 hours or 12 hours maximum.

How to guarantee yourself againts cancellations for guiding services?

In many cities of the world, tour guides have a right to work freelance. But in any case some reservations may be cancelled. Actually, cancellations are in the nature of this business. Some guides accept the situation. But we can take some precautions, then, let’s read on to learn what they are;

You can create your real cancellation policies.

You can create your unreal cancellation policies. This will prevent you from some cancellations even if you do not apply the policy.

If you don’t want to create any cencellation policy, you can require from the guest during confirmation to not to cancel the reservation saying that otherwise you will loose your days in the busy period etc. Even this kind of notification will discourage people from arbitrary cancellations.

What if the guest ask for a vehicle?

There are different regulations for guides to provide a vehicle. If you need to supply a vehicle to the guest first try to guarentee yourself againts to any cencellation. Here are the precautions you may take;

Talk to the supplier to not to apply a cancellation penalty if the guest cancel the service. Suppliers may accept this especially if its not a high season.

Apply your own cancellation policy and ask prepayment from the guest.

Some contacts to rent a vehicle with driver in various destinations

Below is a list of colleagues that I am in collabration and providing private vehicles. 15 % commission is included in these prices. Please talk to the person for details.

Barcelona; 6-8 pax van, 184 € up to 8 hours (please ask me the contacts)
Rome; 22 seaters van and bus (please ask me the contacts)
Dubai; Dubai full day 700 AED for 7 or 14 seaters vehicle, Abu Dhabi full day 800 AED for 7 or 14 seaters vehicle. Safari vehicle with driver up to 6 pax, 1000 AED (please ask me the contacts)

What if a guest ask you to buy a ticket?

This is one of the sensitive issues. First of all, do not make a purchase on behalf of the customer before the guest pays you. Because, as you may know, tickets are often not refundable. Alternatively, you can buy the ticket at the entrance, or they can buy it online for the hours you specify. For a secure online purchase, you can copy-paste the links below and forward to your guests.

Paris; Louvre Museum

https://www.getyourguide.com/paris-l16/louvre-museum-skip-the-line-entrance-ticket-t145779/?partner_id=F2GZGY3&utm_medium=online_publisher&placement=content-middle

Paris; Orsay Museum

https://www.getyourguide.com/paris-l16/orsay-museum-skip-the-line-entrance-ticket-t65756/?partner_id=F2GZGY3&utm_medium=online_publisher&placement=content-middle

Paris; Eiffel Tower

https://www.getyourguide.com/paris-l16/eiffel-tower-direct-access-with-host-to-summit-by-elevator-t387464/?partner_id=F2GZGY3&utm_medium=online_publisher&placement=content-middle

Rome; Vatican Museums

https://www.getyourguide.com/vatican-museums-l2738/skip-the-line-vatican-museums-sistine-chapel-ticket-t62214/?partner_id=F2GZGY3&utm_medium=online_publisher&placement=content-middle

Rome; Colosseum

https://www.getyourguide.com/colosseum-l2619/rome-colosseum-roman-forum-palatine-hill-priority-tickets-t127592/?partner_id=F2GZGY3&utm_medium=online_publisher&placement=content-middle

Dubai; Burj Khalifa

https://www.getyourguide.com/dubai-l173/burj-khalifa-ticket-t49019/?partner_id=F2GZGY3&utm_medium=online_publisher&placement=content-middle

https://www.getyourguide.com/dubai-l173/beat-the-crowds-burj-khalifa-premium-experience-t49181/?partner_id=F2GZGY3&utm_medium=online_publisher&placement=content-middle

Barcelona; Park Güell

https://www.getyourguide.com/barcelona-l45/skip-the-line-park-guell-entrance-ticket-t53791/?partner_id=F2GZGY3&utm_medium=online_publisher&placement=content-middle

Barcelona; La Sagrada Familia

https://www.getyourguide.com/sagrada-familia-l2699/sagrada-familia-skip-the-line-ticket-t50027/?partner_id=F2GZGY3&utm_medium=online_publisher&placement=content-middle

How to transfer the commissions, is “wise.com” safe?

Wise.com is the second popular money transfer option in the world after Paypal. It is safe, fast and very cost effective. No any commision will be deducted from your side when transfering the amount. The system will deduct some commission from my side. Please follow the following steps when you want to make a transfer;

Click here to watch what is wise.com

How to send money step by step

Open the link; https://wise.com/invite/asd/yusufs152
Register with your email address, facebook or Google account
Type how much you want to send (pls send it from any currency to € or USD)
Choose the “business” for recipient
Add my account details; Yusuf Sipahi, IBAN “BE23 9670 4743 5891” + EMAIL ADDRESS “[email protected]” (if you are out of Europe; type SWIFT or BIC code “TRWIBEB1XXX” instead of IBAN)
In some currencies or transfers the system may require a copy of identy, this is just for security. Now you can transfer the amount from your bank account or credit card, thats all.

Regarding me…

I am also a licenced tour guide in Istanbul, a webdesigner for 15 years and outgoing tour leader for 27 years in many destinations of the world. I also published a book for Greek Islands in 2012. I published my first website 7 years ago for Turkish travellers and thats why the domain name of my first website is “travelingturks”. Then I started to publish multilingual webpages under this domain. I know it is a little weird to offer multilingual services under this domain name but I preferred it because of the domain authority of this website was quite strong (which is an important criteria to rank at the top of the Google). However, I plan to transfer all webpages to my new website “officialguides.com” within a year since this is a more relevant domain name.

I hope you did not get bored while reading this page and you were able to find some points that you can benefit. Moreover I hope our collabration will be good for all of us…and please do not forget to leave a comment regarding collabration and opinions for this way working.

Wish you best of all…

Yusuf Sipahi