Association

… who strive to give every visitor meaningful and memorable tours to make the most out of their stay in the German capital.

Berlin is a unique city – history is not just a part of the past, but also plays a major role in the present. And the future is quite literally still being written!

Berlin Guides Association members are excited not only to illuminate Berlin’s past to help you make sense of the city today, but also to share all the stories and anecdotes that make history come alive, so that your stay in Berlin is unforgettable.

Who We Are

The Berlin Guides Association was created in 2014 by a handful of experienced tour guides who wanted to elevate and standardize their profession in Berlin.

What started out as a small collection of professional tour guides has grown into an exciting organization of approximately 100 members who come from many different backgrounds and who work in many different languages, such as English, German, Hebrew, Spanish, and French.

Our love for Berlin and our interest in its history brings us together. Being a tour guide is not only our livelihood, but also our passion.

Why We Exist

Unlike other professions in Germany, tour guiding is not monitored in any way. That means anyone can become a guide at any time. An untrained guide could result in a bad tour, which could ruin a visitor’s experience in Berlin.

The founding members were frustrated that the profession was not taken seriously and that no city-wide standards for tour guides had been established. So the idea to found a professional organization – the Berlin Guides Association – was born.

We created a shared set of best practices and brought together the best guides in the city to make the Berlin Guides Association a success.

We hold our members to the highest standards and encourage the sharing of knowledge – both practical and historical – so that we are always growing and improving for ourselves and our guests.

Building a Community

Besides striving to give our guests the very best possible tours in Berlin, the Berlin Guides Association also works to provide a community for our members.

We hold monthly educational sessions, we host a lively social media group to stay in touch online, and we meet regularly to share experiences and catch up with one another.

We are a group of individual freelancers, but through the Berlin Guides Association, we are also members of a valued community.

Expanding Our Knowledge

The Berlin Guides Association prides itself on the myriad educational opportunities it offers to its members each year.

We organize monthly events to further our knowledge as guides, which include both in-person tours of locations and museums, as well as online lectures.

We also organize excursions to destinations outside of Berlin, which are partly subsidized by the Berlin Guides Association. We hire local experts so that we can learn as much as possible about the places we visit.

These events allow us not only to learn more out of our own interest, but to also provide even more information and recommendations to our guests.

Booking Tours

The Berlin Guides Association is also working hard to increase business for our members.

We created and maintain this website so that guests to the city can book tours directly with our members. We are a strictly non-profit organization, so all inquiries made via the site are private and the payment is kept completely by the guide.

The Berlin Guides Association strives to boost our members’ business with the excellent content we create online, whether it’s on our blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube. It is our goal that these marketing tools assist our members in booking new tours with private guests.

Our Ultimate Goal

Berlin Guides Association members share the goal of giving our guests the absolute best experience possible while in Berlin – that means tours full of history, facts, stories, and anecdotes with a friendly, knowledgeable, and experienced guide.

The Berlin Guides Association prides itself on holding our guides to the highest standards, which means that our tours are unforgettable.