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The word on the
internet is the world’s first ghost walk
or haunted tour was first established in the city
of York, England in 1973. Since then, many have
sprung up throughout Great Britain, the United
States and for the most part the entire world.
In each case, one or two people lead a group of
other people through the streets to haunted houses,
haunted buildings, crime scenes and local cemeteries,
pointing out local ghost stories and urban legends
along the way. It’s as simple as that. Or
is it?
If you're interested in starting
your very own ghost or haunted history, cemetery,
ghost or paranormal tour then please read further…
Beginning a haunted walking tour is easy, all
you need is ghosts! Ghost stories and local urban
legends of your city can easily be gathered from
books and word of mouth stories. If you live in
an historic town or city with a rich history of
stories and events, you’re in a far better
position than someone who doesn't!
Research your baby ghost steps
before you begin to walk with the spirits. Every
ghost tour certainly does. Many ghost tours have
humble roots as plain historic city tours. Others
started just as a one time thing have turned into
full blown million dollar business.
To begin your research ask questions,
visit your city’s historic areas, go to
museums, hotels and places of interest and begin
your own haunted paranormal fact gathering. The
mistake a lot of first time tour guides face is
setting themselves apart from other tours. Often
ghost tours are started by ex- ghost tour walk
guides that have worked for other haunted or non-haunted
tour companies. Always it seems all they do is
take a story or what they learned while working
for an established tour company and don't change
the information, following the same route and
haunts of their former employers. Competition
is fun, but set up a tour that is distinct and
different. Look for new haunted locations, find
new stories and set your company apart from the
rest.
A great Haunted Ghost Tour should last around
1 -2 hours, and visit at least 8- 10 different
haunted places, all with different ghost types
and paranormal phenomena associated with each
location. The better tours always mix real spooky
stories with colorful tales of local history,
famous people or strange haunted real life characters
and folklore. And often guides tell what unexplained
paranormal things have happened when others have
taken your particular tour in the recent past,
including stories of ghost sightings or encounters
and ghost photos taken on the tour.
Many ghost tour operators visit the local history
section of libraries and start building up a casebook
of alleged hauntings, supernatural occurrences,
strange customs and beliefs; focus your searches
on unusual historical characters, locations of
public murders, and mysteries, etc. Locals often
tell great tales of demons, ghouls, witches…
these are the best haunted stories to find and
learn; few do the research to make them better,
though. You don't have to stick to the book! Story
telling is a personal thing!
I find that the better tour
companies will suggest other tours you should
take and where would-be ghost hunters might go
to further investigate facts about hauntings described
on the tour. In fact, at the end of the best haunted
tour I ever went on, the guide suggested other
historic tours and other ghost tours from other
companies. Because of this I recommend them highly
and frequently refer others their way. Professionalism
is always a great selling point!
Don't be a cut-throat ghost
tour guide: this should be everyone's motto. Too
often the many over- crowded haunted tours in
some cities will go out of their way to discredit
other tours, using all kinds of misinformation
in an attempt to discredit them. Often new haunted
tour companies pop up because over-worked and
under-paid tour guides decide that rather than
work for someone else they can give their own
private tours and earn more money. Personally
I know of a few tour groups in large cities that
make the guides sign a contract stating they will
not start up a tour company or take the information
they know to another tour company and or sell
it or write it into a book.
Finding your
own haunted market
Realistically, you’ll need to situate your
walk in a place that attracts tourists, historic
areas, cemeteries, battlefields or even near a
local haunted building or hotel tour. One small
company in Middle America offers a tour that brings
the tourist to six of the oldest hotels in their
town. This will give you a constant source of
potential clients looking for a cheap, informative,
and fun evening of entertainment. Halloween is
also a great, seasonal time to start up a haunted
tour. Some tours experience challenges with the
weather in certain climates and only operate for
a few months during the year. Many of the most
successful tours say they began as an outgrowth
of a local author’s haunted books or as
a Halloween school or group fundraiser then became
a solid fixture in their city in less then a year.
