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Europe Through the Back Door headquarters is finally quiet today after the busiest tour alumni party/tour guide summit we’ve ever hosted. For over twenty years, we’ve invited our guides and their tour members to town for a grand tour reunion. This year’s “massing of the scrapbooks” was the best and busiest yet. Last Saturday, over 1,200 tour alums (of the 8,000 travelers who joined our tours in 2009) gathered here for four parties. They were joined by 80 or so of our guides (60 of whom we flew in from all corners of Europe).
At each reunion party, I had the pleasure of introducing a smattering of guides to the gang to share greetings from their culture. When I introduced Cristina from Portugal and happily announced that for 2010 we were breaking Portugal away from our Spain tour, she noted that for 800 years her country has fought to maintain its independence from Spain (and has the longest unchanged border in Europe), so this itinerary change was only right. As she spoke, it occurred to me that our guidebooks and tours have dealt with similar border challenges that the countries themselves have. (Ireland and Britain were once the same book, and eventually the Irish gained their guidebook independence, too.)
I introduced Alfio from Sicily. Noting that Italy no longer has a shrinking population, he added an aside that his baby boy is “obsessed with breast-feeding.” He and his wife are being awakened nearly every hour through the night, and just before he left home, their little boy spoke his first word — tetta.
As usual, at the parties we acknowledged tour members who’ve taken the most tours. While plenty have enjoyed ten or twelve of our tours, no one gets near Larry from Springfield. He’s survived 17 of our tours and stood up to announce he just signed up for our “Village France” tour in 2010. Thanks Larry!
That same Saturday, we hosted 21 “Test Drive a Tour Guide” classes in our town’s three biggest venues. Each was filled with a mix of tour alums and potential first-time travelers interested in our various tour itineraries. (About half the people we took around Europe in 2009 were repeat customers. I think one of the most powerful marketing tools for this big sales event was to have alums and prospective first-time travelers in the same theater together to hear the guides describe the various tours. The energy and enthusiasm was palpable…and contagious.) I capped the day with an evening talk entitled “An Irreverent History of the ETBD Tour Program.” Watch a video of last year’s version of An Irreverent History.
My tour operations staff and I kicked off the week-long summit with an all-day general meeting on Friday. I started the day with a three-hour lecture on the heritage, ethics, and fundamentals of being a Rick Steves tour guide. I stressed our determination that our travelers get the absolute most value out of each experience on the itinerary and out of each guide. The bottom line: Employment is shaky for guides in general, but solid for our gang…and to keep it that way, we’re raising the bar on what our guides provide our travelers.
In the days since Saturday, we’ve been huddling in extensive review and brainstorming sessions in which guides for each region gather and debate the fine points of their tour itineraries — sharing the lessons they learned and discoveries they made in the last year of guiding.
Each night was a party or dinner in a different venue in Edmonds. Getting 60 or 80 guides together in a bar or Mexican restaurant is a rare treat — all exuberant about their work, so fun to talk with, and happy to weave together countless friendships…and all right here in this beautiful corner of the USA. And it was a blast to see the fun they were having experiencing our country. When I welcomed Arnaud Servignat, our very sophisticated Parisian guide, with a nice margarita, the salt on the lip of the glass startled him. (I have the most trouble pronouncing Arnaud’s last name…I keep pronouncing his name like the grape: Cabernet “Servignat.”) Sharing stories of tough travelers, Irish guide Stephen recalled how he once guided an Australian who opened twist-top beer bottles with his eye socket.
For some Sunday-afternoon fun, we rented two school buses with local guides and gave our guides a bit of their own medicine: a guided tour…of Seattle. I can imagine the Seattle guide must have had a memorable experience herself, with forty European guides on her bus. Peter from Hungary noted that rolling boisterously down the freeway into Seattle felt like the scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when the inmates commandeered the bus and escaped their asylum.
Guides also enjoyed simply being in Seattle. A few, such as Lyuba from Bulgaria, had never been in the USA before, and they were as wide-eyed about our culture as their tour members are about theirs.
Of course, free time was also spent at the mall. A highlight: the Apple Store. The word spread quickly: “Same price as in Europe…but in dollars!” (meaning that a gadget you’d pay €300 for over there would cost $300 here — a 40 percent savings). I asked Arnaud to compare the service here with the service he’s accustomed to in Paris. He said, “Here, it exists.” Patrick from Brittany added, “There was more staff than clients, and they were jumping on you. They fixed my hard drive in two hours, with smiles. In France, it would be ten days and double the price.”
