Guides > FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Please ready carefully the FAQs below and for more information, please do not hesitate to contact the Guides Team at guides@travelcurious.com

General Questions

  • We started in Rome in 2009 and we were formerly known as Turiocity. In 2018, we changed our name to Travel Curious and we evolved into a a vertically integrated tours and activities service provider, which provides high-end hotels and their customers in multiple destinations access to the best local experiences around the world. Read our whole story.

  • Travel Curious is a vertically integrated company, which means that we create and operate our own private tours that are fulfilled by a network of handpicked professional guides such as yourself.

    1. When you create your Travel Curious account, you will be able to select from a list of tours available in your city, the ones you are able to fulfil. We will use that list to match you with future booking opportunities.

    2. When we receive a new booking we will send a “Booking Opportunity Email” to all tour guides in the city who have added such tour to their tour offer.

    3. From the list of guides that have clicked YES indicating that they are available, our system will match the traveller with the best-suited guide according to their interests. At this point, if a guide has been assigned to the booking, you can no longer register your interest.

    4. If the booking opportunity is assigned to you, we will send you a “CONFIRMED Booking Email” , and if the tour was allocated to another guide, you will receive a “Booking Update Email”. (We will continue to send you booking opportunities)

    5. Closer to the tour date (between 72 hours to 48 hours before the tour start time) you will receive a “Final Guide Itinerary Email” for bookings that have been allocated to you, which will contain the traveller’s contact information so you can reach out prior to the tour date to introduce yourself and to reconfirm the meeting location and start time.

    6. After the tour is delivered, you will need to complete an expense form so we can schedule your tour payment. This expense form can be found on your “Final Guide Itinerary Email”.

  • Our tours attract customers who come from all over the world and from all walks of life, though generally, they are native English speakers. Our guides consistently say that our customers are always great guests, with interesting questions and upbeat curiosity. We know you will love them as much as we do.

  • Travel Curious will handle all communication with the travellers from the time of booking. Closer to the tour date (between 72 hours to 48 hours before the tour start time) you will receive a “Final Guide Itinerary Email” which will contain the traveller’s contact information.


    The traveller’s phone number is only provided so you can contact them prior to the tour date to introduce yourself and confirm the start time and meeting location.

    For any other purposes, you should always contact Travel Curious.

  • For bookings cancelled with up to 96 hrs notice, the traveller is entitled to a full refund and you will receive no payment. The timing is calculated in accordance with the time zone where the tour takes place. We cannot cover lost opportunities. For bookings cancelled with less than 96 hs notice, you are entitled to full payment, however if the traveller wishes to re-schedule their tour, we will confirm if you can accommodate another date as that is helpful for us to provide excellent customer service.


    In the cancellation notification email you will be notified if you are due payment

    • You should contact our Reservations Team in the following cases:

    • If you have questions or suggestions about an active booking,

    • If you are no longer available to fulfil a tour,

    • If you want to suggest changes to the meeting location, start time, itinerary or other elements of the tour,

    • If you can’t find the travellers at the meeting location and can’t reach them on the contact number provided,

    • If you need assistance with your expense form or have questions about your payment,

    • In case of an emergency situation,

    The traveller’s phone number is only available to contact them prior to the tour date to introduce yourself and confirm the start time and meeting location.

    For any other purposes, you should always contact Travel Curious through the following channels:

    • US +1 212 710 1322 (WhatsApp and SMS enabled),

    • UK +44 20 30092392 (WhatsApp and SMS enabled),

    • UK +447378178436 (WhatsApp and SMS enabled),

    • Chatbot on our website.

  • Please contact immediately Travel Curious by phone at:

    • US +1 212 710 1322 (Toll Free),

    • UK +44 20 30092392,

    • Mobile +447378178436,

  • In the event of an accident, please first ensure the customer’s safety. When it is no longer an emergency, please reach out to Travel Curious with a full incident report. Please note, we will also be contacting the customer directly once we have spoken to you.

Booking Process

  • When we receive a new booking we will send a “Booking Opportunity Email” to all tour guides in the city who have added such tour to their tour offer. From all the guides who have registered their interest, our match and dispatch technology will assign to the traveller the best-suited guide according to their interests.
    When the booking opportunity is assigned to you, you will receive a “CONFIRMED Booking Email” which will include additional information for the tour, and if the tour was allocated to another guide, you will receive a “Booking Opportunity Update Email”.


