To summarize the "conundrum," the simplest thing to do would be for Tauck to incorporate tips into the tour price so we don't have to deal with it on tour. Since they already do it on river cruises, should be fairly simple for them.
We do a lot of river boats and small boat tours, but we have also done six land tours. I think the TDs do a lot more work on land tours. I have done riverboat tours where I have barely known who the TDs were. The tour ‘guides’ are mostly the local people. But, I have also done tours where the TDs on the small ships and riverboats were great. I also know that Tauck wants the tipping of TDs to be a personal thing that is a reflection of the quality of the service. If you include the tips as part of the salary and part of the cost of the trip the incentive for an over the top performance and experience has been removed. The carrot will have been removed. I was mugged once in Chicago while flying for American (my ID was actually found in Dallas by some coincidence), and my wife was once mugged in Barcelona near the Ramblas when we were traveling to the airport by bus. The most valuable thing they got was her Coach purse. They apparently cut the strap with a razor and she did not even know it was gone. That being said, I will reveal my system. When out and about, no jewelry. I use a room card holder as a wallet. I carry one credit card and thirty dollars and thirty euros. Everything else is in the safe in the hotel. We travel with one hundred ones, twenty fives, ten tens, and five twenties. That’s four hundred bucks for two of us. In an emergency that would cover some medical expense, perhaps a hotel room, and a meal or two. I consider this a minimum travel stash. This is separate from the TDs tip which is already in an envelope. We have traveled rather extensively aside from Tauck, and I have used the cash.
We use Regent Seven Seas for ocean cruises. They are all-inclusive, including all tips. Even with that, we usually tip the cabin attendant and butler at the end of the cruise, especially if they’ve gone above and beyond. But the tip is smaller than what is recommended on those cruise lines that are not all inclusive.
I haven’t traveled on one of those lines in a long time, but I think the recommended tip was $10 to $15 per day, per cabin attendant. That adds up to a lot of money but they let you put it on your cabin invoice, so you don’t need to carry a lot of cash. I always wondered if the cabin attndant got all of the tip, of if the cruise line skimmed some off.
I was also mugged once at the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. Bring mugged us not a pleasant experience. However, that was back in the day when denominations of travelers checks were used. Remember traveler’s checks? We went to the American Express office and the traveler’s checks were reimbursed because I had the stubs. I had to cancel the credit cards that were in my wallet. Mt wallet was taken. Thank goodness my passport was in the hotel safe. This was a learning experience.
** If you include the tips as part of the salary and part of the cost of the trip the incentive for an over the top performance and experience has been removed**
I respectfully disagree. There are many ways to incentivize performance that have nothing to do with tips. As long as expectations are set, metrics established, recognition rewarded, employees will perform well. My only tour guide experience other than Tauck is with Rick Steves. Tipping is not allowed. He pays his guides well, rewards performance. His guides are uniformly excellent. He has a very high employee retention rate, customer satisfaction, and thousands of repeat tour members.
Agree with Folsomdoc - we have traveled with Rick Steves groups a few times - while the meals and hotels are more 3-4 stars compared to Tauck - the guides & excursions are equal to, if not better than Tauck. And no tips are allowed.
While I would certainly NEVER boycott tipping Tauck over this Tip issue (nor would a VERY few people boycotting make a difference to Tauck as this forum is really only a VERY SMALL number of people who use Tauck).
If I weren't happy with the tipping policy, I would find another company to travel with. There are so many options out there.
We have traveled with Rick Steves, Uniworld, Viking, Gate 1, AMA, Avalon, Collette, BackRoads == and while they are all good, none are as great as Tauck.
We do both land & river cruises with Tauck. While we do see more and probably like the land tours more, we certainly like the river cruises for ease of unpacking and the all inclusive tip policy. That said, when we do a land tour, we do get LOTS of Euros out at ATMs to be able to tip and we don't feel 'at risk' of being robbed, but we are very cautious about where that money is.
I don't understand why Tauck can't just add the Tips to Land Tours as they do the River Cruises. That doesn't seem hard to do. But it won't change us traveling with Tauck at all. We have 2 trips booked with them now & plan to book at least 1 trip with them yearly.
We give cash tips, in whatever currency we have left over at the end of the trip, plus we give the rest as suggested.
in USD.
An issue with all cash tips (restaurants, barber, hairdresser, etc.) is that some people may not report everything on their income taxes. I don't want to suggest that any Tauck tour guide does this, but we pay taxes on all our income and would hope that everyone does too.
