Tips for Tour Guides

Quoted below is from the FAQ page on this web site. One of the selling points of RS tours is no tipping!

Reportedly Rick pays local guides very well so no tipping is expected. I have been told that he pays so well that he gets priority for their services. Also, quite a number of his regular tour guides started with him as local guides and, after multiple good reviews, got on as full tour guides.

Are tips covered in my tour cost? Your tour includes tips for the guide, driver, and group meals. Please do not tip beyond this. When
you're out on your own it's customary to round up, or add a euro or
two, rather than tip a certain percentage.

But I'm not on a RS tour. I have planned our trip itinerary myself and booked the Versaille tour through their ticket office (in order to avoid the long lines) and a full day tour in Normandy with Overlord Tours.

If I see correctly, you are asking about tour guides who are NOT RS guides. I have limited experience with this but would tip no more than 10%, as tips are not customary in most of Europe.

Sorry I misread your question. Yes, 10% is a very acceptable tip in Europe. If there are problems or disappointments less (or none) are appropriate.

In a situation like yours, I would give the tour guide at the end one Euro. You'll see those who will do likewise and those giving no tip at all.

If your King's Apartments guide is an art historian, a professional, you wouldn't offer a tip and it wouldn't be expected. If it's led by an employee, you could slip him/her a euro per person. If the guide goes to shake hands at the end, that's the signal to slip the euro into the hand.

At a private chateau a local employee is showing you around, most likely. At the end of the tour, you shake the guide's hand and slip him or her a euro or two. Watch the French, you'll see how it's done.

Private tours--I give the Paris Walks guides one or two euros. For the Overlord all-day Normandy DDay tour, we gave 10 Euro each.

Sometimes people generalize incorrectly and say it's not a tipping culture based on the way waiters are renumerated. There is tipping and a lot of nuance to the practice. We used to give usherettes in a movie theater 50 centimes to show us to a seat in an empty theater. It was expected and done gladly knowing how much these women needed the half-franc. So France is a tipping culture, and I'm glad you asked.

But note that it is a Euro or two not the 10 or 15% Americans are used to or the amounts suggested for cruises where employees are grossly underpaid and need to make their living on tips.

Before our trip to Europe I looked over the “who to tip”.net website. You can search by country.

Whototip.net isn’t about tipping.

That’s odd that when you google who to tip.net it doesn’t come up for you. Works fine for me. It says world wide tipping etiquette in big letters at the top and then you search by country. One of the subjects it addresses are tour guides. This website was recommended to me by people on cruise critic.

Interesting thread - Bets gives some interesting and useful information particularly with respect to guides who happen to be government employees. I agree completely but I don't know if the OP's guide in Versailles is private or on staff there. Find out and govern yourself accordingly. Do note that this guidance applies to France. In some countries museum guides are very underpaid and rely on tips for income. The whototip website seems useful. Thanks for posting that.

When I suggested 10% I was specifically thinking of the OP's Normandy Beach tour. It has been my experience that guides who work regularly with Americans have come to expect tips from them. As Bets and others suggest, when the guide is standing at the bus exit at the end of the tour shaking hands with everyone it is a pretty good sign that a tip is expected. The suggestion of 10 Euros is likely to be on the order of 10% for a shared tour so its kind of immaterial which you choose.

I was unclear and trying too hard not to sound "elitist" so I'll explain my misuse if the words employee and professional. Leading public tours, they are all government employees at sites such as Versaille, Louvre, etc. Some are art history PhDs who get the coveted job via a competitive exam and come out of their research offices to lead a tour. Others are lower-level employees who might be leading a tour. Sorry. One you'd offer a tip, the other you wouldn't.

You have all been very helpful as well as the website suggested which gave good advice for the rest of our trip.
Thanks to all for your advice and help. Now I just gotta reduce my packing by half and get on that plane on Saturday :)

I remember the first time I took part in a guided tour in France. It was at Malmaison in August 1984, the tour guide spoke all in French, which I didn't understand then at all, no other language was offered, didn't matter.

At the end of the tour, my French friend told me to get a franc coin out so as to give this young guy, the tour guide, a tip. Luckily, she told me that since it didn't even occur to me to leave him a tip and luckily too that I had a Franc coin to give him.

Now with the Euro were I in the same situation, I would give one Euro...another reason to have one Euro coins handy.