International Women’s Day: How Female Guides Inspire Inclusion

"Accelerate action" is the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day. Because when we inspire others to act, understand and value women's inclusion, we forge a better world. Marked on March 8 every year since 1911, IWD celebrates women’s achievements around the globe, while also striving for gender equality.

Today we’re introducing four female tour guides who chose to challenge the established norm in their countries, by building successful tour guide careers in places where guiding as a woman can come with a unique set of challenges. We celebrate these women who have provided thousands of international travellers with a female perspective on their city’s history and culture.

Priya in Mumbai, India

Priya has been leading tours as a tour guide with ToursByLocals since 2013, and has taken nearly 200 groups of travellers around Mumbai, while also working as a busy freelance journalist. In her words: “I still have enough time, energy and enthusiasm to help visitors to Mumbai find their groove. I would love to show you around my city!”

1. What inspired you to start a career as a tour guide? And what is your favourite part of the job today?

About a decade ago, I had met some Canadian travellers while on a family holiday in Eastern India. We became friends and when they visited Mumbai later, I showed them around. They were impressed by my knowledge of the city and told me I should be doing this professionally; I decided to explore the possibility. It's funny but I think I was sort of destined to do this, as from when I was little, my family (and especially my favourite aunty) would always point out various landmarks around Mumbai, sparking an interest and passion for knowing more about the people and places around me. As a travel journalist, I've now explored many countries and been shown around by a lot of fantastic tour guides. This has given me great perspective on what an inveterate traveller wants from a local guide and I've been able to do the same for visitors to my city for the last eight years.

I now balance my careers as a certified tour guide and independent journalist. For me, the best part of conducting tours is connecting with people from all over the world. And I feel fortunate that I can share not only the sights and lesser known facets of Mumbai but also my insights into the way we think and live.

2. Do you come across any challenges in working as a female tour guide in Mumbai?

Mumbai is a very progressive city and people are usually quite encouraging of female tour guides. Sometimes I get the odd “mansplainer”, who tries to tag along with a tour group, asking me if I've told them this or that! But I've learnt how to be polite yet firm in getting rid of such guys. Also, I have to be extra careful while doing walking tours in certain conservative areas where people may not be used to women wearing Western clothing, etc. In such situations, I make sure I dress appropriately and also instruct the travellers how to prepare for the experience in advance.

Nahla in Cairo, Egypt

Since 2010, Nahla has been a guide with ToursByLocals, and led nearly 300 private tour groups in that time. Based in Cairo, she is one of very few female guides licensed to take travelers all over Egypt: to Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Aswan, on desert safaris and on the Nile cruise ships between Luxor and Aswan.

1. What inspired you to start a career as a tour guide, Nahla? And what is your favourite part of the job today?

My Dad was the main reason why I became a tour guide. As you know, Egypt is a Muslim country with tight traditions against women’s work opportunities. I was lucky to have a father with a vision of supporting girls’ education and to work for their own independence. He was an archaeologist, and I definitely share his passion for Egyptian history. At university, I had an excellent experience working with one of Egypt's Greatest Egyptology Professors, Dr Zahi Hawas for a year, and I love to share my knowledge of Egypt’s fascinating past with the many visitors who come to my country.

My favourite part of being a guide is meeting different people from different parts of the world and from different cultures, and to share our knowledge with each other in different ways. I especially love having children on my tours!

2. Do you come across any challenges in working as a female tour guide in Cairo?

It was not that easy to starting to work as a female tour guide in Egypt. Most of the big tour companies prefer male tour guides to female tour guides, which made business opportunities for me so limited. The tourism business in Egypt is still more masculine, so being a female guide it is still a challenge to be interactive in business. ToursByLocals was my first opportunity to prove that a female guide can participate in this business, and be successful doing the same work as male guides.

Noura in Marrakech, Morocco

Noura has led almost 500 groups of ToursByLocals travelers on private tours since she joined our team in 2010. Female travelers in particular – friends traveling together, mothers and daughters, and solo travelers – have loved being able to hire her as a female guide and companion during their time in Morocco.

1. What inspired you to start a career as a tour guide, Noura? And what is your favourite part of the job today?

I applied to work in tourism after getting my Bachelor’s degree in English. At that time the Moroccan government started to encourage more investments in tourism and expected to have about 10 million tourists visiting. So they asked to have more people to work as tour guides. I sat for the exam and I succeeded and started working as a tour guide. I did realize from the start that this is a job that has mostly just men in it. But I started working hard and tried always to have very good reviews so that I can be also considered as a good tour guide.

And, then I started thinking: why not one of the best tour guides?

As a local and a woman I can pay attention to the details that men sometimes do not think about. I like when clients ask to have the service of a female tour guide, and my success is when after the tour they leave and tell me they will visit Morocco again because of me and what I’ve shared with them through my tours. This means I’ve given a truly good introduction to Morocco.

I love to meet people from all over the world. For me, it is like traveling! I also learn from them about their countries, while they learn about mine. My favourite part of being a guide is to share with my visitors my knowledge and my local experience – to try to show visitors as much as I can about our history, culture, architecture...I show them what I myself like to know when I travel to a different country.

2. Do you come across any challenges in working as a female tour guide in Cairo?

In Morocco, guiding is still often considered more a male profession, and not a good job for women. It requires big physical and mental efforts; here the tour guide has to travel all over the country with tourists and leave home for at least one week when doing a tour of the whole country. This is what I found challenging at first: to be outside my home and away from family for a long time. But I wanted very much to prove that I can be also a good female tour guide, and to represent my country from a woman’s perspective.

People are now getting more used to see women as tour guides, even though there are still very few ladies who do this job. But at least the mentalities of locals start to change and show respect for women doing this work. We have every right to do any job we wish, and this has been my choice.

Huda in UAE

Since she joined ToursByLocals in 2017, Huda has taken ToursByLocals guests on over 100 tours of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the surrounding areas. “During my tours, I like to introduce and explain our heritage, culture, and lifestyle. I tend to focus on the experience, and that's what adds a special value and makes the visit to my city unforgettable.”

1. What inspired you to start a career as a tour guide, Huda? And what is your favourite part of the job today?

My foreigner friends advised me to be a guide because I'm always speaking about my country and my culture to them. They suggested I would be a good person to let other visitors know about the culture. Actually I love speaking about my culture and my country to other people who never been in the UAE. My guests are always encouraged to ask questions about those parts of our culture that are considered private, offensive or "taboo": I believe this helps to eliminate prejudices about a different culture.

Lots of the tourists who visit the UAE imagine it is a typical Middle East country, where women don't have the right to work or to drive, but that is not the case here and every time I have to explain this important distinction.

2. Do you come across any challenges in working as a female tour guide in Abu Dhabi?

In the UAE we don't face that much of challenge to be a guide because our government is publicly supporting women in different fields. Being a guide is for me fulfilling; meeting people from different countries and learning from them, even if I'm not visiting their countries right now, which I love the most in my career.