
“Good morning Thomas, We are very glad that you found our website and decided to promote it in yours…”
Margarida Pereira was born on Madeira and daugther of a guide.
Sometimes blogging can be a little depressing. You know there are people somewhere out there in webspace that read your stories. You can see it on the statistics… but rarely faces and voices.
So it was a very pleasant surprise when the morning greeting above reached my mobile gadget… Margarida Pereira was the name of the person who had read the post I published yesterday – about the new online Guide to Portugal’s Guides. There was even a smiling face with the messenger text 🙂
Margarida turned out to be one of the two people behind the guide. The other is her colleague Leonor Abrantes. Both are guides themselves but with different backgrounds. Whereas Margarida was born into the business, Leonor is experienced in web. They have always dreamed of working together. The perfect match.
Leonor Abrantes: guide and experienced in web.
I love simple ideas that are easy to understand. But I love ideas that take off even more! It’s way too often ideas just stay ideas.
The project was born out of something similar to what has been done in Madeira: Gather all certified guides by AGIC and SNATTI from all over the territory in one website – even those who are not associated members.
There were absolutely NO reason to thank me for promoting the new online services.
“It’s a good idea.What’s good for you is good for our guests…” I told Margarida.
Our hotel is completely empty. So their Web Guide gave me one more good-reason-to-come-to-Lisbon story to share with people who are waiting to travel again. And because of the lockdown I also have time to kill….
So obrigada to them 🙂
Thomas
I write ‘must’ because I really don’t know.
Personally I don’t like groups – I prefer to discover a place on my own – with the possibility to be spontaneous and eventually get lost…
Saying that – the few times we have been ‘forced’ to travel in groups with guides AND the times we have joined a guided tour for professional reasons (we feel we need to know what our guests are interested in) we have always had a super time… and always discovered places, people and things-of-interest we wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for the guide LOL – and that’s the whole issue: The guide is the key to the great experience – and we have always been with guides we know personally.
I don’t know what people do to find the right guide. Imagine spending several hours of you precious time – or maybe even days – with someone you don’t like? And/or a person who knows nothing about things that interest you…?
Yesterday Portugal’s two official Guide organizations: National Union of Tourist Activities (aka SNATTI) & The Portuguese Association of Tour Guides (aka AGIC) launched a new tool that travelers may find useful: An online guide to Guides that helps you finding the guides that meet your interests, in the region you want to explore.
I spend an hour yesterday browsing around the regions, subjects and an amazing number of guides. It has potential … especially when all the tour guides has updated their profiles with photos & data and checked that the link to their personal website/blog works. There are too many dead links which is a little sad because blogs are where you get the best impressions about the guides taste, style, interests personality etc.
When these things are fixed the tool will be perfect!
Looking forward to following the project
Good luck
Thomas