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Friday, February 19, 2010

USA Tour Pros Announces FREE* SERVICE starting March 15, 2010!

We are pleased to announce following successful talks in Silicon Valley, USA Tour Pros will become a FREE* SERVICE for Tour Pros! That’s right, any Tour Pro who has a completed profile within our system will be retained, while those currently Registered under anonymous screen names will be deleted on March 15, 2010.

This new business model will benefit the Tour Pro in a number of ways:
1) No out-of-pocket Membership fee
2) An online presence that is easy to create and virtually maintenance free
3) Referral service you will only pay for IF we land you a job!
3) FREE personal profile to be utilized in our database searches for Tour Operators
4) FREE access to the most comprehensive and thorough Resource Library in the business
5) FREE access to our well-received and professionally-acclaimed Virtual Tour Director (VTD) series
6) FREE ability to post video resumes, printed resumes, and the all-important work availability calendar!
7) Seamless compatibility with Facebook, Twitter, and our Yahoo online group

And much more!

Those currently paying Membership dues will receive a pro-rated refund check from USA Tour Pros before April 1, 2010.

So what are you waiting for? Register at: http://www.usatourpros.com/index.php/forums/member/register/ and starting March 15, 2010, enjoy all we offer for a price everyone can afford: FREE!

*(All Business Friends Membership fees will remain in effect).

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Big Success in the Big Apple!

What a weekend! Our group of Tour Pros who attended USA Tour Pros first NYC FAM trip and NYC Sightseeing Guide License Study Session were a wonderful blend of long-time professionals and newly-trained Tour Pros. The enthusiasm for all was palpable throughout our fur days together and the weather certainly cooperated with our event. And, it was heartening to see that our event, planned first and then unceremoniously trumped just two weeks before by another individual, was the superior of the two options for NYC training. When a local angle is needed to teach out-of-towners about moving a group in NYC, you need to rely on someone who lives there. Not a flatlander.

As of this morning, 20 out of 20 of our participants had passed the 150-question Sightseeing Guide License exam with an average score of 131. A full 90% had earned the coveted gold-star for scoring 120 or higher. Every member of the exam group checked-in following their test for a cordial de-briefing of their experience which we will utilize to teach our next group of FAM trip/Study Session participants even better. The superb assistance of Alice Devereaux and Sheryl Emmett, along with the support of the industry-leading Tour Operator USA Student Travel, and their Vice President Pat Neimeyer in particular, was what we needed to accomplish our success.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Our Very Own NYC Splash Down

Can it be a year already? I was actually taking the only nap I would take all year at the precise moment Sully brought his US Airways airplane down for a miraculous landing on the Hudson RIver, directly behind my home. And now here we are just one week from taking USA Tour Pros for what we believe will be our first spectacular landing in NYC!

For the past two months, a team of Alice Devereaux, Pat Neimeyer of USA Student Travel and I have been organizing a 3-day NYC FAM Trip/NYC Sightseeing Guide Exam Study Session, to be held January 22-24, 2010 in Manhattan. And now is our time to start making big news across the Hudson. And we couldn’t be better prepared.

Despite the sinister scheduling of a competing, similar event scheduled just two weeks before ours by someone of questionable integrity, we managed to pull in three times the number of participants because our event will be that much better.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

At USA Tour Pros, we’re very Thankful!

Just a day before Turkey Day and I have a lot to be thankful for. Let me count the ways…

I’m Thankful for:

1) ...my family and friends, for their unwavering support for this venture and my career as a Tour Pro.

2) ...my Web master Tommy Nguyen, for always being on-call to solve the slightest blip here on USA Tour Pros!

3) ...my colleague and USA Tour Pros research guru Mariann Millard - her energy and enthusiasm is what being a true Professional is all about. I am quite lucky to have met such a wonderful person!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Save your tour by addressing mistakes

by Adam Della Rocca, Guest Blogger/General Manager of Popa Paradise Beach Resort (exclusive discount offer for Tour Pros at article’s end)

I was honored when Tom invited me to guest write on the USA Tour Pros blog. His passion for Tour Directing and his constant sharing of knowledge throughout his career before and during the establishment of USA Tour Pros has been a huge help and encouragement to others. As a way of repaying some of the knowledge I have learned “on the road” generously shared by tour directors, I would like to share something that I have learned that has helped me in my Tour Directing and in my life.

It’s about making mistakes. The best tour directors aren’t the ones who never make mistakes. The best tour directors are the ones who can best handle mistakes.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Our Big Apple Debut!

I started in this business in late 2003 and have spent the better part of the last six years researching the industry, meeting new Tour Pros, learning new tour routes, and listening to industry chatter. It was chatter that invariably goes something like this: 1) I love to travel 2) I want to be paid to travel 3) I got decent training for a king’s ransom 4) I got almost no jobs and even less support following the conclusion of my training 5) Jobs are hard to find and the uncertainty is testing my resolve 6) I think I might leave this industry because I can’t make a living doing this. That whole process takes most “trained” Tour Pros about three years to work through.

Something I have felt since the beginning, and many colleagues agree, if you want to “make it” in this industry and work in the first couple of years, you’ll HAVE to do student tours, like them or not. And with that information comes this realization: you’ll almost certainly have to work in New York City and Washington, DC almost every tour. That is why knowing them well, VERY well, is a huge part of surviving the early years.

And it’s why USA Tour Pros is branching out into training Tour Pros for both of those cities; first will be NYC.

Friday, October 30, 2009

The business of Infotainment

When we left Boston on October 21st on my last New England Fall Foliage adventure of the season, I was well-prepared for what was possibly ahead…a NE Twig Tour. It was, unquestionably, the end of the foliage season and we probably would not have great color, so what plans would I have to pass the hours in Vermont and New Hampshire? A Tour Pro needs to know the Tour Operator’s advertised focus of the tour, but also, how they will re-configure that focus if the advertised focus (in this case, great colors!) is not deliverable. This is where the Tour Pro reaches into their bag of Infotainment.