Sandeman´s Free Tours on German TV

Well - obviously the whole "free tour" thing only works in that way. You can´t do "free" tours with regularly paid guides. There are overhead costs, like maintaining an office, a website and printing flyers and that can only be paid with the "tips" because it´s the only revenue.

The problem is that there are simply too many tour operators in Berlin. If there aren´t enough people giving enough tips, the guides end up with nothing - or even less than nothing.

I wonder if new guides are aware of that when they start with this job. You know - tour operators could either reduce the number of tours to make sure their guides get a fair share or they could hire even more guides without any risk (the guides bear the risk!) in order to increase market share and ruin the competitors. I don´t know if that´s the case, but if it is, they clearly exploit the guides.

The other problem is the law. If what they do is really illegal, then what?

I guess the only fair (and legal) solution would be tu turn the tour operators into co-operatives. The guides would own them. What we have right now is a business which makes profit without taking any risk. Profits are the reward of taking a risk. Salaries are the reward for labor. Those guides are no entrepreneurs, but hired staff, so they should have a reliable income - and not bear the risk of business decisions of somebody else.

Hey Chris,

Thanks for responding to this thread. I guess the Frontal21 report would have come out in a better way for you if you would have told exactly that to the journalists who were stalking you.

First of all, I want to answer to the little side blow against Germany. We Germans have a strong sense as to what we regard as "fair pay". I´m pretty proud of my country there. We have seen a lot of "change" there during the last 20 years and much of it has been change to the worse. People now (have to) work for salaries which would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. Worker´s rights have eroded. A new term has been coined for those people: the "Prekariat". If you´re in the "Proletariat", you´re already in a privileged caste. Something very wrong is going on here. So - it´s no surprise we became a little "resistant" to change of that sort.

That said, I have always liked what you do, I still strongly support it and we have worked with New Europe in Munich (until our own staff decided to offer free tours on their own) and we still work with you in Berlin. The feedback we get from our guests (i.e. your customers) is positive.

I witnessed the Munich "tour wars" for longer than it was actually fun to watch - you remember all the fuss there. Hence, I can imagine much of the allegations against you of your ex-guide are biased and in fact intended to help his new employer - at your cost. I might add that Aaron, the guy who was working for you in Munich, appeared to be the only decent character in the whole bunch of the Munich maniac tourguide scene and that´s why we decided to work with him.

Still - this report is a formidable PR disaster for you. I brought this topic up here not to take sides (I hope you noticed that I didn´t take sides), but to acknowledge that the way your guides are paid can well be considered "debatable" in Germany - and will be debated. I´m aware the Frontal21 report is biased and full of half-truths and might be motivated by a self-appointed whistleblower who only wants to promote the business of his new employer.

Anyway - where do we go from here? I think free tours are a good invention and they´re here to stay. As long as there are enough customers for every guide, everybody is happy. The guides make enough money to compensate for the fact they bear a good deal of the risk and also for the fact they´re not "regular" hired staff who is entitled to some benefits - like unemployment insurance, a pension fund, paid holidays and paid sick leave. If, on the other hand, there are too many guides for the few tourists (especially during off-season), the guides end up with too little in their pockets. They´re exploited. The fact that they really exploit themselves because they´re freelancers doesn´t make a difference - not for themselves and not for the German media. Both only notice that you always win, and will denounce that as "unfair". You´ll have to deal with that - this debate won´t go away.

Hey Chris,

You don´t have to tell me anything about an uphill battle for a company (that doesn't make tons of money) which isn't just new, but is trying to find a niche in the Flashpacker industry with a (sort of) new model in hostelling. :)

I know exactly what you are talking about.

