The tour guide make the biggest amount off you by getting you to do optional tours and by taking you to certain gift shops where they get kick backs

I took a tour with Insight.
The pre trip poop said to tip the guide 6€ per day and tip the driver 4€ per person.
It was a 7 day tour, so that meant my wife and I were supposed to fork over 140€ in tips.

There were about 35 of us on the tour.
so at 70€ per person, following the guidelines means that 2,450€
was paid out. If 60% went to the guide, she got 1470€ for the week.
On a 50 week basis that comes out to
73,500 €. I doubt if the guides earn much at all on tours in the winter.

There were plenty of optional tours and I would assume that the guide and driver did not have to pay for hotel rooms themselves, or for meals.

I think what I object to is the tipping angle, period. In some respects the guide is gambling on people paying extra and it also means that tour prices are false -- the tour costs a lot more than the brochure price.

I agree: Don't they pay those people? And the answer is no they don't.

Gambling is right, Brookwood---with the employees' salaries. The only entity that comes out on top is the tour company.

Brookwood,

Those guides also do not work 52 weeks a year. My first trip to Europe I took a tour, the guide mentioned to us that she only worked 2 - 3 months out of the year and that most guides do not work all year around.

Actually, your posts sounded like jealousy to me. Would you want to be responsible for 40 adults on a trip, half of which will probably whine and bitch about something, some about everything. They also work 12 to 18 hours a day with no days off during the tour.

Lastly, a tip is not obligatory, so it is not a hidden cost. Therefore, if you begrudge tipping so much, don't tip the tour guide and just slither away back home at the end of the trip.

The thought of having to tip on top of already hefty tour costs is one of the things that keeps us traveling on our own. I just don't understand why tour prices (and cruise prices, too) aren't all-inclusive so you know exactly what the cost is up front.

I never expect a tip when providing guide services. Some people offer tips, and if they offer I accept, but I don't expect anything, and if they give me nothing, that's fine. The price I quote them is the only price they need to pay.

The same holds for group tours. I charge only what I've quoted the tour company, and I don't expect tips from the company or from anyone on the tour.

I consider the whole idea of tips a bit dishonest, particularly for guides who are self-employed. If you think you are worth more than you charge, why not just charge more? Why do you need _extra_ money? The amount I quote is all I expect; if I think I'm worth more, I'll quote more. Sheesh.

Anthony- We're not talking about contracted guides like you who are well-paid.(You actually decide how much you are paid.) We're talking about employees for tour companies,who make very little money and count on tips for a good chunk of their income.Think of how servers in restaurants in the U.S. are paid.

In France, at least, your tip is included in restaurants _by law_, and it is usually 15%. You don't have to add anything on top of that; you can just pay what's on the bill.

If someone is an employee and is truly so poorly paid that he can't get by on that pay alone, then I suppose tips make more sense ... but in that case, he really should consider changing jobs. There are a lot of minimum-wage jobs that don't include any tips at all, and I don't see why some people should expect and receive tips and others should not, especially when they are making the same wage. Why should you tip a waiter, for example, if you don't tip the counter service or the person with the mop at McDonald's? The former is probably _better_ paid than the latter.

I think that ethically anyone should always be "pleasantly surprised" by a tip; that is, nobody should ever expect tips. If they routinely get tips, great, but they should never behave as though they automatically deserve a tip.

Sometimes you just have to accept that the world works the way it works.Different industries are structured differently(and differently from country to country.)

In some countries,servers in restaurants are paid a decent salary,in others they are not,and it is customary to tip.Some countries have free museums,others require payment.Sometimes you pay to enter a church.That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Anthony, in many US restaurants, waiters are paid less than minimum wage because it is assumed that they will make a good percentage of their pay in tips, so that person at the counter at McDonald's is making more per hour than many waiters.

I actually have a problem with a tip that is automatically added to my bill, because then it is "not" a tip, it is a charge. I agree that a tip should be voluntary and it really irks me for restaurants, and some do it in the States as well, that just tack it on. I think it allows the waiter/waitress to do a minimal job because they know that no matter what, they will get their tip.

Then you must also assume that people in other occupations that don't involve tips are not making any special effort to do their work well, since they are paid the same whether they work well or not. Perhaps doctors and lawyers would do a better job if they knew they'd get a tip, eh?

