Your Tour Guide in Cuba

From our recruitment efforts, we have managed to assemble an outstanding team of tour guides in Cuba. They are definitely the pride and soul of our organisation. All are university graduated native Cubans with diverse backgrounds and interests. They all speak excellent English and most also speak a thrid language as well such as French, German, or Italian. Only a few of the team originally studied at university to work specifically as tour guides, while others come from different walks of life including teaching and academia, pharmacology, and film production.

CLICK HERE to see personal profiles of our tour guides.

Because the tour guide is the single most important element in determining the sucess of one or our tours in Cuba, our tour guides are chosen very carefully. We consider not only the extent of their local knowledge, but more importantly their communication skills, organisational abilities, affability, conscientiousness, enthusiasm, and their ability to entertain a group.

Training and Qualification

All our tour guides are fully qualified and licenced with the local authorities in Cuba, and before they are able to work with Cuban Adventures, the guides are given training by Cuban Adventures about our grass-roots, interactive style of travel, as well as specific training in Responsible Tourism - both in ideology and how to put it into practice in Cuba.

The role of the guide on your tour

The guide accompanies the group throughout the whole tour in Cuba. Apart from acting as a guide in imparting local knowledge, historical, cultural, geopgraphical, and political information, the guide also acts as a tour leader, tour conductor, or TC on your tour in Cuba. The guide will be your translator, interpreter, tour coordinator, and group leader.

The tour guide will suggest and organise group activities such as a bbq's at the beach or by the river, group nights-out, house parties, and excursions to neighbourhoods. The guide organises optional activities for individuals, will introduce you to the local people, will give you an insight into the Cuban culture, its history, its unique way of life, and explain to you this complex and hard to understand society.

The guide is there to help you follow your particular interests, introduce you to his local friends, and take you to out of the way places that you won't find in any guidebook about Cuba. Because we limit the size of most of our groups to a maximum of 12 travellers, the guide is able to take you to areas that a larger group would not be able to visit. Many of the guides take you to show you their own house or neighbourhood and to meet their family.

Freedom and flexibility are fundamental components of our tours, so if you would rather explore on your own, you can use the guide for suggestions and the guide can point you in the right direction. On most of our tours there is plenty of free time, so you can use this to stick closely to your tour guide and hang out with the group, or go your own way and make your own discoveries. The choice is yours!

You will more likely end up seeing your tour guide as your friend who knows all the locals, organises all the logistics for you, and makes your experience hassle free.

Why we use only local tour guides in Cuba

We use only native Cuban guides because, apart from having a deep knowledge about Cuba - its society, culture, and history, they help make the tours a rich cultural experience. It also means that Cubans are benefitting from employment opportunities and valuable income rather than foreigners.

No commissions

Our tour guides don't take commissions - tipping the guide is suggested.

Our tour guides in Cuba are closely monitored and also paid a daily wage for their valuable services. The guides therefore have no need (and are not permitted) to take commissions from shops, restaurants, or anyone offering local excursions or services to our travellers.

Taking commissions of this kind is a regular practice in group tours all over the world and especially common in Cuba. We believe that this practice seriously compromises the guide's professional integrity and adversely affects the delivery of an honest and transparent, value for money service to the traveller. We take all measures possible, to stop this happening.

Tipping Your Tour Leader

One of the measures we use to ensure an optimised service from the tour guide is to encourage you to tip your guide appropriately at the end of the tour of Cuba. We suggest you do this commensurate with your your level of satisfaction of the guide's services (of course there is no obligation for you to tip at all!). If the guide is motivated by making money and is aware that she/he will be tipped according to her/his performance, instead of looking for commissions, kick-backs or money on the side, the guide will make all efforts to maximise your enjoyment of the trip at the best possible value for money for you. So she/he won't be taking you to a tourist shop with elevated prices, to take a cut from the sales, or to a restaurant that will overcharge you so that he can fill his pockets.

It is completely up to you how much you tip the guide, and remember there is no obligation to tip at all. However, if you want a guideline as to how much would be a suitable reward, we suggest from 10CUC to 50CUC per person, depending on your level of satisfaction and financial situation (50CUC for outstanding service). You can do this in a personal way with an envelope and a thank you note, or you can contribute to a group tip, as many groups have done, or any way in which you feel comfortable.

Tour Guide Bonuses for Excellent Performance

Additional to this, at the end of youe tour in Cuba we request feedback from you about the services of your tour guide (and all other aspects of your tour), through an on-line evaluation form. We send this to you via email at the end of your tour of Cuba. We take this very seriously so we can maintain and improve the quality of our tours and our tour guides. We have a system of awarding bonuses to our tour guides every month if they reach certain targets based on these on-line evaluations. This system further ensures that the guides will strive to provide the best service possible during your tour of Cuba.