Also try to make yourhaunted
ghost tour or walk unique. some tours actually
bring ghost hunting equipment along and let those
on the tour use it to see what they may find.
Another great tour offers a real Seance along
the way at a local restuarant. Another haunted
tour takes you along on their private investigations.
Advertising
your ghost tour
Radio stations in any given
city love to give away free things to their listeners
-- offer your tour as a port of their Halloween
promotions, let the station give away two tickets
to your haunted tour every hour during morning
and afternoon drive time and all day on weekends.
Sure, you’re giving away a free spot on
your tours but word of mouth is the best way to
get started and to get people talking or thinking
about you, developing more interest in your tours.
Offer to come in and appear on the radio station’s
morning show program to tell a ghost story or
two; or offer to bring in a psychic friend who
can do phone readings to help expose your tours.
Free publicity helps everyone.
Television Stations love filler
stories about ghost tours too!
Also you should consider getting
in touch with local ghost hunter groups, school
teachers or the history or anthropology departments
of local universities and other places such as
hotels; tell them what you are doing and offer
ways they might be able to participate in your
tours. Hotel concierges are the best way to spread
the word about your tours because they often refer
tourists to the sights and great things to do
in any city, and your tour should be part of it.
Local restaurants and bars often are great places
to start or end a tour; they are also usually
open to providing a refreshment stop along the
way, so negotiate, negotiate, negotiate!
A ghost walk is really cheap to set up, however,
you’ll need to advertise the fact that it
exists if you’re going to attract paying
customers! Ideally, approach the owners of local
haunted restaurants, bars, hotels, houses or businesses.
Ask them if you can put up a chalkboard outside
the place, and use it as the starting point of
your walk. Also leave some leaflets, flyers and
business cards. You can finish your walk with
a visit back to the tavern, restaurant or hotel
bar where you can round up with their ghost story
and chat with your tour clients afterward as you
prepare for your next tour group. Rule of thumb:
always save the best for last. Allude to the fact
that your starting point is haunted but tell what
should be the best story of sightings, encounters
and/or ghost photos being taken at your wrap-up
location.
Your local tourist board will be happy to display
leaflets advertising the walk and if they have
a web site you can ask them if you might have
a line or two on it. You could also stick up a
leaflet for a small weekly fee in local newspapers.
Things you need
to do
You might also need a license
from your local city or town authority in order
to run your ghost walk or you may have to become
an accredited tour guide in your area first. Check
with your local authority in advance, or ask for
some friendly advice from your local tourist board.
Always get permission to include
a location on your tour. If you’re going
to lead a dozen people or more around your town,
make sure you’ve got advance permission
if you’re intending to take them to the
local churches, cemeteries, hotels restaurants
and most important private homes; also remember,
some city authorities will place limits on group
size.
How much do
I charge?
Typically, $10-15 per person, and a special group
rate for parties over 6 persons. If you try charging
more, you’ll find yourself competing unfavorably
with other local attractions and events. Some
tours give senior citizen discounts, and children
free, though in most cases many tours ask that
children always be accompanied by a parent or
guardian.
Your tour by all means should
not be a cheap “baby-sitter” or be
responsible for someone's children whom you do
not know. Many tours state that children under
thirteen years of age must be accompanied by a
parent or guardian. Most tours discourage parents
from dropping off their kids to take the tour
alone and others offer a toned-down “kid’s
only” tour available for birthdays or during
the Halloween season. Remember, some children
are easily scared and if you are going to offer
something catering to children, it should be more
fun than ghoulish.
Ghost tour start-up
musts
Always have a good pair of walking
shoes, remember a one to two-hour ghost walk involves
a lot of walking, and if you plan to do more then
one tour a day you will need them. Most great
tours are usually no longer then 1 mile in actual
traveling distance.
A very good memory and the ability
to tell a good story are important.