I didn´t take offense about your remarks on Germans. They are true. You know, we took huge risks 96 years ago and then again 71 years ago, it didn´t turn out too well both times, then we lived on both sides of an iron curtain with millions of troops and thousands of nukes around, knowing full well we would be the first ones to be incinerated in the first minutes of World War III, maybe that´s why we became a bit more cautious than others.

xtra´s post has been pulled, it was indeed a bit too personal - but it proves my point that the debate won´t go away. You don´t have to call me, there´s nothing between us and sooner or later we are going to bump into each other again at some airport and we´ll have an hour or two to have a chat. Right?

In this forum, we only have FAIR debates, so all I´m asking you is NOT to be off this thread.

Hi Xtra,

Glad to see you're using a more professional tone, and now of course I'm happy to discuss this with you (and anyone else) openly. Sorry for the delay in getting back to this post, I wasn't ignoring it. I just don't visit here that often. So, below I go through your last post:

''Ok I'm sorry if it was deemed too personal, lets have a FREE and fair debate without using the word, 'Buddy'.''

Sorry extra, I didn't mean to call you 'buddy' in a bad way. After your last post (which was deleted by this web site for being a personal attack), it's strange you'd take umbrage at something like this. If you really want to have a rational discussion, I'm happy to do so, as long as the volatile and offensive nature of your first (deleted) post remains a thing of the past. I assure you, I won't call you anything but Xtra.

''A business model that requires young newcomers to a city to learn a script and then become tour guides in a couple of weeks is interesting. These people are by no means experts on the city but they can give you a superficial insight. They were supposed to be there to sell, 'professional', tours. This didn't happen and these young guides must pay 3€ per tourist that starts the tour (let's be clear here it's not about who ends the tour and tips.)''

You're wrong, and what you say here is just not true.

1) The business model does not require anything of the such that you're suggesting. Many of the guides who chose to work with us have years and years of experience, and whilst expert is a relative term, the guides working with us are amongst the most popular and well informed in the cities where they operate. The free tour is by its nature an overview of the city, and not meant to be an in-depth review of the entire city...to do this would take weeks, not a couple of hours. Anyone who suggests that a fully comprehensive overview of a city's history, culture, people, famous sites, etc can be provided in a 3 hour tour is silly.

The guides cooperating with us have good general knowledge of the main sites advertised as being part of the tour, and all have specific knowledge in their own areas of specific knowledge. We're proud to be able to promote this sort of diversity amongst guides.

2) Your claim that 'young guides must pay €3 per tourist' is not true. Please feel free to refer to our press release at www.sandemans-new.com. Freelance guides do indeed pay for the promotional services we provide them, and we are proud to be able to help so many freelance guides come together with so many travelers, especially as the individual guides could never have reached so many people on their own.

''Many guides come out minus or with less than one could expect from selling a homeless persons street magazine for five hours.''

This is not true. The truth is that guides earn a good living out of their relationship with us...if not, they'd do something else (they could always work at a hostel, right?) Every guide keeps all the earnings from their first three free tours. If at the end of that, they feel that their earnings would not justify the investment of time and their contribution to the marketing costs associated with promoting the free tours to travelers, they might decide to walk away and no longer do the free tours. They are completely empowered to do as they wish, and the vast majority decide to continue the relationship, as they enjoy giving the tours and find it financially compelling. Some decide not to, but they do so before they take any risk upon themselves.

''Mr Sandeman it is quite clear that things have gone too far and when it comes to resistance to change I believe Sandemann's New Europe should set an example and not be the very resistance to change you mention.''

1) I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. We don't like change? If that's what you mean, I find that silly. We created our free tour model six years ago, and now there are more than 100 companies promoting free city walking world-wide to millions of travelers every year. I can't speak for all of the other companies promoting a free tour, but I can say that 85% of the travelers who walk on a free tour promoted by our company, have never done any sort of tour in ther lives before. At the end of the free tour, the travelers are so satisfied that more than 46% purchase a second tour. When we surveyed travelers, the number one reason given for not having previously done a tour was, was that they were afraid of paying for service and not getting their monies' worth. The free tour model was the first to successfully address this fear, and now the model is making a major impact to expose travelers to tour taking, and is growing the industry by empowering those travelers. I'd say that is some significant change. My apologies if I misunderstood you above.

