Interview with the Kurashiki District Welcome Tourist Guide Association
We interviewed Takahashi Yasuo of the Kurashiki District Welcome Tourist Guide Association (KWG), who guides visitors to the Bikan Historical Area, a popular tourist destination.
This article features an interview conducted during our initial visit in April 2023.
We want to accommodate every kind of visitor
Do you get visitors of a wide range of ages?
Takahashi (honorific omitted)
We get everyone from elderly people to elementary school students.
People see the town differently and have different expectations, so we tailor our tours to each person.
When we give tours by reservation, we need to be flexible. For example, when guiding elementary school students, we have to think carefully about how to engage them. We weave in history about people such as Ohara Magosaburo and Kojima Torajiro, along with stories we think they’ll find interesting.
We also prepare quizzes and find ways to make sure they enjoy themselves. It’s important not to overdo the guiding, too. We enjoy talking with our visitors as we guide them.
The tour that stands out most in my memory was when a travel agency asked us to guide a group in just 20 minutes. We had to figure out how to shorten a route that normally takes an hour. I gave the agency representative a preview tour before the actual one, and got their approval on the third try.
But we felt we could still do a better job of guiding. We practiced repeatedly until we were satisfied and polished the tour.
We want to be able to accommodate all kinds of people and situations, and if there’s something we don’t know, we study it right away.
We never stop learning to provide better tours
Is it essential to keep studying?
Takahashi
You have to keep studying all the time.
When I come across something I don’t know while guiding, I go straight to the library to look for materials.
For English-language tours, someone from Canada teaches us English twice a month. In 2019, we guided around 1,200 international visitors over the course of the year.
Our goal is to exceed 2,000, so we’re working hard on our English studies, too.
The importance of having a professional mindset, even as volunteers
What motivates you in your activities?
Takahashi
Our activities are volunteer-based, but I believe we must have a professional mindset. We need to make sure our visitors enjoy themselves and give them a warm welcome.
To make others happy, it’s important to enjoy ourselves first. The driving forces behind our activities are “the desire to make everyone happy” and “our own interest in the Bikan Historical Area.”
When you love something, studying it is fun, too.
It makes me very happy when people applaud at the end of a tour or say, “I’ll come to Kurashiki again!” That’s what keeps us going.
It’s also good for the guides’ health. Our average age is 70, so meeting and talking with people and studying helps keep us from getting old.
Future goals
Do you have any goals for the future?
Takahashi
We’d like to put more effort into promotion so more people learn about us.
We used to promote ourselves on our website, but we started using Instagram in 2022.
We set up an Instagram page and take and post photos ourselves. We’re still not very good at using it, though. We’re doing our best.
We want to guide more people and make sure all our guides can stay active.
From the Writer
Through the interview, I was amazed by how comprehensive the tours were—I wondered how they could possibly be free—and by the guides’ dedication to their work.
The KWG members give tours using their own time and effort because they want to see others happy. With strong commitment and passion, they put their guiding principle, “Give without seeking anything in return,” into practice.
After taking the tour, I realized this is not something everyone can easily imitate. There are no quotas, but the guides never stop studying so they can provide better tours to visitors they’ll meet in the future.
In fact, taking one of the regularly scheduled tours made the Bikan Historical Area feel even more appealing, and made me want to visit the places they introduced.
You can also discover that even seemingly ordinary scenery and buildings all have meaning and history.
The amount of information you can gain from just one tour is hard to match through internet searches alone—and some of it may not be findable online at all.
If you want to learn more about Kurashiki and grow to love it, be sure to join a tour.
Kurashiki District Welcome Tourist Guide Association details
| Name | Kurashiki District Welcome Tourist Guide Association |
|---|---|
| Address | 2-6-1 Chuo, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture (inside the Kurashiki Tourist Rest Area) |
| Contact | 086-436-7734 |
| Website | Kurashiki District Welcome Tourist Guide Association |
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