Tour Guide - Gloria Guo

Gloria Guo

Hi Everybody. I am Gloria Guo, a professional English speaking tour guide in Beijing since 2006. I love this city, which boasts such a long history and rich culture. I love my job at TravelChinaGuide, which in a sense makes me a cultural ambassador. I also love my guests, who make every day special to me.

Working in this company gives me many chances to meet different kinds of people from all over the world, with different cultural backgrounds. When giving them general knowledge about the city I live in, I learn their cultures as well. Guests of TravelChinaGuide are all kind hearted. They are eager to know more about Chinese culture and all Chinese things. At the same time, they are happy to share all they know with me. Through these exchanges I have made many good friends.

I usually present my group with a sunny smile and try to make their trip to Beijing a joyful one. I believe that a positive attitude makes a happy life. In this way, I guide my group and enlighten everybody’s mind. As a guest once said, I have magic power in influencing them.

I treat every guest with patience. This is a world of rich diversity of culture. People of different cultural backgrounds may look at China from different angles and have a different understanding. I have learnt how to explain everything in a proper way, while showing respect to them and letting them know Chinese culture as well. I believe that everybody was born with a good nature, so every time I do things this way, and I always get praise from my clients.
 

Gloria Guo guiding our tour group  to the Great Wall

I try to be caring towards every guest. I understand that the local tour guide might be the only person the tourists can trust when traveling to a strange place. A tour guide is supposed to be helpful in every way. For example, as an amateur chef, I know a lot about Chinese food and am familiar with the local restaurants. Very often I try to make some adjustments to the fixed menu for the group to feed every guest with the right food and make them feel at home.

Here is story of mine. Once I had a family from India who are vegetarians. I managed to contact the contracted restaurant before we arrived, made some adjustments on the menu and got them a separate table. I did not leave for my lunch until they got all the right food. On an evening of heavy snow I helped them find an Indian restaurant, which was a great discovery for them. I was kindly treated by them too. From this trip, I treated them as not only my clients but also my foreign friends, so we still keep in touch. They all said that trip left them with a good memory and they will come again some day in the future.

Anyway, I have a long way go to be perfect. But I am making progress because I love the job, love this city and love my guests.