TRIP GUIDE APPLICANT INFORMATION

Thank you for your interest in acting as a Trip Guide with First Light Bicycle Tours. The information below is to help you understand how we recruit and schedule Trip Guides.

What is First Light?
First Light Active Travel provides 4-12 day, guided and self guided biking, walking and multi-activity tours in France, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Ireland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland.  Each tour is supported by one to two Trip Guides.

• The minimum number of cyclists is six and the maximum 13, not including the Trip Guides.
• The cycling party rides from 20 - 65km/12 - 36 miles per day along a planned route accompanied by a Trip Guide on a bike. Optional mileage extensions are possible for interested guests and family tours have shorter distance itineraries. 
• A Trip Guide drives the van and “sweeps” the route during the day to assist the cyclists with mechanical and other support. Trip Guides alternate on a daily basis 1 day riding, 1 day van support.
• Client luggage is delivered to the hotels on a daily basis by the support van prior to the cyclists arriving at their destination.
• Cyclists ride at their own pace along the route, arriving in a designated hotel in a town where they will stay for the evening.
• During each day there are scheduled stops for lunch, tours of interesting sites such as castles, chateaux or other points of interest.

The First Light Mission 

1. To take all the hassles out of a guest’s vacation experience by combining seamless travel logistics with luxury accommodation fine dining and great cycling routes.
2. To provide top-tier Trip Guides who believe in excellent service, provide for each guest’s needs in a personal and flexible manner, enrich the tour experience with their unique and positive personality and turn a great experience into an unforgettable and rewarding vacation memory.

What makes a great Trip Guide?
Great Trip Guides come in all flavours. Trip Guides can come from careers in teaching, law, engineering, history, technology, hospitality, public relations, advertising, outdoor education, travel or other professional careers.  They can be college students in between terms, MBA’s, taking a break from their doctoral dissertation or just taking a break from the world. Whatever walk of life they hail from, they all bring critical qualities to the table. Great Trip Guides possess a unique personality that enriches the tour experience for the traveller. He/she is the special ingredient that turns a good vacation into a fabulous experience.

These are the traits we look for in our Trip Guides. 
If you can answer yes to these questions then please read on. Send your resume to First Light Active Travel at info@firstlightactivetravel.com by January 25th to be considered for the upcoming season.

• Do you take pride in your appearance?
• Do you consider yourself physically fit and do you lead a healthy lifestyle?
• Do you have a love of different cultures and people?
• Do you find people truly interesting and love meeting new people?
• Do you love working and playing in the outdoors or have experience in adventure, walking, hiking, biking or other forms of active vacations?
• Do you have strong leadership and people skills?
• Do you believe in customer service and providing the highest standards of customer care?
• Do you have a confident, dynamic personality and a zest for life?
• Are you an excellent conversationalist and a good listener?
• Do you speak English fluently and do you have any other language skills?
• Are you willing to work long hours and pick up and move luggage and bikes?
• Are you a calm, natural problem solver who can anticipate and solve problems quickly and quietly?
• Do you have specialist knowledge art, history, traditions, or in-depth knowledge of any particular region of Europe?
• Do you have knowledge specialist knowledge of cultural activities, fine dining or regional wines?
• Do you consider yourself a caring, compassionate and patient person?
• Are you over 21 years of age?
• Do you have a university or college degree?
• Do you have a clean and valid driver’s license that has been held for more than one year?
• Do you hold a current passport?
• Are you able to drive a large, manual transmission vehicle capable of carrying 15 people?
• Have you completed a First Aid course? If not, are you willing to complete a First Aid and CPR course?
• Do you have knowledge of rudimentary bicycle maintainance? If not, are you willing to take a bicycle maintenance class?

Trip Guides have a love of the natural world
They are personally active – hiking, walking, biking, kayaking, snowboarding, skiing, rafting or rock climbing, and they maintain a healthy lifestyle. Trip Guides also appreciate cultural and historical surroundings – whether it’s looking up at 17th century frescoes or touring through a Cistercian monastery. Trip guides have an appreciation for fine dining and dinner conversation, but great Trip Guides are also great listeners.