''Running from the cameras is very bad PR and I would encourage you to explain yourself in future. Your apparent sudden inability to speak German was also odd considering the claims made in your earlier post.''

1) I didn't run from the cameras, I walked away from an ambush. I had scheduled a day to interview with this camera crew, but despite that they camped outside our office for 7 hours waiting to spring out of a van screaming in German, looking to instigate an unprofessional and emotional reaction. There's a term for it in the paparazzi, but I can't remember it now. It's a common tactic though, and used to try and get 'bad images' of people, with their commentary being cut to paint a negative portrayal. It's sadly what some freelance journalists do to sell a story.

I politely said that I didn't speak German that well, as whilst I can have a general conversation in basic German, I'm not fluent in the language and would have a tough time expressing more complicated concepts, especially to a hostile interviewer. Then they yelled 'why don't you pay your employees!' in English. It seemed clear to me that this crew was not looking to have a discussion, a perspective which is supported by their tv show.

Our PR contacts agreed that when a freelance journalist is looking to sell a 'story', the last thing they want is a debate. ‘They want a crucifixion.’

Besides that, the fact is that we have over 50 employees working with us and they all get paid each month.

''I'm very interested in a clause you apparently had in contracts which stated that guides would not work for another tour company for at least two years. Is this true? It would mean I could not have any of your ex guides working in my hostel which would be a shame. Could you post the contract or a link to it so we all know the situation and this doesn't spin out of control?''

1) Clearly, we're not posting links to any documents which would provide potential competitors with the frame work to copy our model, no more than a hostel is about to share their rental contracts and P&L on this site. What I can say is that is would be impossible to stop a freelance tour guide cooperating with our company from working at your hostel, and we'd have no interest in doing so.

Many guides work with multiple tour promoters, and they themselves offer tours directly to the (internet) public on a private booking basis

''I see from the Spanish TV reports that the Madrid operation was apparently shut down by upset official guides and ex guides from Sandeman's New Europe. Is this true and how would you respond when this perhaps spreads to the other tours?''

1) You are correct that there were issues in Madrid last year. Local guides at first peacefully protested the introduction of free tours to Madrid. When this was ineffective, they began distributing slanderous lies in the form of leaflets to travelers looking for the free tour.

When this failed, they tried threatening the guides, using racial slurs, following their tours to disrupt them, etc. Still, the tours continued.

Eventually, it turned violent. Two young American girls, who had done a free tour in Amsterdam and then in Paris, told several Madrid local guides to stop disturbing their tour (they used more colorful language), and they were attacked by several much larger, older, and stronger men. One of the girls was hospitalized.

At this point, we discontinued tours until the safety of the tourists could be ensured. Do in part to our struggle, and the work of the European Union, Madrid has changed its laws, leaving no doubt as to the full legality of the free walking tours as we promote them. We plan to resume tours this season, and have been encouraged to do so by Anton Nieto, Director of Tourism for the Communidad Madrid.

2) Freelance guides who had offered free tours were not involved in us temporarily stopping tours in Madrid, and there is no mention of this in any Spanish news article of which I am aware. Where did you see this? I’d like to know, as it would be grounds for us to ask for a retraction. Or did you 'mishear' that part? Well, either way it's not true. In fact the guides who offered the free tours of Madrid are heroes. They suffered a great deal at the hands of the guide association of Madrid, and I'm grateful for the sacrifices they made.

3) What happened in Madrid was illegal, and I would be surprised if the same sort of thing would be allowed by the local authorities anywhere else we work. In fact, some freelance guides in Jerusalem tried to do the same thing, and were warned by the Ministry of Tourism if they did they would be stripped of their guiding licenses and potentially arrested.

cont. in next post...