What are the requirements for becoming a tour guide?

DEAT stipulates that the potential Tourist Guide must successfully complete a Tourist Guiding Course with a CATHSSETA accreted training provider. Tourist Guide Institute has CATHSSETA Accreditation and B-BBEE Level 4 status.

What is a Tour Guide?

Any person who, for monetary or other rewards, accompanies people who are travelling through or visiting any place within a country, and who furnishes those people with information or comments concerning a place or objects visited is defined as Tourist Guide. Many tourist guides may also wish to run their own tour operations in which they are both tour guide and tour operator.

Categories of tour guides

There are three categories of tourist guides:
Site Guides – these tourist guides have attained the minimum qualification in order to guide in a “limited geographical area” i.e. Hiking in the Drakensberg, visiting the Natal Battlefields,  taking a day tour of Cape Town, visiting Soweto;
Provincial Guides – are qualified to take tourists around an entire province i.e. Limpopo or Gauteng;
National Guides – are permitted to conduct tours around South Africa, crossing all provincial boundaries. These guides would accompany people taking a comprehensive tour of South Africa, say, by coach.

Classification of Tour  Guides

Adventure Guides – conduct a guided adventure experience e.g. rock climbing, paddling, abseiling, etc.
Nature Guides – conduct a guided nature experience in areas such as  Game Reserves, National Parks, nature conservation areas, trails, and the like.
Cultural Guides – conduct a guided cultural experience in a limited geographical area such as a  museum, community, wine farm, town or city.

Qualifications

Qualifications for tourist guides are governed by the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).

There are only two qualifications registered on the NQF:

1. 1. National Certificate in Tourism: Guiding (NQF2)
   2. National Certificate in Tourism: Guiding (NQF4)Note that a new NQF 4 qualification has recently been registered and this replaces the 20155 qualifications.

      Several unit standards, within the different areas of specialisation, have been clustered together to form skills programmes addressing areas of specialization, and aimed at persons wishing only to complete the specialized minimum area of learning required to guide.

      These skills programmes are registered by CATHSSETA (The Culture Arts, Tourism, Hospitality and Sports Sector Education and Training Authority )for certification purposes. The applicable unit standards are registered on the NQF.  In order to register as a site guide specialising in culture, nature, or adventure guiding you need different combinations of unit standards.  These rules of combination can be accessed on the CATHSSETA website, at www.cathsseta.org.za.

      To register as a provincial or national guide you need, as a minimum, qualification at NQF level 4 plus the required unit standard for your area of specialization – You can also view these on the CATHSSETA website as given above. Note that the requirements for guide registration, including what learning programme or course is needed for which category of guiding, is the competence of the Provincial Registrars of Tourist Guides.

      Assessors cannot issue certificates as they have to be working for/with an accredited training provider who will then issue certificates from CATHSSETA, upon completion of the assessment. The duration of the course, course content, dates and time of training, fee structure is determined by each training provider.

      The guiding qualifications are made up of a collection of unit standards or building blocks. Each unit standard represents knowledge that a person must have, specific to his profession. These unit standards were devised in close consultation with tourist guides and other stakeholders. Each guide will be assessed against these standards.

      Tourist guides are free to choose any training provider or assessor to work with. Details of accredited tourist guide training providers and assessors are available on the CATHSSETA website at www.cathsseta.org.za or can be obtained by calling their offices on 011 217 0600 or sending an email to info@cathsseta.org.za.

      Recognition of prior learning (RPL) is the type of assessment used for those who have been working as unregistered guides in the past as it takes into account all the qualifications, work experiences, life skills etc. for a particular guide and fits these into the current NQF for guiding. The assessor may point out the areas/unit standards to which extra attention needs to be given. Once the tourist guide has completed this a meeting with the assessor will need to be arranged in order to complete the assessment.

      The registration process

      No tourist guide may work without being registered.

      Tourist Guiding Training and Assessors

      All tourist guide trainers and assessors have to be accredited by CATHSSETA to be able to train according to the nationally recognized standards and qualifications network.

      According to the Tourism Second Amendment Act no 70 of 2000, any person who wishes to be registered as a tourist guide shall apply to the relevant Provincial Registrar.

      In order to be registered as a tourist guide in South Africa, a person must meet the following minimum requirements:

      • must be at least 21 years of age;
      • must be a South African citizen or be in possession of a valid work permit;
      • must have undergone training with a CATHSSETA-accredited training provider;
      • must be in possession of a valid first aid certificate from an institution accepted by the Department of Labour;
      • submit 4 passport size photos;
      • pay a registration fee of R240; and
      • must submit a completed and signed registration form and a code of conduct and ethics upon registration.

      Proof of registration

      The old SATOUR badges and ID cards became null and void on 31 May 2002. Registered tourist guides are now identified by new ID cards which all tourist guides are required to have in their possession whilst guiding. Official tourist guide badges must also be worn whilst guiding. The Provincial Registrar will issue badges and ID cards to new guides only once their application for registering as a tourist guide has been approved. The ID cards indicate the category of guiding, the regions for which the tourist guide was found competent to guide, as well as specialties that the guide might possess.  The ID cards are very important because the various policing authorities will request tourist guides to produce these during tourist guide spot checks conducted at various parts of South Africa to identify illegal/unregistered tourist guides.

      Renewal of registration

      Any person registered as a tourist guide, may before the end of the period for which he/she is registered, apply to the Provincial Registrar for renewal of his or her registration and his/her registration shall, upon submission of application forms and other documents and the payment of R240, be renewed. For a full list of Provincial Registrars refer to the table at the end of this article.

      Non-compliance

      Failure of a tourist guide to complete the NDT registration and CATHSSETA accreditation process but continuing to guide will result in that tourist guide being liable for prosecution. Fines of up to R1 000 can be imposed on illegal guides. Operators found to be using illegal guides can be fined amounts up to R10 000. The process for lodging complaints about unregistered/illegal guides as well as registered/legal guides is outlined in the Second Tourism Amendment Act, 2000. Copies of these can be obtained from NDT offices or from any of the Provincial Registrars’ offices.