A tour guide (or tourist guide) provides assistance, information and cultural, historical and contemporary heritage interpretation to people on organized tours, individual clients, educational establishments, at religious and historical sites, museums, and at venues of other significant interest.[1] They (normally) have a recognized national or regional tourist guide qualification.
The CEN (European Committee for Standardization) definition for "tourist guide" (part of the work by CEN on definitions for terminology within the tourism industry) is:
CEN also produced a definition for "tour manager":
In Europe, tourist guides (tour guide being initially a term primarily used in the US market) are represented by FEG, the European Federation of Tourist Guide Associations and world wide by WFTGA.
The tourist guiding qualification is specific to each and every country; in some cases the qualification is national, in some cases it is broken up into regions. In all cases it is embedded in the educational and training ethic of that country. The Art of Guiding is a skill; it is the skill of selecting information and varying it for different audiences; it is the skill of presenting it in a simple and precise way; it is the skill of allowing the visitor to see and to understand; it is a skill which, if well performed, is invisible.
EN15565 is a European Standard for the Training and Qualification of Tourist Guides
Tour guides on boat tours in the Port of Hamburg are called he lüchts ("he is lying") after an often used call of dock workers when they overheard the often colorful stories told by tour guides to tourists.