Smiling Guides Make Downtown Tampa Friendlier

TAMPA, FL — Downtown Tampa can be a confusing place for newcomers to navigate. After all, with its hustle and bustle of activity and an abundance of one-way streets, the uninitiated may find getting turned around is all too easy.

Enter the Tampa Downtown Partnership’s downtown guides. This team of “good-will ambassadors” hits the streets each and every day to help newcomers and downtown regulars field a number of concerns.

Guides “offer directions, assist stranded motorists with flat tires and dead car batteries, provide restaurant suggestions and even parking options,” the partnership’s website explains. All services provided during routine guide hours are free, too.

Guides are also pretty easy to spot. They’re the smiling men and women decked out in khakis and yellow polo shirts.

“Guides patrol downtown on foot, via bicycle and in an electric vehicle called the GEM car,” the partnership said. To make sure they’re up to the task, the partnership provides these special employees with training from such organizations as Busch Gardens, the American Automobile Association, the Tampa Police Department and Tampa Fire Rescue.

Guides are typically available between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays. While these employees of the partnership provide their services at no charge to downtown visitors, they are also available for hire to assist with special events.

The guide program has been in place since 1994, according to Lynda Remund of the Tampa Downtown Partnership. To find out more about what they do, visit the partnership online.

The city of Tampa recently posted a reminder about the services the guides provide on its Facebook page. Residents who recognized veteran guide Robert Arnold were quick to offer insights about the program.

“He is great and this is such a great idea,” wrote one woman. “Love our city.”

“(I) don’t know his name, but he’s a ray of sunshine every morning during drop off at Rampello,” wrote another.

Photo of veteran guide Robert Arnold courtesy of the City of Tampa Facebook page