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The profession

Guiding is a job!

By using a qualified guide, you are choosing a professional trained to lead guided tours and deliver lectures.

Often specialists in history and art, speaking foreign languages, professional guides have expert knowledge that guarantees the quality of their performance.

Flexibility, reactivity… A qualified guide is not an audio guide !

Their performance is customised : They answer your questions, know how to adapt to different audiences (children, adults, people with disabilities, different nationalities and cultures). They know the different cultural and tourist actors and can help you to to prepare your tous and accompany you in planning logistics.

A guide to tell you the big and small stories, to take you on the roads of France or on a market, to talk about gastronomy, history, art or nature, to open your eyes to the world around you and give it meaning or simply to make you have a good time...

Training to become a tour guide

It is not enough to be passionate, .... but it is also necessary to be well trained to act with professionalism!

The qualification of guide-conférencier is obtained after :

  • obtaining the professional licence of guide-conférencier
  • a national master's degree with validation of three additional teaching units during the course:
    • The "competences of tour guide" section
    • « role-playing and professional practice »
    • The "living foreign language" section

Training and institutions
www.entreprises.gouv.fr/tourisme/formations-au-metier-guide-conferencier

Reference text
Edict of 9 November 2011 on the skills required for the issue of the professional guide card to holders of a professional licence or national master's degree.

Good practices for professionals

New practices are emerging : Company tours, wine tourism, tasting tours, literary walks, theatrical tours, storytelling, unusual tours, street art...

New techniques are changing the way we guide: audiophones, tablets, videoconferences, bicycle transport, vintage cars, scooters...

Visitors' demands are changing. Tour guides often work with families and groups of friends and offer tailor-made tours. They also work with "constituted" groups: travel agencies, associations, business groups, school groups or even afterwork events.

Whatever the form of these visits, the guide-lecturer remains above all a central player in cultural tourism.

With professionalism and good humour, the guide-lecturers provide visits to monuments, museums and exhibitions. Passionate, they will help you discover cities, districts, regions, traditions, innovations and French savoir-faire.

The professional card

The guide card clearly identifies a professional guide.

It is issued on presentation of the diploma(s) by the prefecture of the place of residence (art R221-1 , R 221-2 of the Tourism Code).

It must be presented at the entrance to French museums and national monuments

Valid throughout France, the card can be used to prove professional qualifications in any EU Member State.

Somespecific references related to the practice of the profession may be included. They are :

  • linguistic, with no limit on the number of languages (diploma or mother tongue)
  • related to a speciality linked to a higher education degree.

Issuance of the professional card in PARIS HERE

WEBSITE OF THE REGION ILE DE FRANCE' PREFECTURE HERE

The regulatory framework

Licenced tour guides are authorised to give guided tours throughout the country in cultural and/or tourist sites, museums and historical monuments (unless otherwise specified).

the reglementation

When a travel and tourism operator organises a guided tour, as part of a commercial service, in a national museum with the Musée de France label or in a national historic monument, the company is required to use a licenced tour guide, qualified in France or in a European Union country.

This regulation applies to travel and tourism operators based in France as well as to travel operators from the EU and non-EU countries.

Permanent auxiliary guide-interpreters and local guide-interpreters

Some professional guides hold a professional card as a permanent auxiliary guide-interpreter or local guide-interpreter.

These cards, issued following an examination, predate the reform introduced by the decree of 1 August 2011. The validity of the professional cards of these two categories remains unchanged and the holders of these cards continue to carry out their guiding activity in exactly the same way as before 31 March 2012.

www.entreprises.gouv.fr/tourisme/foire-aux-questions-metiers-guidage

Reference texts

Article 109 The law of 7 July 2016 on the freedom of creation, architecture and heritage

Tourism Code : : art L 221-1, art R. 221-1 and following

Decree No. 2011-930 of 1 August 2011 relative to persons qualified to conduct guided tours in museums and historical monuments

TRAINING
Order of 9 November 2011 relative to the skills required for the issue of the professional guide card to holders of a professional licence or a national master's degree

Order of 28 December 2016 amending the order of 9 November 2011 on the skills required for the issue of the professional guide card to holders of a professional licence or a national master's degree

PROFESSIONAL CARD
Order of 7 March 2012 relative to the issuance of the professional card of lienced tour guide.

All these texts can be consulted at www.legifrance.gouv.fr


Take part in the adventure!


Are you a guide?
Become a member!

The advantages of FNGIC' members :
  • Be part of the largest professional network of certified guides in France
  • Having access to quality training
  • To be able to put your profile and your visits online on the biggest guide directory in France without any commission

The federation in figures

  • More than 1500 members in France
  • Over 50 languages spoken
  • Over 41 years of existence
  • The largest professional network of guides in France

Why use a tour guide?

  • To make your visit more lively
  • To call on a qualified professional
  • For a customised experience

Our members have talent

Discover the cultural proposals of our members who share with you their catalogue of tours, each more original than the last.
Join the FNGIC !
Join the largest network of professional tour guides in France.

Become a Member!

Membership at the FNGIC means joining the largest network of professional tour guides in France .

By joining the FNGIC, you will have access to numerous training courses throughout the year, updates about operating conditions, and changes at local instituions throughout France. We also offer opportunities for professional networking.

Members are listed on the online directory. From the website, members can publish their tours without paying an additional fee.

Becoming a member of the FNGIC promotes our profession!

Register

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