An untaxed dollar is worth more than a taxed dollar, if Tauck were to handle tips, they would have to report it to the IRS (or equivalent) on the W-2. I wonder how tour guides feel about this it to the
A recent tour director told me that tour directors are payed a good wage, he never expects tips and says if you don’t like missing out on tips, find another job.
A recent tour director told me that tour directors are paid a good wage, he never expects tips and says if you don’t like missing out on tips, find another job.
I find that hard to believe. The total amount of tips on a regular tour adds up to a lot of money. No rational person is going to be indifferent to that amount of money.
For 40 people on a 14 day tour at $12/day, that amounts to $6,720. I would have to make a LOT of money in salary to be indifferent to that.
[Correction: the number of work days in a year is about 260. 40 people at $12/day would project to an annual income of $144,000.]
Our upcoming trips to Namibia and South Africa the guidelines for tipping are now according to our recent documentation from Tauck is $15 per traveler, per day.
“A recent tour director told me that tour directors are payed a good wage, he never expects tips and says if you don’t like missing out on tips, find another job”
Tauck’s documentation clearly states that tips are the bulk of their compensation. So how can both things be true?
Both cannot be true. i can guarantee they don't make anywhere near 200K per year. The average is less than 100k. it is a somewhat seasonal job and they do have a life away from Tauck. if you looked at my hourly pay as an airline pilot and assumed a forty hour work week i would be rich. But we were only paid when the aircraft was moving and that was on average seventy hours a month. TD work is a bit similar. In a good year they probably average fifteen days per month.
When I have talked to TD’s in the past many work half the year by choice, it is indeed a tough job being away from home but some love that aspect. My job, I loved it, it was not well paid but I would not have wanted to do anything else.
There seem to be more married TD’s now than when we first started traveling with Tauck, that would be tough for me but I’ve spoken to people who’s spouse is a TD too. In many cases the TD’s will talk about their life and experiences, it’s not like you have to ask them. The TD who told me that he did not expect tips owned two homes.
Ok. I am going to try to make this my final entry on the subject. My searches indicate Tauck TDs basic salary is 57K to a max of 93K. The estiimated tip amount is around 32K. So the highest paid TDs are probably making around 125K, which is considerably more than the average for people working in Milton, CT.
Given the suggested tip of $15/day, if a TD did 4 two week tours of 40 people on each tour, they would make $33,600 in tips. That's for 8 weeks of tours a year (and there are 52 weeks in a year). I think the TD's have to work more than eight weeks to get the health insurance, so they probably do more tours than that and make more than $32,000 in tips.
[8 weeks times 7 days per week times 40 people per tour times $15/person/day gives $33,600. They may not get all four two week tours full to 40 guests, so they may have to work more than 8 weeks to get to $32K. But I'd guess that maybe they'd only need 5 two week tours to get there.]
Mike, I haven’t been on a full tour for years. many tours are at a way less maximum number than 40 people. Tauck have stopped paying TD’s extra for leading small groups. Not so much lately, but some years ago , people asked me more than once….because I was a Tauck veteran…after the farewell dinner, when were they supposed to give a tip?….to which I would say…you just saw the TD for the last time, you missed your chance.
People are asking all the time about tips here on the forum, so clearly they are not reading the recommendations and when people do, many way underestimate what is expected. On a recent tour, admittedly not with Tauck where tips were much more clearly documented, the conversations got round to tips and several people were surprised when I said how much we were giving, some people had no intentions of giving anywhere near as much as we were, in fact, the TD was so good, we even put more in the envelope at the end.
I maybe recall with Tauck, a TD has to work 32 weeks to get benefits.
In addition, while it seems that people here on the forum are happy to tip every Tom Dick and Harry, there are plenty of people who can only just afford to pay for a tour and tipping a couple of hundred dollars or so might be difficult.
Certainly off subject about modern tipping methods, but worth discussing.
…so when reading the final documents and it says “recommended” 15.00 dollars per day per person and 10.00 per person person for the bus driver, I also give extra but are you saying, that you tip much higher, British? We do as well, but there is a misconception that the suggested tips in the documents is suggested as a minimal amount? We are currently traveling now, and some guests didn’t even know about the final documents, which is really hard for me to understand.
No, I don’t often give more than the extra tip, but some TDs are extra extra fantastic.
Yes, many people don’t read the final docs. I assume some don’t even get them especially if they are not directly dealing with Tauck.
So many questions that are asked here could be answered if people would read. Yes, considering how much they pay for the tours, it’s crazy to me.
I maybe recall with Tauck, a TD has to work 32 weeks to get benefits.