Our tour guides get extra work with us as guidebook researchers. Along with our editorial staff, I spent Tuesday morning with the 20 guides who help update our guidebooks. And I enjoyed a breakfast at our local diner with our new guides. As the ten guides sorted through the menu, Gokalp (from Turkey) said, “In all the movies, you call waitresses ‘honey.’ Is it okay to do that?” When the waitress was taking the orders, and asked what kind of eggs, Nina from Italy asked, “Do we choose that?” When the waitress followed up with, “Your toast?”, Nina asked, “Do we choose that, too?” When the various plates finally arrived, Lyuba from Bulgaria exclaimed, “Wow, it’s a very serious breakfast!”
Seeing three young Turkish guides at the breakfast table was a reminder that Turkey is now our second most popular tour destination. These young Turkish guides filled the far east end of our table with bright eyes and exuberance…much like Turkey aspires to fill the east end of the European Union.
In the weeks leading up to our summit, I spent several long days with our tour operations staff reviewing our concerns and vision for each of our 30 or so tour itineraries. This week, while our staff and the guides were hammering out these ideas and the countless details of their respective tour itineraries, I was in our radio studio taping a world of radio interviews. Over the course of four six-hour recording sessions, we got 30 or 40 separate interviews (each streamed in the rough on our website and with live call-ins from around the country). Producer Tim Tattan now has raw material for about four months of radio shows in the can — and a lot of work ahead of him. Getting our foreign experts actually in the studio for all those interviews was a huge boon for our national radio show.
For a couple of days, we had our TV crew running around capturing the excitement of the event on camera, which we’ll edit and eventually put up on our website for those who couldn’t make it to Seattle for the occasion but wanted to.
My staff designed and pulled off this complex and exhilarating week as smoothly as could be. And today we say goodbye, as our guides fly back to points all over Europe — from Stockholm to Sofia, from Lisbon to Thessaloniki, from Glasgow to Izmir.
My brain is fried, my voice is hoarse, and my tour guide heart is soaring. Now we catch our breath, knowing we are primed and ready to lead a 2010 tour season brimming with rich experiences, vivid lessons, memories to last a lifetime, and busloads of good travelers.
What a great report on the reunion – and especially how much the staff contributed to its success. No company is greater than the sum of its parts. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue — a highly attractive crew. Bill Kester, Pendleton SC
I was there to check out possible future tours with your company. It was a first class event all around. I also liked the 20% off sale at your store!! The final talk you gave that night was a highlight. Thanks for the awesome day!
Sounds like a great weekend – pity I live in the east (not that I was eligible this year).
Wow! What an incredible and exhilarating week it must have been — Thanks for sharing it with us!
Just when the winter blues are setting in you planned a total recharge of your inspiration. This time of year may work best for your team logistically but the mood lift it provides sounds fantastic!
Sounds like a great time. Now where do I apply to be a tour guide of Germany with you?
It was a fantastic time! Our guide from France was there and we spent the weekend with a total of 8 people from our tour. It was wonderful to see everyone and the scrapbooks. The event was well put together and I appreciated the opportunity to reconnect with people with whom I had such a memorable experience.
It was a great weekend in Edmonds seeing our Ireland tour travelers and guides from past trips. Thanks to you, your staff and the great folks from Edmonds for hosting such a fun event. We now need to plan for Villages and Vineyards of Eastern France.
It was a great weekend in Edmonds seeing our Ireland tour travelers and guides from past trips. Thanks to you, your staff and the great folks from Edmonds for hosting such a fun event. We now need to plan for Villages and Vineyards of Eastern France.
Good stuff Rick. Stick with what you do best – travel, and leave the politics to others.
Rick. Please stick with travel and politics. You do both quite nicely!
How I wish I could have been there! Edmonds is just too long a drive for me at this time of year.
Rick, I was really enjoying the “irrelevant history”, but it cuts out at about the 37 minute mark. I wonder if it is just my computer or an issue with how it was uploaded. The first portion was wonderful and fun, just wish I knew how it ended!!!!
Rick, this traveler agrees, last weekend stands tallest in all recent guide and alumni reunions. I’ve attend the five last meetings, yet never before met so many tour friends and guides from past tours. Outstanding travel thrills filled every minute, from listening to an inspiring Italy talk at 9 a.m. through both my alumni groups (last year I took two tours), into question time with you, steve, and lisa at 6 p.m. Listening to quides from many countries and travelers from across the US and Canada fully recharged the travel dreams of every attendee. Thank you again for sharing etbd’s passion to inspire and teach. Larry from springfield,
Nice photo of the guides! So nice to see some so many familiar faces during the weekend and in the photo. It almost felt like family!