AnthonyGA,

That's a silly assumption...doctors and lawyers do not make a large portion of their pay through tips. And it is simply not part of how things work. I think you're just trying to argue for arguing sake.

A tip is by definition extra $ for a job well done, it shouldn't be assumed which is what those restaurants do. And frankly, they do themselves in, because I usually tip more than 15%.

I agree with Anthony. If the employees are so poorly paid that they absolutely depend upon tips, then their source of income is inconsistent at best and much lower than they expected at worst.


Lyb, you state that the definition of a tip is "extra $ for a job well done."

By using the word "extra" aren't you acknowledging that it is not mandatory, expected or a moral obligation?

kswl,

Of course, I agree that it's not mandatory, for a tour or at a restaurant, but that is part of the customs. In certain professions, like hair dresser, massaseuse, restaurants, tour guides, etc...if the person does a very good job, you tip them, if they do an extremely good job, you tip them even more.

I have once or twice not tipped anything in a restaurant because the service was so horrid, I didn't think they deserved anything...yet, at other restaurants, as I mentioned before, I've tipped 20% or more.

You could try breaking down what the driver does thus:

$1 per bag * twice a day (load in a.m, unload in p.m).

For six people, assuming only one stowed bag per person, that's $12 a day, times 12 nights, for $144. Add about a dollar per person per day if you wish as a gift for other related services, and you have $215 or so to the driver for your group of 6. That's roughly $3 per person per day for the driver, which is what many tour companies recommend.

The tour guide is a bit more complex, because they might have the option of selling additional tours, on which they collect a commission. If you don't purchase any optional tours, compute what 15 per cent of the optional tour cost would be if you took one every third day. Personally, I'd rather do this and do the 'optional' stuff on my own, it would still be cheaper. If you do buy optional tours, factor in this commission as part of the tour guide tip. At 15 per cent, commission on 4 optionals per person sold at an average of $50 each, would be $180 for a group of 6.

That said, the tour guide has more contact with you than the driver, so you'd want to at least match the tip paid to the driver. So you're talking $180 plus $215 for around $400.

In total, that's $400 for the tour guide, $200 for the driver, for a minimum tip of around $600 for your group.

I can't speak to whether this gives the parties concerned enough to live on, or whether it is customary, etc. etc. I'm only trying to relate the tour tip as closely as possible to what the individuals might expect for tips were they working as bell hops or commission sales people.

Rkkwan: Regarding your comment that tipping works: Many things in the world 'work', i.e. exist and are ongoing. That, in an of itself, is not evidence of efficiency, let alone fairness. For example, convenience is efficient in terms of time, but not always in terms of money. You are also assuming that all parties to a transaction have the same interests, when they do not. Tour companies have a vested interest in offloading payroll and supervisory duties to their customers, who aren't paid anything for their desperate attempts to discharge these duties. A similar situation exists with the airlines, who don't compensate me for carrying the capital cost of the computer or the operational (Internet server) cost that I incur in order to book my own travel.

In short, tipping exists, and I tip because I'm stuck with the practice until the regulatory bodies rule otherwise, but I maintain that it is neither as efficient nor as fair as true free market pricing.

Lyb, I guess we are in agreement in principle, but I ONLY tip for above and beyond, not for fair services rendered; those I expect for the price of the service.

Sue xx yy, although your method of determining the amount of the tip is derived in a fairly straightforward fashion, I would still object to paying a tip for an optional trip I did not even take! That, to me, simply underscores the ridiculous and ambivalent nature of tipping.

Your last remarks bring to mind a thought I had when I was at Walmart, checking out my own purchases. I wondered when we would all have to register our names and addresses as customers, and would be sent postcards giving us the time of our monthly shelf-stocking shift. :'(

the kind of places I don't tip at is Starbucks, or any other kind of food to go places....it actually irritates me that the litte jar is there, asking for extra money, when all they did is take my order and then gave me my coffee. And some of these servers seem to barely have the energy to smile, so therefore, I don't have the energy to put any money in their jar.

Legally they are not permitted to have that jar. The law says that tips must be included in the bill. But if they feel they are above the law that requires them to keep emergency exists unlocked, I guess they also feel that they are above the law that says tips must be included in the bill.

Wow...this April thread about tipping renewed in July generated lots of blather! I've seen repeated several times our own experience on a recent Grand Circle tour: you'll get info from the company, also suggested $5 per day for guide, $3 for driver.
ozarksbill
(Back from Central Europe)