Starting and operating a food tour is an exceptional opportunity for both your lifestyle and business. From a personal standpoint, operating a Food Tour allows you control over your day, a fun and engaging atmosphere which happens largely outdoors as well as the opportunity to work with and meet new people in a rewarding environment. From a business standpoint, starting a Food Tour has serious profit potential while maintaining a relatively low initial investment, low overhead and positive cash-flow. It is a self-sustaining "real" business which can even allow you to work seasonally - depending on your climate.

Beyond the personal and financial benefits, we like to call Food Tours a win-win-win for yourself, your customers and your community. Why? Because while your business thrives, you are also helping your customers have a wonderful experience while allowing stores / restaurants to reach new customers and make money as well.

First and foremost a tour operator must be passionate about what they do, work hard, and put in the time and effort to make their tour a success. This includes a certain "social intelligence", basically a genuine desire to show people a good time. Whether it be showing your participants your community or serving delicious food - enthusiasm, creativity and fun-loving attitude is always a must.

An ideal food tour operator also has what we call the "Entrepreneurial DNA" - a fictitious gene which allows you to take risks, see opportunities and create something of value as part of your very nature. The Food Tour Business also includes a great deal autonomy - so you'll have to be comfortable operating by your own rules and schedule!

We have found that our clients learn a great deal by experiencing a fully developed tour. That's why we use our Chicago training location as a case study for you to experience, question and observe during the course of your training. We supplement all offsite (Chicago) training with visits to your tour location so that we may customize our recommendations and training course to your specific city / tour environment.

The best locations for Food Tours are "urban" environments - defined by being relatively dense and walkable - while enjoying a variety of unique food options. We help our clients evaluate the potential within their city and food locations to help them determine whether a Food Tour is a viable business opportunity.

Approaching food locations is one of the most difficult tasks when building a Food Tour - What questions will they ask? What should I say? We help our clients develop the right approach, script and materials to help explain how a Food Tour can be of benefit to both the Food Tour Operator and the Tasting Location.

Food tour scripts should be carefully crafted to highlight unique aspects of the food tasting, historical, cultural and architectural elements of your tour route. We help our clients define the most interesting and relevant information for their tour scripts so that participants experience the right balance of fun, background information - and of course, food!

Discounts within food locations are a touchy subject, and one that must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Food Tour Pros helps our clients understand the implications of discounts, how to decide the discount amount and the approach of requesting such discounts from Location Owners when appropriate.

There are many ways to grow a food tour business - including the expansion of both quantity of tours, additional locations, hiring of additional staff and marketing. Each of these decisions requires a great deal of preparation, planning and knowledge to make sure the business growth process goes smoothly. We help our clients grow quickly and efficiently through strategic marketing techniques and milestone management.

Tour guides are the front face of your Food Tour Business - and your success or failure is often decided by the people you choose for the job. Food Tour Pros helps their clients source quality tour guide talent through accurate job descriptions, specialized search tactics and targeted job posting.

Pricing for Food Tours depends on a variety of factors - including the tour location, quality / quantity of food and duration of tour. Food Tour Pros helps our clients develop a pricing strategy based on their particular offerings and competition to ensure both customer acceptance and profitability.

We suggest ticketing through a third-party ticketing operator due to the expensive tools, support, investment and headaches required to sell your own tickets. We connect all of our clients to the industry's preferred third-party ticketing operator, allowing them to quickly and easily navigate the process while accessing sales tools, reviews and a 24 hour support team.

The length - both time and walking distance - greatly affect the enjoyability and perceived value of your tour. Too long? Participants may get restless or physically tired. Too short? Participants may think they have been ripped off. Through our extensive experience, we help our clients determine the optimal time and distance of their food tour to fit both the tastings and surrounding environment.

Attracting a steady stream of participants is critical for your new Food Tour Business' success. We help our clients develop a strategic marketing plan to ensure they can gain exposure to potential participants - including website promotion, search engine optimization, social media, direct mail and referral programs.

Your website should be an easy-to-navigate and full of valuable information for your potential customer. We help our clients create the right content, layout and graphics to not only attract visitors, but also to convert them to ticket buyers!

Congratulations - starting a second tour means you've been quite successful with the first! However, the greatest of care must be taken when building multiple tours to ensure that your local market can absorb the new attraction. If a new tour is deemed viable, we work alongside our clients to help speculate new tour locations as well as develop additional materials / operational considerations to keep multiple locations running smoothly.

Yes. Our clients range from starting individuals to existing Food Tour companies whom are looking for ways in which to grow or streamline their operations.

The closure of a food tour location is a major inconvenience to both your operations and client experiences. We help our clients develop emergency backup plans to ensure that they are never left short-handed for tastings, as well as evaluate new tasting locations in a quick and painless manor.

A new tour guide or employee is a direct representation of your company as a whole. It's essential that they not only understand their tasks and responsibilities, but also the underlying mission and purpose of their job as a Food Tour Guide. Food Tour Pros helps our clients develop robust training materials and schedules to ensure the best experience for your company, the participants and your guides.

Many of the most successful food tours in the country were started by people without culinary backgrounds - so don't worry! However, a passion for both food and people is essential to the success of any business in the culinary tourism industry.

The selection of food tour locations - whether restaurants or stores - should show the best which your city or neighborhood has to offer. It's usually best to offer a variety of culinary, ethnic and/or retail experiences which keep the participant engaged and enthused throughout the duration of your tour. We work with our clients to develop the right mix of food tour tasting locations to create the best possible experience for your participants.

Ensuring you are protected from any liabilities incurred during the course of your tour is a complicated but important issue. Food Tour Pros works with our clients to determine what liability coverage is best for their location and business environment.

It's usually best to conduct walking tours so that participants can absorb the full range of your cities experiences and history. However, rule of thumb varies widely depending on your city / neighborhood walkability to key tasting locations. We work with our clients to ensure the best experience possible is obtained to ensure profitability while maximizing their city areas.

Product and Services pricing information can be found on the Courses page. If you have additional questions regarding our pricing, please use the Contact page to inquire

All Course dates are finalized by Food Tour Pros and Course participants in advance of registration. Please Contact us to discuss availability.