RICHARD COOK
DENISE HODGES
BOB ZURIK
BETTYE BRUNO
GARY WHITE
LYNN GAINES
Director-at-Large
MIKE KEES
MEETING
NOTICE
Thursday, November 17, 2005
thanksgiving dinner
Home
of
Lucette
& Richard Reiger
5402
Lampasas
Houston,
TX 77056
6:30 p.m.
Details
on page 2
Map
is attached
Meetings are held the 3rd
Thursday of every month.
GUIDEPOSTS
The Quarterly Newsletter of the
Professional Tour Guide Association of Houston, Texas
Volume 5 November 2005 Number 4
President’s Message
The PTGAH
has been very active the third quarter. Houston has had great national
attention. Who can forget the first Texas team to make the World Series? The Houston Astros
made it to the World Series and we as professional tour guides were busy with
all the new attention brought to our city.
It has been reported that some were awake and working until 4:30 am with their buses full of fans. We should benefit for several months or
years as the host of the World Series.
Our
meetings also have been interesting.
Attendance has been good and many new interesting facts were
learned. Our visits to the Houston Fire Museum, The Magnolia Ballroom, our
business meeting at the Spaghetti Warehouse, The Pig Stand/Giant Presidential
Heads, and our private visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, have all been informative and
worthwhile.
The weather
also has been interesting. What a
Hurricane Season. Can anyone find a bus
for a charter? Hurricane Katrina
devastated New Orleans and the Mississippi/Alabama Gulf
Coast. Houston has been very generous and received
national attention as a great and friendly city. And then along came Rita…… Houston dodged a bullet and Beaumont/Port
Arthur/Lake Charles took the full force.
It has slowed some of the tourist business but Houston has quickly rebounded. Again, we are seeing a renewed interest in Houston.
The GHCVB has reported that many conventions planned for New Orleans in the next year are considering Houston as an alternative. We as professional tour guides are being
asked to participate in some quick familiarization tours for these groups. We are getting a chance to “show off” our great
city. We encourage all members to
remember that we are the best ambassadors for this great city. And, who knows it better than a Certified
Professional Tour Guide? I dare say no
one.
The Lakewood Church in its new location is becoming a
tourist attraction and point of interest.
Joel Osteen’s book, Your Best Life Now, is on the NY Times best
seller list and is drawing attention to Houston.
The cruise ship business is picking up and many are working with the
President’s
message continued from page 1:
transportation companies, providing meet & greet services, the “3 hour tour”, and
escort services.
Our
upcoming Thanksgiving Party at the Rieger home, which has become a yearly
tradition, is coming up in November. We
have an exciting Christmas Party in the planning stages. We will also be providing a training and
certification program for anyone wanting to take the exam. We also have three positions on the board
coming up for a vote. The Nominating
Committee is working on their recommendations.
Our January meeting will be very interesting. We will have several items on the agenda.
Remember,
dues are due by the January meeting.
Richard Cook
President
MEMBERS AND SPOUSES OR A GUEST
YOU ARE
CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE PTGAH ANNUAL THANKSGIVING POT LUCK DINNER
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17
LUCETTE & RICHARD RIEGER’S HOME
5402 LAMPASAS
713-960-1239
Please sign up with Melissa Dixon to bring a pot luck item at
713-826-6963
WHO
IS THE V.I.P.? by Esther Porter
I recently worked with an incentive
group from Mexico. The Mexico-based company invited 50 of their
top distributors plus a guest to Houston to attend two of
the World Series games (unfortunately, the final two games). The group was in Houston for four days on an
all inclusive trip with all meals, tours and lodging being first class. As an example the host client purchased
$1,000 tickets for each of their guests for each game.
I could tell that most of the guests
were well traveled by the way each responded to instructions, timeliness, the
questions they asked, etc. One of the
first things the Mexico tour operator did
was to point out to me who the VIP’s were; making sure I knew who was paying
for the trip. The six VIP’s were
marketing personnel for the host company.
As a tour guide, I feel it’s always good and interesting to know the
“chain of command” so-to-speak. Because
we work with tour operators that deal directly with the client, we don’t always
have the opportunity to meet all of the entities involved in bringing a group
to our city. The chain
of command in descending order was the client VIP’s, the Mexico
tour operator with two assistants, the local tour operator and the tour guides.
