How to Learn People's Names on Tour - Techniques for Remembering Names

Learning techniques to remember people’s names is a great skill for everyday life. But as tour leader, guide or someone who works in the service industry - learning names becomes one of your most important skills.

Dale Carnegie, the author of ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, wrote his flagship book back in 1936 but it remains a best seller to this day. Among his many quotable recommendations, you’ll find this tasty gem:

“A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Carnegie saw how much people were delighted when hearing their own name and how quickly you could build rapport with someone by learning, recalling and using their surname.

Names are deeply tied to our identity and individuality - and when someone remembers our name after meeting us - it makes us feel important, respected and shows that the other person is interested in who we are.

It almost always leaves a lasting positive impression, and given we want our customers to be as happy and satisfied as possible, learning names and using them whenever possible is highly recommended as a tour leader.

But this of course begs the bigger question, 'How to learn people’s names on tour?’ In this video, I share six techniques for working on on the skill of recalling and using people’s names as a tour leader.

These practical suggestions come from tour leaders around the world and can be practiced daily in our everyday lives.

To help you out further, we’ve also created a PDF cheat sheet called 'Creative Name Games for Tour and Activity Leaders’ These are some of our favourite icebreakers and name games for kids and adults.

Check out this handy PDF resource by clicking the link below!

Feel free to share this video if you’re inspired, pass on the link to our name games PDF, but most importantly, leave a comment for us down below! What are your tips for recalling and using people’s names?

Thanks for being here,

Kelsey T

[chiararozzi]

This is exactly what I needed...! My BIG problem. And you are right: essentially I cannot remember names because I am not really interested in succeeding in this. But now I will improve because I'm aware it's important for the guests and also to be a good guide

[jovim.]

In my experience it also helps if when the guests are joining the group, you introduce them to the rest of the group using everyones names. So if you're standing there with Jack and Barbara, and Kelly joins you, you say: Hi Kelly, this is Jack and Barbara. By the time you have ten people in that group, you'll have it memorised :)

[CitaChittos]

Hahaha... That's my big problem during the trip to remember names 😂😂

[alirodgers]

Focus is key. I haven't perfected that yet, but agree that it's important. And some good other tips too. Thank you!

[sifaeljoseph]

Thank you for the helpful ideas Kelsey.

[WJL-tnzh]

Thank you for this! I really appreciate it! Usually I will memorize it before the trip. We have medical forms for them to fill up before the trip, that's where we can see their names (:

[antalebkhalid]

I have problems to remember the guests names when the groupe is big

[neelamjaiswal]

Can you suggest me how to get tips from Italian tourist?? I will be thankful to you for all my life..

[Oak]

I'm a teacher . I have this problem of forgetting names of the students badly!!! If my mind decides to call Mary, Lila (though the names are not even similar it does! It' like : It suits her name goes with her not that one !!!!But I have this problem of forgetting everything ... I think stress and tension causes a lot of forget

[ramstensub]

Body language joke of the day: "What's the difference between mime and pantomime? (Pause... and SHRUG)." You're welcome.

[henrivietnam]

It sounds weird but i associate people name with their first impression to me: John, bald guy. Mary, short blonde girl. Tiny, big guy. I can remember 29 names after 1 night!

[sirumaler]

i can only remember 10...above that am lost