It’s highly unlikely that a real ghost is
going to pop up every time to keep your customers
happy; therefore you’re always going to
be the main source of entertainment. And remember
to encourage photos as ghosts will often show
up in photographs when your guests go home and
have the film developed. One ghost tour I know
of offers disposable cameras for sale to their
guests telling them quite frankly that many people
capture ghosts on film on their tours, and if
they don't have a camera here's a chance to buy
one.
The more entertaining you are,
the more likely that your customers will recommend
the walk to others: many tour companies have their
guides dress in appropriately frightful or “gothic”
clothing to maintain the dark and mysterious atmosphere
essential to good ghost storytelling. Some dress
in all black or adopt the characterization of
certain personages discussed on the tour; others
have gone so far as to dress in mortuary assistant’s
aprons and gloves and show up driving a hearse.
IN New Orleans many guides adopt the vampire persona
associated with Anne Rice and her vampire novels;
in Salem witches’ garb is popular for tour
guides. All these “gags” go a long
way in creating a memory for your customers. PLAY
WITH THE PATRONS! You only have one chance to
make it unforgettable!
Remember a great haunted tour
guide who can pluck tales, facts and figures out
of thin air is far more impressive than someone
who only knows the things they’ve read out
of a tour or city guide. It is OK to stray from
the “script” as customers can usually
tell a “canned” speech from good improvisation.
A keen and solid knowledge of
local history is great; some cities and local
colleges offer tour guide classes while others
make it mandatory that you pass a written or verbal
test. In many small American towns, however, nothing
so formal is required. One young lady inherited
a large, run-down mansion on the East Coast. She
could not afford the expensive up-keep of the
old house, so she and her friend decided to give
the house a haunted story of its own. After some
research and planning, The Haunted Mansion Guided
Tours was born. This initial idea worked and from
it these women developed a haunted gift shop,
then a restaurant, then a few tours in nearby
cities, and they now operate one of the best and
largest haunted tour groups in the country.
Keeping it real
Many ghost walks employ the odd “cheesy
trick” to keep the atmosphere “spooky”
and some tours are conducted only at night. But
day-time haunted cemetery tours and daylight ghost
tours attract a lot of people who are more interested
in the history aspect of the town they are visiting
or who just don't want to get that scared. You
can't get away with night time tricks during the
day - such as having someone hide behind tomb
or in an alley waiting to jump out and holler
“BOO,” but there’s a lot to
be said for daytime tours. Don’t overlook
this aspect as an added moneymaker.
A word about tipping: Generally,
it is good to encourage tips for your tour guides;
the amount should be at the discretion of your
customers. It’s always good to mention before
each group gets started that it is OK to tip the
guide if they’ve done a really good job.
Some tour groups frown on the practice. The call
is yours.
Complaints: As the saying goes,
you can’t please everyone all the time,
and sometimes this is true in the haunted tour
business as well. Many people take haunted tours
expecting a kind of non-stop, fun-house event
and are disappointed when they find that this
is difficult to produce in a simple walking tour.
Unfortunately, negative feedback is one way of
gauging the successful work of your tour guides;
too many complaints about a particular guide help
you to focus on who needs improvement or where
changes need to be made. Always receive complaints
as graciously as compliments and have a plan in
mind to defuse the complainer: offer some kind
of compensation such as free tours on a return
trip or even dinner at a local popular restaurant
on the tour company. Successful handling of unhappy
patrons is as important to your return business
as any other aspect of advertising – sometimes
more so!
Ghost tours have came
a long way and everyone has their own ideas about
what makes or breaks a great haunted tour. Although
it is a source of income and investment it is
always important to remember to HAVE FUN and ENJOY
YOURSELF. If you are not happy with your product,
your patrons won’t be. It’s your satisfaction
that makes the haunted tour you offer a memorable
event worth taking again and again! Good Luck!
Ghost
Tour Start Up Must Knows Coming Soon:
Managing Your Ghost Tour
Business
Creating A Successful Ghost Tour Business Plan
Financing Your Small Business Ghost Tour
Marketing Your Small Business Ghost Tour
Selling Your Ghost Tour Products
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