July 19, 2005
Tuesday

In response to Olivia's letter. Most tour guides you see in Ketchikan have been brought in from other states. My sister has been a driver/guide for over 5 years now for the same company and to my knowledge I think that she might be the only local person that drives for them.

In all honesty, most the driver/guides have no idea what they are talking about. They are not from the area and don't have the knowledge a local person might have. Most of these driver/guides are college students so I know their speaking skills aren't bad. It's just that when you don't know what you are talking about it comes out as, "Uh, hey, uh huh, look at that."

I think that the tour companies should really look into hiring more local people. The ads I see in the paper say they will hire local but not that often. I don't know why they spend all that money getting people up there from the states and then having to house them also.

Ketchikan is a beautiful place. In my opinion, I think the tour companies should look into hiring locally. I also worked in the tour industry on and off for many years and heard some pretty funny things come out of some driver/guides mouths. All that were very untrue and left the tourists thinking the complete opposite of what the meaning was suppose to be.
I can say, please hire locally, until I am blue in the face but that won't change anything. They will still bring in people from the states.

Dawna Vigil
E-mail: akatie76@hotmail.com
Yorktown, VA - USA

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Tour Guides By Olivia Round - Ketchikan, AK - USA

 

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