The first thing I noticed was that
each time we loaded the buses, we had to wait for the VIP’s to give the
o.k. to
depart. My experience in the past has
been that the tour operators run the program and assure that the clients and
their guests receive the best service possible. When I arrived at the hotel the second
morning, I noticed that everyone was ready to go except for the VIP’s. We
waited approximately 20 minutes for the VIP’s to finish their breakfast. The VIP delays continued throughout the
group’s entire stay. We were required to
wait for the VIP’s long after the guests completed their shopping, dining,
departing the hotel, etc. By the third
day the guests started to make comments about the punctuality of the tours and
the departure times. They commented on
how tired they were of waiting on other people (the VIP’s) and began to get
very vocal about it. I felt very
frustrated because the actions of the VIP’s were preventing me and the other
tour guides from doing our jobs to the best of our ability. I discussed this problem with the tour
operator and he agreed that it was a problem but stated his hands were tied
because the VIP’s were the clients.
On the final day of the group’s
stay, after loading the buses and once again waiting on some of the VIP’s, a
guest stepped out of the bus and very angrily complained directly to one of the
“late” VIP’s about their punctuality.
When we finally arrived at the restaurant, all of the guests were seated
very quickly while a couple of the VIP’s went to smoke. The tour operator came
running in, looked around the dining room hurriedly, and asked me, “Where are
the VIP’s seated? I told him, “They are
all seated and the waiters are serving their drinks.” Then I said to him
respectfully, “These are our VIP’s and they seem to be having a great
time.” He looked at me, realized that I
was talking about the guests, and said to me, “You are right, these are the
VIP’s”.
I believe that as professionals we
are hired to provide professional services to all of our guests. We are not hired to give better service to
the people paying the bill or the hosts of an event. We must understand that in our industry
everyone is a VIP and that sometimes we must help those that hire us to
understand the same. Doing so is best
for the clients, our employer, and our city.
Answers
to JULY TRIVIA
v
Who was President when the Houston Ship Channel was
opened?
Ø
President Woodrow
Wilson.
v
How did this President officially open the Houston
Ship Channel?
Ø
President Woodrow
Wilson was sitting in his office in the White House. He pressed a button and cannon were fired at
the ceremony in Houston.
v
What was the name of the club in Houston that
a young Elvis Presley appeared in early in his career?
Ø
The club was
known as the Magnolia Club. It was
located in northeast Houston and Elvis appeared there as part of a traveling show
called “The Louisiana Hayride”.
v
How did the officials break ground during the
Ground Breaking Ceremony for the new Harris County Domed Stadium?
Ø
When Judge Roy Hofheinz’s “Houston Colt 45’s” were given the new franchise
and Harris County was to build the first indoor baseball stadium
(Houston Astrodome), the ground-breaking ceremony did not use shovels; instead
each official fired a Colt 45 pistol into the ground. (Only in Texas)
v
Why were they drilling for oil at Spindletop in
1901? What did they want to do with the
oil when they found it?
Ø
The reason they
were drilling for oil at Spindletop in Beaumont on January 10, 1901 was because a young businessman, Patillo Higgins,
wanted to start a brick factory in Beaumont. He had been
to Pennsylvania and noticed that they were using a new fuel source called petroleum
to heat their ovens.The reason Patillo wanted to make
bricks was because the steamships had begun coming to Beaumont in the late
1800’s. As a result of this new technology,
there was no longer a source of cheap British bricks at the port. Prior to the arrival of the steamship, most
ships coming to Texas ports were under sail. Many were loaded with cheap, heavy bricks
used for ballast. With the invention of
steamships, bricks became scarce and Patillo thought this would be a great
market. He had no idea of the petrochemical
industry we see today. (Note: the Strand
is Galveston is an example of this use of cheap British bricks,
most building is brick).
Nominating Committee For 2006
Officers
& Directors Named
Your board has appointed
Mike Kees, Chairman, and Bob Zurik, member, to the PTGAH Nominating Committee
for 2006. Per our bylaws, we have 3
positions up for election for next year.