If a TD worked just 32 weeks, with only 24 guests on each tour, each giving an average tip of $12/person/day (not $15/person/day), that would equate to $64,500 in tips. I think that's the low end. I'm sure that most of the TD get some groups of more than 24 guests, and with the recommendation of $15/person/day, the average tip is probably more than $12/person/day. I recognize that some people may not tip, or under tip and that’s why I said “average”.
If they make $75,000 in salary, their total annual income under this low estimate is about $140,000.
I don't begrudge them their income. I consider the job to be difficult. They’re away from home more than half the year (if they do 32 weeks) which has to be a serious strain on their relationships and children. Or they don’t have a relationship and children.
[Put yourself in the place of a TD. There's not a whole lot you can do to get larger tips - Tauck makes the recommendation, and most people will follow that. You can work more weeks per year. Or, you can work the tours with the most guests. A rational TD will bid to work the largest tours. I suspect Tauck requires the TD to do a certain number (or percentage) of small group tours because of that.]
[Making these estimates is simple arithmetic. Make your own estimates and see what that results in for an annual tip amount.
For a high amount, consider a TD who was able to work 40 weeks with an average of 35 guests, and an average tip of $14/person/day. That’s $137,000 in tips. Add in $85,000 in salary and that’s $222,000 for the year.]
FYI - I use a travel agent. Final documents are made available on our Guest Connect account. In addition, we receive an email from Tauck when they are available.
As mentioned, I’m currently on a tour and our fantastic, eloquent, charming and articulate tour director made a simple point of emphasizing that a tour director’s job is not an easy job at all but we already all know that. There is so much of behind the scenes communicating with the Tauck main office that we, as Tauck guests, are unaware of. They are away from relationships from where they live, they don’t have their weekends with their family or friends because they are touring and orchestrating everything for us.
It was my understanding during our latest trip earlier this month that TD tips were now included in the price of the tour which was different from the way it was handled in the past.
There are many people on this planet who chose a job over what they might earn for it. I’ve met many of those people and I admire them.
That's one of the issues with the advice adults often give to young people - "Follow your passion". For many of those young people, following their passion is the path to poverty. Especially if they go into the entertainment industry
Better advice might be "Choose a profession that will allow you to live comfortably." As Mae West is reputed to have said,"I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better."
It appears that the Tauck TDs do okay financially.
Comments
To summarize the "conundrum," the simplest thing to do would be for Tauck to incorporate tips into the tour price so we don't have to deal with it on tour. Since they already do it on river cruises, should be fairly simple for them.
I have frequently seen the TDs doing the tipping … in cash.
Yes, but that Tauck money it’s not mine and I have heard of aTD getting his cash stolen
We do a lot of river boats and small boat tours, but we have also done six land tours. I think the TDs do a lot more work on land tours. I have done riverboat tours where I have barely known who the TDs were. The tour ‘guides’ are mostly the local people. But, I have also done tours where the TDs on the small ships and riverboats were great. I also know that Tauck wants the tipping of TDs to be a personal thing that is a reflection of the quality of the service. If you include the tips as part of the salary and part of the cost of the trip the incentive for an over the top performance and experience has been removed. The carrot will have been removed. I was mugged once in Chicago while flying for American (my ID was actually found in Dallas by some coincidence), and my wife was once mugged in Barcelona near the Ramblas when we were traveling to the airport by bus. The most valuable thing they got was her Coach purse. They apparently cut the strap with a razor and she did not even know it was gone. That being said, I will reveal my system. When out and about, no jewelry. I use a room card holder as a wallet. I carry one credit card and thirty dollars and thirty euros. Everything else is in the safe in the hotel. We travel with one hundred ones, twenty fives, ten tens, and five twenties. That’s four hundred bucks for two of us. In an emergency that would cover some medical expense, perhaps a hotel room, and a meal or two. I consider this a minimum travel stash. This is separate from the TDs tip which is already in an envelope. We have traveled rather extensively aside from Tauck, and I have used the cash.
We use Regent Seven Seas for ocean cruises. They are all-inclusive, including all tips. Even with that, we usually tip the cabin attendant and butler at the end of the cruise, especially if they’ve gone above and beyond. But the tip is smaller than what is recommended on those cruise lines that are not all inclusive.
I haven’t traveled on one of those lines in a long time, but I think the recommended tip was $10 to $15 per day, per cabin attendant. That adds up to a lot of money but they let you put it on your cabin invoice, so you don’t need to carry a lot of cash. I always wondered if the cabin attndant got all of the tip, of if the cruise line skimmed some off.
I was also mugged once at the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. Bring mugged us not a pleasant experience. However, that was back in the day when denominations of travelers checks were used. Remember traveler’s checks? We went to the American Express office and the traveler’s checks were reimbursed because I had the stubs. I had to cancel the credit cards that were in my wallet. Mt wallet was taken. Thank goodness my passport was in the hotel safe. This was a learning experience.
