Austin Popper
Emperor of Antarctica
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2017
- Messages
- 1,504
- Location
- Colorado, where the gold is still elusive
Having been a tour bus driver in a previous life, I found the OP amusing. The tour business is a funny one. I worked with some very talented tour guides, met a lot of pleasant and interesting tourists. There are some tour guides who are, to be polite, ethically challenged and will do or say whatever they think will get them the biggest pile of tip cash at the end of the trip. Original research into the places toured is about as common as original research in the online UFO field. So the guides tend to do what has worked in the past, either for themselves or other guides. I've heard some of the damndest nonsense from tour guides, usually in response to a question from one of their charges. "I don't know, I'll have to see if I can find out," is almost never heard coming out of the mouth of a tour guide. Much easier to just make something up.
So one guide may have stumbled onto Kidlington, found it easy to get to and looking the way tourists would expect an English village to look, and multitudes of colleagues followed. Just a guess, really, but the script may have been passed around the tour company and found to be useful.
My tour experience was all pre-internet. I'm sure smart phones and things like Wikipedia have changed things an awful lot. Cell phones were rare when I was driving. Now six year olds have them. I have two smartphones, and I was a hold-out, insisting I didn't need such a thing.
My favorite tours were with British and Australian groups. Those folks were here to relax, have a good time, and look around. One busload of Aussies was just a rolling party. The tour guide was barely competent but they weren't about to let that ruin their fun. I miss that part of the job.
So one guide may have stumbled onto Kidlington, found it easy to get to and looking the way tourists would expect an English village to look, and multitudes of colleagues followed. Just a guess, really, but the script may have been passed around the tour company and found to be useful.
My tour experience was all pre-internet. I'm sure smart phones and things like Wikipedia have changed things an awful lot. Cell phones were rare when I was driving. Now six year olds have them. I have two smartphones, and I was a hold-out, insisting I didn't need such a thing.
My favorite tours were with British and Australian groups. Those folks were here to relax, have a good time, and look around. One busload of Aussies was just a rolling party. The tour guide was barely competent but they weren't about to let that ruin their fun. I miss that part of the job.