These are President, Recording Secretary and Treasurer. In addition to being officer positions, these
also represent board of director positions.
(The other board positions - not up for election until 2007 - are Vice
President, Membership Secretary, and Member-at-Large. The seventh position on the board is that of
past president, a non-elective post and a non-voting position.)
The committee
recommendations will be presented to the board before the end of the year when
they will be announced to the membership.
Reproduced here is the section of our bylaws pertaining to such
elections:
Nomination
of officers of the Association shall be made by the Nominating Committee.
Nominations for annual election of officers shall be submitted by the
Nominating Committee to the Executive Committee for publication at least 30
days prior to the annual meeting in January. Further nominations, with prior
written consent of the nominee, may be made by (a) at least three voting
members of the Association by forwarding to the Nominating Committee the name(s)
of the proposed candidate(s) at least 14 days prior to the annual meeting, or
(b) from the floor with prior consent of the nominee and with two endorsements,
written or verbal, from voting members of the Association.
All PTGAH members are
urged to participate in this process by contacting either Mike or Bob. The committee is looking for candidates who
are willing to serve, actively participate in and contribute to the overall
betterment of our Association. In
addition to the report of the Nominating Committee, additional nominations, as
specified above, will be accepted from the floor during our Annual Business
Meeting to be held in January of 2006. A
vote will be held at that time to select new board members for the ensuing
year.
A final note: Our bylaws require that Certified Members fill
all board positions. A vote by paper
ballot will be held at our January meeting.
RiverBarge
Excursion Lines will be making a stop at the Port of Galveston and
visitors are invited to tour the ship on Jan. 23, Feb. 6, and Feb. 20 of
2006. For times call 1-888-456-2206
The following was
sent to Mike Kees by Donna Primas, a member of the
Chicago Tour Guide Association. There is available, apparently, a new
service in the U.S. that is essentially
a "tour commentary" and it is available to cell phone and
PDA users. See the text below for more information.
As the www.talkingstreet.com website says:
For many visitors,
it's having an ultra-savvy resident show you around — a guide who can reveal
what a place is really like, and how it got that way. That's what Talking Street does, and it's as
easy as using your own cell-phone. Talking Street offers a completely new way
to explore a destination and discover where you are... on your own schedule and
at your own pace.
The following
destinations are currently available:
The Washington Mall
Symbols of America
Narrated by Larry King (political journalist)
Boston
City
of Rebels and Dreamers
Narrated by Steven Tyler (rock singer/musician)
Lower Manhattan &
World Trade Center Site
The
Rise of New York
Narrated by Sigourney Weaver (actress)
New York's Lower East Side
The Birthplace of Dreams
Narrated by Jerry Stiller (comedic actor)
Talking
Street plans to expand to more than 20 U.S.
markets by the end of 2006, including: NYC's Times
Square, New
Orleans, San
Francisco, Atlanta,
Chicago,
Los Angeles,
Las Vegas,
and Houston.
The following sites are soon to be released:
Coming
Fall or Winter 2005
Chicago,
IL; Las Vegas, NV; Los Angeles, CA; Miami,
Fl; New Orleans, LA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; Staten Island Ferry
On-line, I listened
to the sample of the Boston tour, which has as
its first stop, a statue in the Public Garden. From what I know
about Boston, the info seemed
factual. It was presented in an interesting manner and with humor.
In the course of the
clip that I listened to, the narrator said the stops can be done in any order, the walking tour takes two hours and uses
40 minutes of cell time. I don't know if I would like to hear the scratchy
voice of rocker Steve Tyler for the duration of the tour, but it was cute
the way the first clip ends with him screaming his signature song line...Walk this way!
Further reading of
the website indicates that the cost of a tour is just $5.95 and one can
download a walking tour map on line. That seems to be quite a bargain--and the
technology use is one that would appeal to single travelers. An additional
selling point would be the 24/7 availability that might be attractive
to the Gen X/Gen Y market who are more prone to use technology
devices or others who like to do things at non-traditional times.
By completing an
on-line survey at www.talkingstreet.com, it says
that you can get two free passes. I would be interested to have some
guides in the cities where the service is now active evaluate the commentary.