    Closer to the tour date (between 96 hours to 48 hours before the tour start time) you will receive a “Final Guide Confirmation Email” which will contain the traveller’s contact information and at this stage, the information will also become available in your Guide Dashboard account.

    Please contact the traveller the day before to re-confirm the meeting location, start time and more importantly, to introduce yourself via iMessage or WhatsApp to avoid international call charges.

  • In the Booking Opportunity Email you receive, you will see a RESPOND or VIEW BOOKING INFO button. It will redirect you to your Opportunities Page in your Guide Account and clicking on the eye icon will open up a pop up with the booking information.


    You will see all open opportunities you can indicate your interest, and you also have the ability to change your response from YES to NO and viceversa.


    IMPORTANT: If you are not available, please respond to the opportunity as we may continue to send the opportunity notification otherwise.

  • During the vetting and setup process, you will discuss with your guide community manager your interests and expertise for the cities in which you operate. The information is tagged in the system to match relevant tour guides and their specialities to our travellers.


    We invite multiple guides to register their availability for a tour, but it will be allocated and fulfilled by the best available guide suited for that specific tour.


    Because of this, we encourage you to complete your guide profile as thoroughly and accurately as possible.

  • We allow bookings up to 96 hours in advance, but as we are mainly a B2B platform, our clients typically book tours 1-2 months in advance. You will receive immediately a booking opportunity email once a tour, which you are tagged to, has been booked. From here, it is up to you to get back to us immediately registering your availability. Our system then matches the available guides to specific customers requirements, before allocating the best-suited guide to a tour.

  • No, you will register your availability every time you receive a Booking Opportunity simply selecting YES or NO.

  • We understand guides are not always available to do tours, so we will continue to send you future booking opportunities until you tell us otherwise.


    To keep you up to date, we will periodically inform you if new tours are created in your city.

  • You need to contact the Travel Curious Reservations team asap at our emergency numbers US +1 212 710 1322 – UK +44 20 30092392, on our mobile +447378178436 (Whatsapp, iMessage and Facetime are available free of charge) or through our chatbot on our website.

  • Of course you can recommend another guide to offer the tour. However, they will need to go through our vetting process to ensure that they meet the same quality standard as you have already met as an approved Travel Curious guide.

  • Please call the traveller immediately using the number provided in your “Final Guide Itinerary Email”.
    In the event that you can’t reach your traveller by phone, please get in touch with Travel Curious at our emergency numbers US +1 212 710 1322 – UK +44 20 30092392 or on our mobile +447378178436 (Whatsapp, and SMS are available free of charge)

  • If you can’t find the travellers at the meeting location at the agreed start time and they can’t be reached at the contact number provided, please contact immediately Travel Curious at:

    • US +1 212 710 1322 (Toll Free),

    • UK +44 20 30092392,

    • Mobile +447378178436,

Guide Community

  • Please visit admin.travelcurious.com or www.travelcurious.com and click on the “Log in” shortcut at the top right hand corner of your screen and select GUIDE DASHBOARD ACCOUNT. If you don’t remember your password or can’t log in, please click on FORGOT PASSWORD.

  • If you forgot your password, please click on “Forgot password?” and make sure you enter your email in small letters. If the problem persists, please contact the Guides Team at guides@travelcurious.com

  • If you wish to submit suggestions or feedback for an active booking, please contact the Reservations Team at reservations@travelcurious.com. If you wish to suggest new tour ideas or if you have general comments about the tour itineraries, please email them to guides@travelcurious.com.

  • Please email them to guides@travelcurious.com indicating which tours you would like to receive training on and we will happily organise it for you.

Our Tours

  • No, Travel Curious is a vertically-integrated company, which means that we create and operate our own private tours that are fulfilled by a network of professional guides such as yourself. You are welcome to submit your tour ideas and suggestions through our Guides Team guides@travelcurious.com.

  • The maximum number of people varies depending on the tour, as some attractions have restrictions on group size. Though we predominantly offer private tours (typically two to four people), we are including gradually group tours for our channel partners. It is unlikely for a group to exceed 15 people. Also, at the time we offer you the tour, we will inform you of the group size and implications if the group is larger.

  • We pay guides according to standard, predetermined rates based on the city. These rates are periodically reviewed and we are happy to discuss the local rates for your city with you. If our rates change in a city, we will inform all of the guides who work there.

