Re: Explorica/ EF Tour Director Pay (TD)
Posted by Christine on 8/14/08
As an Explorica TD I can confirm that TD's get
approximately the same salary in both companies (not much,
but still !). The job is maybe more pleasant with
Explorica which have smaller groups. But if it was not for
the tips no body would accept the job... Regarding
teachers' work actually they could relax and not "work
their butts off" if they have a good TD.
On 5/15/08, Papa Gio wrote:
> On a recent European tour with EF we had one of the
> best TDs ever and she told us
> that ALL her pay comes from tips and none from EF!! I
> find it a bit presumptuous of these student travel
> companies to expect the tour participants, young kids
> for the most part, to have to pay the salary of TDs.
> Many of the students I take on tour have a hard time
> just trying to pay for the tour and come up with a
> little spending money and to have to pay the kind of
> tips EF recommends, with the dollar at an all- time
> low, is too much to ask kids. Our TD complained to her
> regional office in Rome that my kids did not tip her
> enough. Do these TDs know that teachers who organized
> these tours are not paid to do them and in most cases
> spent a whole year setting them up and giving up their
> vacation time to take students on the trip. YES, they
> travel on the tour for "free" but they work
> their butts off!!!
>
> On 5/14/08, Gisella wrote:
>> Your tour director was lying to you when they said
>> that Explorica pays more for tour directors. There is
>> an industry standard and they all make the same
>> amount. In fact Explorica and EF offer an identical
>> product. The only difference is that tours with
>> Explorica are more likely to be cancelled because
>> they have less volume.