At first glance, Tourguide doesn`t look like a tourism Web site, but its functionality is a tad better than its looks.
The site offers 50 Tourism, Hospitality and Sports Education Training Authority-registered tour guides for local and international tourists who need some local knowledge when travelling around SA.
Users can refine the search for a guide to a location, hobbies and preferential language.
Once the selection is made, a list of relevant tour guides pops up with portfolios consisting of their hobbies, interests, nature of the tours they offer and a photograph.
Users can also find the details of a favourite tour guide by typing the name in the quick search.
When a tour guide is selected, an e-mail with the user`s travel details must be sent to contact the relevant guide. Having sent an e-mail, a response took a day. Unfortunately, having never been on a guided tour, I cannot comment on the quality of the service offered.
The site also offers a list of pre-arranged tours to the Western Cape, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, which can be handy for the traveller who doesn`t know what each province has to offer.
Would-be tour guides can also join the database by signing up on the Web site.
While tour guides have to pay a fee to be registered on the database, the Internet service is free for tourists.
Visitors who wish to be informed about relevant tour information can register to receive the private guide newsletter.
To keep the proudly South African theme, a daily "brag bit" is published to highlight trivia that reminds people why they should travel to SA.
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