Tour guides, associations express doubts and concerns about examination procedures

There are many critical issues related to the second examination for tourist guides: among them,the lack of time to prepare for the tests and the difficulty in reaching the designated venues. This is supported by the Coordination of Aspiring Tour Guides 2026 (Agt26) and the National Committee Future Guides. The issue, say the associations, concerns access to the profession.

The number of candidates taking the 5 June written exam, at 17 thousand, is just over half the number that took it last year, at 30 thousand. According to Guide Future, many factors are at play: the rejection rate of the 2025 edition, the opening period of the competition in the middle of the tourist season, the reduced time window to register are just a few. It also weighs heavily, the two associations point out, that when the deadline for submitting applications, 19 May, had not yet been announced the programme on which to prepare, published on the evening of 20 May.

"In concrete terms," comment Agt26, "candidates signed up for the procedure, paid the fee, chose the foreign language and accepted the notice before knowing the actual operating framework of the exam: detailed programme, distribution of questions, application criteria and evaluation grids. As far as examination venues are concerned, according to Agt26, rather than proximity venues, they are macro-territorial locations. Organising trips with already high transport costs and, for many, even overnight stays is burdensome. "A situation that risks producing evident inequalities and economic and territorial discrimination in access to the profession," comment from Guide Future.

Concerns also ariseabout the nature of the test, which, according to the Ministry of Tourism, will not be notational and will cover basic knowledge of the main Italian tourist sites. Both Future Guides and Agt26 raise objections to the formula and argue for a clearer public perimeter. "Access to the profession cannot depend on economic capacity, available time or the possibility of intercepting private instruments to interpret a public programme," summarises the Coordination.

There are also uncertainties regarding the timing of the selection: according to Agt26, 'a distinction must be made between the speed of the procedure and the real ability of the examination to produce new licensed guides in a serious, transparent and proportionate manner'.