For about fifteen years, these volunteers have been giving free tours of their neighborhood to tourists. New types of tours that appeal to some, but irritate the profession.
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You may have come across Greeters this summer without knowing it. They are volunteers and local residents who show people around their neighborhood or city, for free. The idea has been growing in France for about fifteen years, imported from the United States (“To greet” means to welcome in English). Today, there are about 1,700 of them listed according to the Fédération des Greeters de France, including nearly 300 in Paris.
On the Pont Neuf, a few steps from the Académie française, Françoise offers a two-hour walk. “We’re going to walk in the Saint-Germain des Prés district”, she explains, accompanied by a tourist. “This lady told me she was interested in bookstores.”
A Greeter for around ten years, this former engineer likes to show people around her neighborhood on a voluntary basis, “walking around streets that I like, showing what I like about this neighborhood.” Françoise shows us around her shops and her favorite monuments, including the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. A friendly atmosphere that appeals to this tourist who has just arrived from Manila.
“I wanted to discover Paris with someone who really knows Paris, she explains. They (the ‘Greeters’) are really passionate, it opens up lots of new perspectives for me to discover the city. With the guided tours that I’ve seen on the internet, I’m not sure it’s the same thing.”
However, Françoise has no intention of calling herself a tourist guide. “I don’t have the skills of an official guide. What I enjoy is presenting my neighborhood, the shops that I like, she describes. Since we live in this neighborhood, it’s not at all like a guided tour where there will be lots of specific technical elements that I don’t know.”
But this competition annoys professionals in the sector, such as Cecyl Tarlier, president of the association of Guides de France. “We have skills that have been validated at university level at Bac +3. So, we have a historical and geographical culture that has been validated and recognized, whereas the Greeters are more like volunteer guides, whose content that they deliver to the public has never been validated by the university, for example.”
The tour guide also insists on the transparency of this activity. “On the one hand, there is work that is declared to URSSAF, to the tax authorities, while on the other hand, it is completely unclear. We know that the Greeters take sums in cash and we do not know where they go and who they are intended for,” he assures.
For their part, the Greeters respond that they do not receive any money, and that the donations received at the end of the walks are donated to the running of the association.