[civsa] Tour Guide - Paid or Incentive?

[Barkowski, Debra L.]

We pay our student ambassadors. In Chicago the minimum wage just changed to $10/hour.  We advocated for a paid tour guide system about four or five years ago, and it had an overwhelmingly positive effect on tour guides showing up and being more engaged and active.  There are some other incentives as well where students can earn points for covering tours and doing other things, and those with the most points are selected to attend the annual Scholarship Ball in spring.

At the same time we advocated for compensation, we also instituted a First Year Ambassador program where freshmen could shadow tours, participate on student panels for special group visits, and participate in other recruitment events, all as volunteers.  At the end of their first year, they could apply for paid positions.  We have good success with this program too because it allows the students and us to see if this is a good fit for everyone.

From: listserv [mailto:listserv-bounces at civsa.org] On Behalf Of Allison Fannon
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2015 8:42 AM
To: listserv at civsa.org
Subject: [civsa] Tour Guide - Paid or Incentive?

Morning and Warm Holiday Wishes!

I wanted to inquire about if your tour guides are all paid or if there are incentives for them. Currently, we offer free parking and they do a certain amount of tours a semester, but that doesn't seem to be working well. We are looking at hiring some, but I wanted to see what others do to provide student tour guides for general campus tours.

Thanks in advance for your help! Looking forward to your responses!

Best,


Allison Fannon
Coordinator, Campus Tours & Events
University of Central Oklahoma
100 N. University Drive
Edmond, OK 73034
Phone: 405.974.5331 | Fax: 405.974.3841
www.uco.edu<http://www.uco.edu/>

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