  • We have a set fee for guides in each city for our standard tours, and these fees are monitored in order to ensure fair payment to the guides while optimizing costs for our customers and partners. For more specialised or customised tours, it is possible for a price to be negotiated as it may not adhere to the standards.

  • The booking confirmation email will contain this information in detail. In case you need to purchase the tickets yourself, you can claim this expense directly from your Guide Account Dashboard in the Delivered Bookings tab, and you will be reimbursed in full together with payment for conducting the tour.

  • Most of the attractions offer free passes for licensed guides, however if this is not the case, you must inform us during the vetting process so that this can be considered in the pricing of tours. In situations where the guide does not have free entrance into specific attractions, it will be treated as an expense and the company will reimburse the guide the full amount of the ticket as part of the reconciliation.

  • For tours that include transportation, there is an amount allocated for this purpose and the mode of transit will be communicated in your Final Guide Itinerary email. If the customer decides to use a mode of transit that is outside of what is included in the tour description and discussed in advance, then the customer will be responsible for paying for it on the day of the tour.


    For example, if the tour includes public transportation, and the customer opts for a different mode such as taxis, then the difference is to be paid by the customer during the tour.

    Note: if you are a driver guide, you must hold the necessary insurance to cover this service. This will be checked by our vetting team during your initial sign up, and you are responsible for communicating any changes in your licenses and insurance.

  • It is important that you hold the relevant insurance and licenses according to the laws of the country and cities in which you operate. We will discuss the current insurance you hold during your interview (therefore, please be ready to discuss this and show proof when your call is scheduled). You can still apply to be a Travel Curious guide without holding insurance; however, we will not be able to allocate you any tours until you are covered. We are happy to work with you to find a safe and thorough policy.

Payments

  • After the tour is delivered, you will need to login to your Guide Account Dashboard: admin.travelcurious.com and head to your delivered bookings section to request payment. In your “Final Guide Confirmation Email” you will also find a shortcut to your Guide Account Dashboard.

  • When your tour does not have any expenses:

    1. Please log in to your Guide Account: https://admin.travelcurious.com (You will see a checkbox at the end of the row of your tour.)

    2. Click on the checkbox and then on REQUEST PAYMENT (At the top to the right)

    3. Important: This will claim your guide fee, no need to include this as an expense.

    4. If REQUEST PAYMENT is not available, please make sure there’s a valid payment method added.

    When your tour has expenses (Included in the tour)

    1. Please log in to your Guide Account: https://admin.travelcurious.com.

    2. Click on the NOTEPAD icon.

    3. Upload your receipt by clicking on ADD ITEM

    4. Once all expenses have been claimed, do not leave the screen without clicking SUBMIT FOR REVIEW

    5. Once the expenses are reviewed, they will go straight to the payout run, including your guide fee.

  • Travel Curious doesn’t take any commission from the tour guide payment. For any guide fee amount mentioned to you will not need to account for any deductions.

  • Typically, we make payments by Stripe, bank transfer, or PayPal. We incur all the fees that we have control over, however, we will not cover any bank or Paypal charges incurred on your end for receiving such payment.

  • We reconcile with all guides globally monthly by the 9th working day, at which time you will be paid in full for any tours that you claimed for in the previous calendar month. Please be sure to load all of your invoices within a few days of a tour and fill in the Guide expense form to ensure you are paid in the same cycle.

  • Generally no. However, if there is a substantial outlay of expenses, we will work with you on an ad hoc basis to provide advanced payment.

  • The available currencies are US Dollars ($), Euros (€) or British Pounds (£). If you wish to be paid in a local currency, you need to communicate with us during your vetting process. As an additional note, it is on you, the guide, to keep your payment information up to date on your profile.

  • We connect guides to discerning customers operating as an agency service for tour guides. Travel Curious is registered in England and Wales. According to English law, where agency services are provided to a business, any VAT is payable where the business is located. As such, it is the responsibility of tour providers to make their own arrangements with local tax authorities regarding the payment of value-added taxes.VAT registered guides working within the EU will be required to let us know their VAT number in order that Travel Curious may comply with EU reporting requirements.

  • Because of the different VAT laws by country, you will discuss this in your vetting process, though generally, the onus will be on you to understand the VAT policies in the places you lead tours.

For more information, please do not hesitate to contact the Guides Team at guides@travelcurious.com and for inquiries regarding an active booking, please contact our Reservations Team at reservations@travelcurious.com