** If you include the tips as part of the salary and part of the cost of the trip the incentive for an over the top performance and experience has been removed**
I respectfully disagree. There are many ways to incentivize performance that have nothing to do with tips. As long as expectations are set, metrics established, recognition rewarded, employees will perform well. My only tour guide experience other than Tauck is with Rick Steves. Tipping is not allowed. He pays his guides well, rewards performance. His guides are uniformly excellent. He has a very high employee retention rate, customer satisfaction, and thousands of repeat tour members.
Agree with Folsomdoc - we have traveled with Rick Steves groups a few times - while the meals and hotels are more 3-4 stars compared to Tauck - the guides & excursions are equal to, if not better than Tauck. And no tips are allowed.
While I would certainly NEVER boycott tipping Tauck over this Tip issue (nor would a VERY few people boycotting make a difference to Tauck as this forum is really only a VERY SMALL number of people who use Tauck).
If I weren't happy with the tipping policy, I would find another company to travel with. There are so many options out there.
We have traveled with Rick Steves, Uniworld, Viking, Gate 1, AMA, Avalon, Collette, BackRoads == and while they are all good, none are as great as Tauck.
We do both land & river cruises with Tauck. While we do see more and probably like the land tours more, we certainly like the river cruises for ease of unpacking and the all inclusive tip policy. That said, when we do a land tour, we do get LOTS of Euros out at ATMs to be able to tip and we don't feel 'at risk' of being robbed, but we are very cautious about where that money is.
I don't understand why Tauck can't just add the Tips to Land Tours as they do the River Cruises. That doesn't seem hard to do. But it won't change us traveling with Tauck at all. We have 2 trips booked with them now & plan to book at least 1 trip with them yearly.
We give cash tips, in whatever currency we have left over at the end of the trip, plus we give the rest as suggested.
in USD.
An issue with all cash tips (restaurants, barber, hairdresser, etc.) is that some people may not report everything on their income taxes. I don't want to suggest that any Tauck tour guide does this, but we pay taxes on all our income and would hope that everyone does too.
An untaxed dollar is worth more than a taxed dollar, if Tauck were to handle tips, they would have to report it to the IRS (or equivalent) on the W-2. I wonder how tour guides feel about this it to the
A recent tour director told me that tour directors are payed a good wage, he never expects tips and says if you don’t like missing out on tips, find another job.
I find that hard to believe. The total amount of tips on a regular tour adds up to a lot of money. No rational person is going to be indifferent to that amount of money.
For 40 people on a 14 day tour at $12/day, that amounts to $6,720. I would have to make a LOT of money in salary to be indifferent to that.
[Correction: the number of work days in a year is about 260. 40 people at $12/day would project to an annual income of $144,000.]
Our upcoming trips to Namibia and South Africa the guidelines for tipping are now according to our recent documentation from Tauck is $15 per traveler, per day.
That would take a 40 person, 14 day tour to $8,400. Projected to annual, at 260 work days in a year, that's $156,000, just for tips.
“A recent tour director told me that tour directors are payed a good wage, he never expects tips and says if you don’t like missing out on tips, find another job”
Tauck’s documentation clearly states that tips are the bulk of their compensation. So how can both things be true?
Both cannot be true. i can guarantee they don't make anywhere near 200K per year. The average is less than 100k. it is a somewhat seasonal job and they do have a life away from Tauck. if you looked at my hourly pay as an airline pilot and assumed a forty hour work week i would be rich. But we were only paid when the aircraft was moving and that was on average seventy hours a month. TD work is a bit similar. In a good year they probably average fifteen days per month.
When I have talked to TD’s in the past many work half the year by choice, it is indeed a tough job being away from home but some love that aspect. My job, I loved it, it was not well paid but I would not have wanted to do anything else.
There seem to be more married TD’s now than when we first started traveling with Tauck, that would be tough for me but I’ve spoken to people who’s spouse is a TD too. In many cases the TD’s will talk about their life and experiences, it’s not like you have to ask them. The TD who told me that he did not expect tips owned two homes.
Ok. I am going to try to make this my final entry on the subject. My searches indicate Tauck TDs basic salary is 57K to a max of 93K. The estiimated tip amount is around 32K. So the highest paid TDs are probably making around 125K, which is considerably more than the average for people working in Milton, CT.
Given the suggested tip of $15/day, if a TD did 4 two week tours of 40 people on each tour, they would make $33,600 in tips. That's for 8 weeks of tours a year (and there are 52 weeks in a year). I think the TD's have to work more than eight weeks to get the health insurance, so they probably do more tours than that and make more than $32,000 in tips.