Do you have what it takes to be a First Light Trip Guide?
First Light Trip Guides show extraordinary patience in all dealings with those around them. They have a ready smile for all and an unwavering sense of humour even after a long day. They are non-judgemental, flexible, smart and calm under pressure. Trip Guides interact positively with each other, their guests, hotel staff, everybody they meet. A great Trip Guide anticipates problems and issues before they arise and handles them quietly and efficiently. Smart Trip Guides think on their feet, use their head and are always looking for a better way of getting the job done right. Trip Guides take the initiative in all things, work as a team and help each other. Trip Guides are culturally aware, take the time to become knowledgeable about the area they’re working in and freely and intelligently share their knowledge with their guests.

Most importantly trip guides must share these two qualities:

• Great Trip Guides have a natural ability to make each and every guest traveller on a tour feel special and looked after. They are eager to make that very important “one-to-one” connection with each of their guests right from the start.
• They want each guest to come away knowing they’ve just had the best, most unforgettable and positive vacation experience they could have, and it was in large part due to the great Trip Guides that were there for them.

Season
Walking and biking tours run from early April until early mid November, depending on which tour you're on. We’ll see most of the tour activity in the months of May, June and September. Due to school holidays, most families take trips in June, July and August, so we will see more families during this time. Trip Guides with teaching skills or experience with children’s activities will be sought after for family trips.

Work Schedules
As a pre-requisite, we require that each guide must be able to work a minimum of 4 weeks during the season. Working the entire season of 6 months is also available depending on staffing needs. Training is required prior to the season for as well as a pre-season shakedown trip for all new Trip Guides. You can expect to be in training for no more than 1 week. After that, we ask that you commit to 4 trips, or 4 weeks minimum.

Language Skills
All of our guides must be able to have some language skills. Czech, French, Spanish or German are key languages we seek in our trip guides. All must be able to speak English fluently. Language skills are a crucial part of representing First Light on a trip, so if you’re interested in guiding our trips in Europe these are the minimum language requirements. We recommend that once you’ve been chosen to be a Trip Guide, it’s wise to take a crash course in the language prior to the tours.

For non-Europeans, in addition to strong foreign language skills, we look for people who have spent extensive amounts of time in Europe. This usually means someone has previously lived, studied or worked in the country where they would be leading First Light trips. If you are a native Czech, Austrian, German, Slovakian, Pole, French, Spanish or other nationality with the necessary language skills and fulfil the above criteria, we would like to speak to you as well. Our trips require a mixture of cultural and historical knowledge of the area we’re travelling through and we place a great deal of emphasis on this area as First Light Trip Guides will provide these insights. In order to be considered as a First Light, you must have spent a significant amount of time in Europe.

What You Get In Return

• A Daily Rate of Pay
• All food, accommodation, transportation paid for while on tour
• Tips and gratuities from our travelling guests. This can be up to double the weekly pay and add significantly to a Trip Guides income.
• Opportunities to travel to interesting places of historical, cultural and natural interest
• A chance to meet new and interesting people from different countries in a natural and healthy setting
• A chance for career advancement in management and operational roles with First Light as the company grows.

First Light believes in diverse cultures, backgrounds and disciplines as part of our selection process. We strive to provide strong training and support to our employees and staff while fostering a supportive, positive working environment. Our employees work hard and play hard. We wish to work with hardworking and young-at-heart individuals regardless of your age. If you want to work quality individuals in a young, dynamic company then consider First Light.

All potential First Light guides will be interviewed first by phone then be invited for a face-to-face interview either in Prague or the UK. The spring and summer guide Trip Guide schedule is drawn up by March 15 and the fall schedule is finalised at the beginning of June.

If you feel you have the right attributes and qualifications to be a First Light Trip Guide, please send a copy of your curriculum vitae along with a cover letter describing why you wish to be a Trip Guide to either by mail or email to the address below. We will begin evaluating applications in early February and will get back in touch once we've had a chance to review your qualifications. For further information, please refer to our web site at www.firstlightactivetravel.com

Thank you for your interest in First Light. We look forward to hearing from you.

First Light Active Travel 
Email: info@firstlightbicycletours.com

Mailing Address:
First Light Active Travel  
106 Church Road
Teddington, Middlesex
TW11 8EY  UK