What a Sydney Tour Guide Learned Welcoming Visitors to a Luxury Hotel

The best part of tourism isn't the places. It's the people.

If you've followed my journey for a while, you probably know me as the guy who spends his days as a Sydney tour guide introducing visitors to Australia's wildlife, bushland and hidden corners. What you might not know is that, during Sydney's quieter winter season, I also spend a couple of days each week working as a commissionaire at one of the city's luxury five-star hotels.

If you're wondering what a commissionaire is, we're often the first smiling face guests meet when they arrive and one of the last to wish them a safe journey home. We help with luggage, answer questions, recommend places to visit and, above all, make people feel welcome.

At first, I took the role simply to stay busy during the quieter months. What I didn't expect was how much it would remind me why I love working in tourism.

Whether I'm welcoming someone to a hotel or guiding them through the Australian bush, I've realised I'm really doing the same job. I'm helping people feel at home in a country they've travelled a long way to experience.

One afternoon I was greeting another large international tour group returning to the hotel. As hundreds of guests walk past, I try and make eye contact with each guest, out of courtesy. There was one woman who stopped, smiled and then took me aside and proudly showed me the Akubra hat she'd just bought, and when I told her I'd been wearing one for more than forty years, we both laughed and spent a few minutes chatting about Australia.

Later, it occurred to me that this simple conversation may have been her first genuine interaction with an Australian during her entire four-day visit. Out of all the sightseeing, shopping and organised tours, it was a spontaneous conversation that seemed to make her day.

Then there are the solo business travellers. After a full day of meetings and conferences, many simply want to chat with someone outside their routine, and for a few minutes we talk about Australia, where they're from, or what they've enjoyed on their day off - a trip to Manly, Bondi or a funky little Thai restaurant in Newtown.

Those conversations have reminded me that great hospitality has very little to do with marble floors or luxury hotels. People rarely remember the building itself, but they almost always remember how they were treated.

I've spent years introducing visitors to kangaroos, koalas and cockatoos, and now I'm welcoming people from all over the world through the front doors of a Sydney hotel. Both experiences have taught me the same lesson: the best travel memories don't begin with famous landmarks, they begin with feeling welcome.

If I can help someone leave Australia with a smile, a great story and the feeling that they've experienced genuine Australian hospitality, then I know I've done my job. If you're planning a visit to Sydney and would like to experience Australia's wildlife with a local guide who's spent years welcoming visitors from around the world, I'd love to show you the side of Sydney that most travellers never see.