Independent Guides Working Together
The New York City
Tour Guide Cooperative
Guests looking to book a guide, please use the contact form to tell us what you need.
The NYC Tour Guide Cooperative is a new group forming for licensed tour guides.
Our Mission is to create a co-op of independent tour guides to pool their resources, knowledge, and marketing to raise the profile of Independent Tour Guides in NYC and help tourists find those guides for their NYC experiences. All members are involved participants in the running and promotion of the cooperative.
Why?
The reality is it’s harder and more expensive than ever for individual tour guides to get noticed. All of the major tourist sites (Viator, Airbnb Experiences, Get Your Guide, NYC & Co, etc) are either financially out of reach for most independent guides or they end up very low on the search pages, essentially making them invisible. If independent guides pool resources and market directly to tourists, we can rise above the noise and expense plus put a larger percentage of the tour price into guides' pockets.
This is Shop Small & Local. This is about guides with passion and not corporate business plans. This is about giving NYC visitors the most unique experience they’ve ever had.
What Is Expected of You as a Member?
Keep your schedule up to date on the platform
Promote the cooperative to guests, other guides and people in the tourism industry
Offer great tours that emphasize this amazing city
Pay a fee on booked tours to the scheduling and credit card processing company and 10% to the co-op for marketing and maintenance of the platform
Assist in promotion, maintenance, writing, accounting, etc of the Cooperative. You will be able to choose the areas you feel confident in being most helpful. A certain amount of hours are required each month.
Participating in the decision making of the Cooperative that will guide the group to grow and flourish
Work as a group to promote each other and independent tour guides in NYC.