The Turks are obviously not only important to us as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed exuberant guides. They are a leavening factor in the politics of the entire region. Hopefully they will remain highly supportive and balanced allies and we can encourage Turkey to not invade Iraq and destabilize that country further by aiding and abetting Iraqui Kurds and Turkmen who have political agendas – also related to power and oil. As U.S. citizens, we must better understand the volatility in this area of the world. Tourism can bring an additional measure of moderation to Turkey and further stability to the region.
Rick, Thanks for another incredible (albeit tiring) event at ETBD! I’ve been attending Travel Festivals and more recently Tour Alumni Reunions since about 2001, and I always enjoy these immensely. The “Test Drive” sessions were very informative and it was a VERY SPECIAL treat this year to have the opportunity to speak with so many of your Guides (some of whom I’ve travelled with on previous tours). What a wonderful group of Guides and Staff you have! Unfortunately only a few of the “Alumni” that I’ve travelled with on past tours attended this year, but I did enjoy seeing one from my most recent tour of France, a couple from my South Italy tour and one from my Ireland tour. It was like greeting old friends! I was also privileged to have time for a short visit with my friend Larry from Springfield. I doubt that I’ll be able to achieve his record of tours, but I’d sure like to try! It was great to have a short chat with you while you were getting a snack outside the kitchen at one of the Tour Reunion sessions, and again after your final lecture in the foyer of the Edmonds Centre for the Arts. As usual, I treated myself to a fine hot meal at Girardi’s after the travel event. I’ve already booked a Greece tour for this year, so I’m sure I’ll be back at the next reunion in 2011 (I’ll be retired then so will have lots of time)!
Another great post that inspires.
What happened to the blog on Haiti? While it was certainly sure to be controversial, left out some issues such as severe overpopulation and the role that plays in poverty and was sure to make some people angry, the issues addressed in it are important and need further discussion. I didn’t agree with all of the points raised, but it certainly kept my attention as I was reading it in the throes of insomnia last night. I checked back to see what other comments were posted. I’m sure the word “incendiary” might have come to mind to some people. It might not have been the most politic piece written, but it was obviously heartfelt. Sorry to see it gone.
Editor’s Note: Thanks for asking, Sheila. Rick has decided to submit his Haiti article as an exclusive newspaper op ed, so we have temporarily removed it from our site. And, while Rick is not one to shy away from controversy, the response to that blog entry has in fact been overwhelmingly positive so far. Keep watching the blog for more on this topic.
So that’s what happened to the Haiti post. I knew Rick wouldn’t shy away from controversy!
I forwarded the Hiati blog to several people and everyone agrees with Rick 100%. Thanks for explanation of why it was removed.
So what happened to the last blog, I didn’t think it was that controversal!
I’m sure RS’s comments about Haiti will surface again both as an op-ed and as a blog subject in due course. It is a subject US citizens and probably much of the world will be dealing with for years. Nine million people live on that inhospitable island (750,000 in decimated Port au Prince) and more than half (4 million plus) live in abject poverty. I really wonder how much financial help the US can provide given our own 15 million unemployed plus 2 wars plus deficits stretching to the horizon. Three billion has been pledged by the world but that money will not go far. And we have already suspended deportation orders for 100,000 Haitians here illegally (for another 18 months. What do they go back to?) Now we are ramping up Operation Vigilant Sentry which is a seven year old Homeland Security program geared to “managing” boat people who may try to come here from that devastated republic. Haitians are forbidden by their own country to emigrate illegally but many already cross the border to the Dominican Republic on the other side of Hispaniola Island and ship out from there. One positive is the sheer number of countries which are already helping from Russia to China and from Iceland to Brazil. And the US will probably need help from virtually all the earth’s 233 countries to pull this one off.
Great post! Enjoy watching your tv show! I’d love to travel with your group sometime. I actually write a travel blog for vegan, sharing advice with them also. http://www.veganworldtrekker.com
America is a very great country. You feel like you are in a Hollywood movie, you get good customer service, cheap Apple computer products, and serious breakfasts. Plus, Rick Steves.
Love the story about the Apple Store – they really do have good service – and about Nina being surprised about the breakfast choices. There are some things the USA does well, after all!