For nearly a year and a half at MyTaiwanTour, Zoe’s mission as a tour guide has been introducing Taiwan to foreigners. She shoulders the responsibility of promoting Taiwanese culture to travelers from all over the world. Through this job, Zoe falls in love with Taiwan more and more each day.
Zoe’s background is very different from that of your average tour guide. She graduated with a degree in Physics and went to Ireland on exchange. After traveling in Ireland, Zoe had a realization: “After a year of exchange overseas, I realized that I didn’t understand Taiwan, my home, more than I understood Ireland.” Zoe wanted to know more about the land she lives in.
She decided to combine her language ability and interest in making new friends to become a tour guide with MyTaiwanTour. When asked about the most challenging part of her work, Zoe laughed and said, “There are some aspects I need to work harder on, like my knowledge of history. This is also one of the reasons I became a tour guide, I want to know Taiwan better.”
Keen on mountain climbing, Zoe mostly leads mountaineering groups.
When talking about the mountains of Taiwan, Zoe’s eyes light up: “Taiwan’s mountains are very special, very different from the mountains in Europe.” In fact, due to often climbing with tourists, Zoe is a qualified first-aider. She recalled that she once went to Taroko with an elderly lady who accidentally fell, causing her knees to swell. Luckily, Zoe was able to treat her.
Zoe also thinks that it is very important for a guide to keep calm at all times. Travellers to Taiwan are usually unfamiliar with their surroundings. If the tour guide is uncomfortable, the travellers will also be uncomfortable. In order to take care of visitors and help create fond memories of their trip, tour guides must also be constantly looking to improve themselves and make sure they can deal with whatever situation they are presented with.
When asked how to make Taiwan an internationally renowned tourist destination, Zoe believes that everyone can do their part. Through accumulation, little by little, Taiwan can slowly grow and become more popular and more known. Just like how Zoe introduces Taiwan’s mountains to tourists step by step, MyTaiwanTour promotes Taiwan one step at a time, allowing more people in the world to see the country’s beauty.
