City Guide is a license needed to carry out a guide’s job in a Bas Persiaran. By law of Malaysia, a person without a license is barred from carrying out such job, and is considered illegal.
A city guide is usually engaged by a Travel Agent who receive groups of travelers, who wish to enjoy their trip by a Bas Persiaran, while enjoying the delivery and stories carried out by a City Guide.
The daily salary of a city guide ranges from RM150 to RM300 or even more, depending on the agreement made with a travel agent, or whoever appointed them. They may receive tips and other income along their duites.
A group of travelers usually stay 3 days 2 nights, and sometimes more. Imagine a city guide needs to stay with their group from arrival to departure. It means they have already engaged a 3 days work, with other benefits throughout their assignment.
A city guide is a professional job, in which they need to have SPM with 6 passes, and pass Bahasa Malaysia in order to take up the course. Their names and documents are handed over to the Ministry of Tourism and Culture (MOTAC) for approval before they could attend this course.
A training of 500 hours is required as stipulated by Jabatan Pembangunan Kemahiran Malaysia (JPK). Upon completion of 500 hours of training, JPK will assign an external assessor to determine and evaluate their studies, based on their achievement, recorded in a portfolio.
Successful candidates are eligible to sit for a final examination, carried out by MOTAC. Should they pass their exam, they are eligible for a Badge or Licence. On the badge, the language which they are allowed to conduct is written as B for Bahasa, E for English, M for Mandarin and so forth.
The city guide course is carefully designed by Motac and JPK, in order to produce the best guides, who represent Malaysia as a mini Embassador of the country. They need to attend, guide, explain, deliver stories etc, using standard code of ethics.
