Hello! I am a English Speaking tour guide. Tomorrow, I will attend a customer (probably American lady) for 1 hour of excursion of an area in Kyoto, Japan after more than 2 years of absence of tour guiding due to pandemic. During the excursion, I will have to take pictures of the client and send it to the travel agency along with a tour report (how the reactions of the guests and places of visits were like etc...). As the picture is supposed to be used for the PR of the company (the excursion is advertised on "trip advisor"), I will have to explain it to the customer. In case she doesn't agree with that I can just mention it on the report to the company and don't need to send the picture. I am concerned about the way to ask her that before we built some good relationship in such a short excursion and privacy matter means a lot. I will have to ask her to drop a line on the review on the trip advisor site after the tour, too. What I thought of is.... (after greeting and explaining about the itinerary) "our travel agency asked me to send a feedback of this tour along with some pictures of customers. As the pictures might be used for their public relations, if you mind it, you could tell me. Then I can just report them about it without your picture or I could take pictures of you in the unidentified way like,,,, from back side or hiding your face. How would it be better?" Would these phrases and timing serve to make myself understood without hurt the happy feeling of the customer? Thank you in advance.

Question

Hello! I am a English Speaking tour guide. Tomorrow, I will attend a customer (probably American lady) for 1 hour of excursion of an area in Kyoto, Japan after more than 2 years of absence of tour guiding due to pandemic. During the excursion, I will have to take pictures of the client and send it to the travel agency along with a tour report (how the reactions of the guests and places of visits were like etc...). As the picture is supposed to be used for the PR of the company (the excursion is advertised on "trip advisor"), I will have to explain it to the customer. In case she doesn't agree with that I can just mention it on the report to the company and don't need to send the picture. I am concerned about the way to ask her that before we built some good relationship in such a short excursion and privacy matter means a lot. I will have to ask her to drop a line on the review on the trip advisor site after the tour, too. What I thought of is.... (after greeting and  explaining about the itinerary) "our travel agency asked me to send a feedback of this tour along with some pictures of customers. As the pictures might be used for their public relations, if you mind it, you could tell me. Then I can just report them about it without your picture or I could take pictures of you in the unidentified way like,,,, from back side or hiding your face. How would it be better?" Would these phrases and timing serve to make myself understood without hurt the happy feeling of the customer? Thank you in advance.

Answer

Debby san (Ms.Debby), thank you very much for your advice!!! You also eased my tension. After I sent this message, I noticed that there were a lot of grammatical mistakes as well. I appreciate that you kind took your time to read this long question and sought the solutions for me!

Answer

Hi Michiko! Perhaps you could start off by warmly greeting and welcoming the client. After that, you could be honest with her from the start and let her know your intentions and the reason behind this. From my personal experience, people tend to appreciate honesty when you tell them everything from the 'get-go'. This will allow the client to build trust in you, and the agency you work for. Depending on the client's wishes, she may want her face hidden - this is not a problem at all because the main issue is to first make her comfortable with the idea of taking pictures in the first place.