With the Covid-19 pandemic touching every country in the world in the past couple months, tourism has ground to a halt, everywhere.
When we launched ToursByLocals in 2008, our goal was to create fair and reliable income for professional tour guides everywhere. We’re now deeply concerned for our local guides – all 4546 of them – whose livelihoods depend on travellers visiting their cities and regions.
In the past few weeks, we’ve reached out to thousands of our guides to learn how this pandemic has impacted them – affected their lives, their careers and their families. We’ve heard stories of guides who can’t access government relief, guides with children and elderly parents to support, guides who can’t afford to make payments on their touring vehicles. We’re determined to help them.
This week, we created a $400,000 ToursByLocals Guide Relief Fund to provide guides in need with long-term, interest-free cash advances. We know tourism will come back, and come back strong, so the guides can gradually return the payment in small increments through their future tour bookings.
But we have a lot of guides, and we need this fund to be BIGGER. And that’s where you come in! We know no one is traveling right now. And it’s hard to even plan trips for the future, as no one knows when restrictions will be lifted. But what you CAN do is
purchase a gift card! It’s good for any future ToursByLocals tour and never expires.
100% of the net proceeds of every gift card purchased will go to our Guide Relief Fund.
The Gift Cards are available in any denomination, and you can purchase one for yourself, or for a friend or family member who loves to travel.
By buying a gift card, you’re making a promise to yourself that you’ll travel again soon…and giving a local guide some financial stability in these challenging times.