“New Temple Square Tours Appeal to Visitors,” Ensign, Sept. 1985, 79
New Temple Square Tours Appeal to Visitors
A series of six new tours on Temple Square is successfully meeting the approval of visitors. Since the tours began May 13, nearly 75 percent more of Temple Square visitors spend part of their time there with a guide.
The new thirty-minute tours replace the old seventy-five minute standard tour. The new tours deal with six different subject areas, ranging from the life of Christ to historic sites on and around the square.
Signs at the entrances to Temple Square alert visitors to the six tours and allow them to pick the one—or ones—which suit their interests. The shorter tours allow visitors on a tight schedule to spend time they would not otherwise be able to spend with a guide. For other visitors, the shorter tours mean they can take more than one tour. Each tour offers guides an opportunity to introduce visitors to LDS beliefs and to bear testimony.
“We cover more of our message in a shorter period of time, and we do it more effectively,” explained Sam Park, recently appointed as an assistant director of visitors’ centers on Temple Square.
Tour guides used to conduct seventy-five minute tours about 60 times a day on Temple Square. Now they conduct about 190 of the half-hour tours each day.
Before the new program was started, 20 percent of the people who came to Temple Square took a guided tour. “As of June 1, it was 34 percent,” Brother Park said.
The new tours begin approximately every ten minutes. The tours are: “Historic sites,” “Life of Christ,” “Old Testament,” “Book of Mormon,” “Purpose of the Temple,” and “The Tabernacle Choir.”
The new tours give visitors the option to tailor their Temple Square experience to their own interests. This is important because Temple Square is the most sought-out attraction in the state for visitors to Utah and one of the most important attractions in the western United States, particularly for foreign visitors, Brother Park explained.
He said Church members will also find many things of interest in the new Temple Square tours. “We would like to reintroduce Temple Square to members,” who may avail themselves of the tours and who would find them a valuable resource in helping prepare friends or loved ones to accept the gospel, he said.