My Work as a Guide with the VIP Visitors Department, Universal Exposition of Seville 1992

[Foundation Expo '88]

My work at Seville's Expo 92 came after my experience with Brisbane's
World Expo '88.

After Expo 88, friends I made there and I were committed to working at
the next Expo - Seville 92 (although Expo 90 Osaka was theoretically
the next one, since that was a Garden Expo, and since I wanted to
finish University first, I decided to miss out on that one) - and I
decided to maximise my chances by going to Seville a year before the
Expo started to learn Spanish and learn of the under construction Expo
site.

I organised a college near Seville, and lived with a Spanish family on
homestay, and towards the end of my month there, I managed to book
myself into a tour of the Seville Expo site under construction. This
was great! And we were introduced to the scope of the Expo through a
large scale model of the Expo, before we were guided around the Expo
site in the comfort of our air-conditioned bus.

Our Guide - an American from Chicago by the name of Juliet, was very
friendly, and at the end of the tour I asked her what I had to do to
work as a Guide for the Expo, and she gave me the name of the head of
Public Relations - Sr Carlos Telmo - and with that name I left the
Expo site, and Seville to finish off my University degree in Tokyo,
Japan.

During my year in Tokyo I studied Spanish by night school and used my
Spanish as much as I could. I even got a casual job dressed as a
Spanish torero in a Japanese European Tourism Expo in Tokyo, and met
some people from the Spanish Government Department of Tourism in
Japan. I even also attended a Spanish Embassy Seminar on the Seville
Expo in Tokyo as well. So I was pretty lucky, I was pretty well
connected in terms of being close to the pulse whilst I was still in
Japan.

I finished my course in Japan in February 1992, two months before the
Expo started, and I started ringing the Expo site from Australia to
get an interview with Sr Telmo. I rang the Expo Authority every day
until I got an interview time, and then they gave me an interview time
in just a week's time - one month before the Expo started.

So I packed my bags and was on my way to Seville. And I arrived at the
interview in plenty of time, at the World Trade Center of Seville,
with Sr Telmo. But in typical Spanish style, I was kept waiting one
hour and a half! I was getting quite worried, but he welcomed me into
his office, and we proceeded, in my somewhat broken Spanish, to have
the interview. After a few minutes he said to me that he has an
obligation to employ Sevillians, because the Expo is in Seville, and
he didn't think my Spanish was good enough!

I was devastated, but not shocked. And left the room thinking of what
I would do next.

I didn't give up though. I was determined to get a job if not for the
Expo, then during the Expo, in Seville. I was not going home empty
handed!

I spent the next few weeks reading and translating the Spanish
newspapers every day, and going to the Expo site every day, trying to
meet people connected with the Expo to see if any jobs were going. And
with some of the people I met I even managed to enter the Expo site a
few times. With a connection I made in the Saudi Arabia Pavilion, I
found out they were looking for a PR Manager, and I thought I had a
chance, but come the commencement of the Expo I still didn't have a
job.

In the meantime, a friend of mine from the Japan Pavilion in Brisbane
88 had arrived - Sayoko was her name and she got a job with the Japan
Pavilion in Seville. So I introduced her to my Spanish homestay family
and showed her around Seville - we had a great time. And as luck would
have it, 2 days after the Expo started she rang me saying that a
roommate of hers (the roommate's boyfriend actually) told her that the
Expo Authority is hiring again, and so I rang the number again and the
next day I had an interview in the World Trade Center again - and I
got the job!

Immediately I was in the car park trying on my Expo uniform with
another new Guide, and we were then buddied up with more experienced
guides and we were pretty much expected to be able to work straight
away.

Our work involved receiving a job sheet in the morning which included
the group's name, how many were in the party, where and what time to
meet them, whether they needed a golf buggy or not, and so on, and
then taking them to the model of the Expo and explaining to them the
route for the Pavilions they had bookings for that day.

We then took them - either by walking or by golf buggy to those
Pavilions for those days, including having meals with the group if
necessary, whilst giving them a personalised service during the visit.
For the most part, the Pavilion visits had been booked in advance,
which meant that they did not have to wait in the queues upon arriving
at the Pavilion, but there were sometimes disputes as to what had been
booked and what had been requested. Of course the more popular
Pavilions were harder to get, and sometimes a Pavilion visit could not
be guaranteed.

As the corporate VIP Visitors Department for the Expo, the guests were
fee-paying, and this enabled them to a guided tour of the Expo site
with preferential access to the theme Pavilions and on occasion the
Spain Pavilion as well. But if they wanted access to the international
Pavilions, this was granted on a case-by-case basis. So there was
sometimes some disappointment if they couldn't get a Pavilion they
requested.

And sometimes the golf buggies did not have time to re-charge properly
during the night and we sometimes ran out of battery power during the
middle of a visit!

We had about 50 guides working in our Department, the most from
Seville and Spain, with some Europe, one Moroccan, and one Swiss
American - Elizabeth, and I was the only one from Australia - albeit
working on a European passport.

The work was not arduous and was very interesting and fun - although
the hot Sevillian summer was a bit too much to bear sometimes!

We in general had to work 5-day weeks, and worked with one or two
groups per day, in an AM or PM shift, sometimes by ourselves, or in
groups of 2 or 3 attendants. The guests themselves were sometimes by
themselves, or in groups of 2 or 3 or even 5 or 10 or more sometimes.
I remember on one occasion I had to guide a group of 100 with a loud
speaker microphone on a mini-choo choo train around the site.

Sr Telmo was a delight to work for for the Expo, and we maintained a
friendship after the Expo, even meeting him at Shanghai World Expo
2010 where he was head of Protocol for the Spain Pavilion there. And
through Facebook I've kept in contact with several of my Expo
colleagues, including meeting some of them for the 10th Anniversary of
the Expo in 2002 in Seville.

I hope to go back to Seville for the 20th Anniversary in 2012 and
catch up with my Expo colleagues and visit the Expo site once again!

My advice to potential guides is don't be limited to just searching
the newspapers for jobs - to get an Expo job you'll have to use every
trick in the book and make sure that you know your market and know the
people who are hiring - and more importantly - that they know you.
They may not know for sure when they'll start hiring but if you make
your contacts before the official application process starts, you've
got a better chance of making yourself known, and that's half the
job.

Good luck!!!!!