[8 weeks times 7 days per week times 40 people per tour times $15/person/day gives $33,600. They may not get all four two week tours full to 40 guests, so they may have to work more than 8 weeks to get to $32K. But I'd guess that maybe they'd only need 5 two week tours to get there.]
Mike, I haven’t been on a full tour for years. many tours are at a way less maximum number than 40 people. Tauck have stopped paying TD’s extra for leading small groups. Not so much lately, but some years ago , people asked me more than once….because I was a Tauck veteran…after the farewell dinner, when were they supposed to give a tip?….to which I would say…you just saw the TD for the last time, you missed your chance.
People are asking all the time about tips here on the forum, so clearly they are not reading the recommendations and when people do, many way underestimate what is expected. On a recent tour, admittedly not with Tauck where tips were much more clearly documented, the conversations got round to tips and several people were surprised when I said how much we were giving, some people had no intentions of giving anywhere near as much as we were, in fact, the TD was so good, we even put more in the envelope at the end.
I maybe recall with Tauck, a TD has to work 32 weeks to get benefits.
In addition, while it seems that people here on the forum are happy to tip every Tom Dick and Harry, there are plenty of people who can only just afford to pay for a tour and tipping a couple of hundred dollars or so might be difficult.
Certainly off subject about modern tipping methods, but worth discussing.
…so when reading the final documents and it says “recommended” 15.00 dollars per day per person and 10.00 per person person for the bus driver, I also give extra but are you saying, that you tip much higher, British? We do as well, but there is a misconception that the suggested tips in the documents is suggested as a minimal amount? We are currently traveling now, and some guests didn’t even know about the final documents, which is really hard for me to understand.
No, I don’t often give more than the extra tip, but some TDs are extra extra fantastic.
Yes, many people don’t read the final docs. I assume some don’t even get them especially if they are not directly dealing with Tauck.
So many questions that are asked here could be answered if people would read. Yes, considering how much they pay for the tours, it’s crazy to me.
If a TD worked just 32 weeks, with only 24 guests on each tour, each giving an average tip of $12/person/day (not $15/person/day), that would equate to $64,500 in tips. I think that's the low end. I'm sure that most of the TD get some groups of more than 24 guests, and with the recommendation of $15/person/day, the average tip is probably more than $12/person/day. I recognize that some people may not tip, or under tip and that’s why I said “average”.
If they make $75,000 in salary, their total annual income under this low estimate is about $140,000.
I don't begrudge them their income. I consider the job to be difficult. They’re away from home more than half the year (if they do 32 weeks) which has to be a serious strain on their relationships and children. Or they don’t have a relationship and children.
[Put yourself in the place of a TD. There's not a whole lot you can do to get larger tips - Tauck makes the recommendation, and most people will follow that. You can work more weeks per year. Or, you can work the tours with the most guests. A rational TD will bid to work the largest tours. I suspect Tauck requires the TD to do a certain number (or percentage) of small group tours because of that.]
[Making these estimates is simple arithmetic. Make your own estimates and see what that results in for an annual tip amount.
For a high amount, consider a TD who was able to work 40 weeks with an average of 35 guests, and an average tip of $14/person/day. That’s $137,000 in tips. Add in $85,000 in salary and that’s $222,000 for the year.]
FYI - I use a travel agent. Final documents are made available on our Guest Connect account. In addition, we receive an email from Tauck when they are available.
As mentioned, I’m currently on a tour and our fantastic, eloquent, charming and articulate tour director made a simple point of emphasizing that a tour director’s job is not an easy job at all but we already all know that. There is so much of behind the scenes communicating with the Tauck main office that we, as Tauck guests, are unaware of. They are away from relationships from where they live, they don’t have their weekends with their family or friends because they are touring and orchestrating everything for us.
While that is all true, OurTRavels, that is the choice they made.
There are many people on this planet who chose a job over what they might earn for it. I’ve met many of those people and I admire them.
It was my understanding during our latest trip earlier this month that TD tips were now included in the price of the tour which was different from the way it was handled in the past.
That's one of the issues with the advice adults often give to young people - "Follow your passion". For many of those young people, following their passion is the path to poverty. Especially if they go into the entertainment industry
Better advice might be "Choose a profession that will allow you to live comfortably." As Mae West is reputed to have said,"I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better."
It appears that the Tauck TDs do okay financially.
IVO. If you were on a river cruise, small ship cruise or Bridges tour, tips are included. If land, they are not. Who told you about those?
Mike, good job some parents are more support too.