English | AGuiTBA

What is AGuiTBA?

AGuiTBA is the Association of Tourist Guides from the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires created in 1992, with its own office. It´s a non-governmental organization with non-profit purposes. Its members are Tourist Guides associated in a voluntary way, who, at the same time, are registered in the City Government. AGuiTBA is a symbol that identifies the profession of Tourist Guides. It helps to strengthen the links among them and to represent them in all their activities. Those who belong to this Association besides have the badge that individualises them.

Our aims are:

To foster solidarity among the associated Tourist Guides in Buenos Aires and with the rest of the country.
To harmonise the professional relationships of the Guides among themselves to promote their activity.
To develop a tourist conscience in the community.
To represent the Guides to the Government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and before institutions and international and national authorities.
To represent and defend the Guides’ rights before the Sub-Secretary of Tourism of the City, the Secretary of Tourism of the Nation and every entity competent in this matter.
To participate as a member with full rights of the WFTGA (World Federation of Tourist Guides Associations)
To involve the members in the active participation of workshops, courses and training sessions organised and given by this Association.
To maintain and enlarge the Guide’s library that is open in its house.
To provide legal and accounting advisory services to all the members.
To impulse the labour exchange for all the members.

Do you need a Tourist Guide?

AGuiTBA has a list of associated members that can cover all your professional requirements. Contact us asking for the professional profile you are looking for and we will answer you immediately. The Association provides free maps of the City to anyone who needs them.

Why is a Tourist Guide important? Because he/she offers:

A professional service, care and self-commitment
Objective information, free from prejudices and advertisements/propaganda.
Authentic and true information, making the difference between their opinions, and the anecdotes, or the reports that have come down from traditions and popular legends.
He/she takes care that each visitor should respect the circuit that they are visiting (monuments, attractive places and local habits).
He/she supervises the foreseen itinerary, making sure to give them all the services included in the programs.
He/she is attentive regarding the passenger’s comfort and security.
He/she provides all the necessary assistance in case of difficulty or emergency.

For any question, don’t hesitate and contact us
AGuiTBA – Asociación de Guías de Turismo de Buenos Aires
Address: Carlos Pellegrini 833 6ºC (1009) – CABA
(+54 11 ) 4322-2557 (Mon, Wed and Fri from 13 to 18 hs)
info@aguitba.org.ar // aguitba.blogspot.com // facebook.com/AGUITBA

The Tourist Guide:
The art of guiding at “viva voce” or “live voice” implies using the body with all ways of expression. It is the communication between a tour guide and tourists. The Guide gives a message in a clear and interesting way, with explanations without any political intention or discrimination, but with good information-very credible, with good expression, with interest and motivation. This exchange allows a good understanding and appraisal of culture or tourist resource, in such a way the visitor then spreads his approval of the place visited enthusiastically.

If the Guide does not produce this, all the effort made during the promotion and sale of the Tourist Product, runs the serious risk of being wasted, and still worse, of loosing the multiplication of prospective new visitors.

The art of guiding includes long and reflexive explanations plus other short ones and easy to help the tourists understand, giving them a “Welcome” and honouring them as guests, putting all the manifestations of the local population’s culture at their disposal. This is exactly the Tourist Guide’s challenge, to make “ walls speak” to tell their history. For this reason, their professional education, their own experience, along with their continuous training in the necessary areas and those of their preference, will make each of them the necessary Cicero of a final product with excellent quality.

The Tour Guide’s role and function is to welcome people, organise, inform and entertain the visitor. The FEG (European Federation of Guides’ Associations) defines the Guide’s role as to orient and guide the visitor in the language they have requested about what they are seeing and make the interpretation of its own culture.

It adds: “the Guide’s role is to lead groups of people, showing them monuments, museums and sites of the place, giving a general introduction of the visited area or carrying out a specific or thematic visit.

The Guide is a kind person with a pleasant personality that arises the interest of enjoying his/her company. She/he knows how to check their mood, to be smiling and nice. Her/his way of talking is very clear, slow, using the right words and no slang. In case she/he has to speak in a foreign language, she/he does that fluently.

The Guide guarantees a good service, personal care and professionalism. She/he shows an image that we all try to make it more valuable every day, to respect it and to make it be respected, to make it known and to have it present in all tourist manifestations, public or private.

Being the Guide the visible image from an Agency, the first contact and surely the last, the importance of his/her presence and his/her good image are fundamental since the same will remain latent in the visitors’ memory.