Custom GPT: Build a Personal City Expert Assistant for Your Tour Business

What This Builds

Instead of explaining your tour, your city, your guests, and your storytelling style every time you open ChatGPT, you build a Custom GPT that already knows all of this. It's a dedicated AI assistant that speaks in your voice, knows your tour routes by heart, and can answer unexpected visitor questions, draft tour proposals, generate seasonal content, and suggest new story angles — all without context-setting every single session.

Every conversation starts from shared understanding. You type "add a new story about the pharmacy museum to my Friday ghost tour" and it immediately knows your Friday tour's structure and what you already cover.

Prerequisites

• ChatGPT Plus subscription ({{tool:ChatGPT.price}}) — Custom GPTs require the paid plan
• Comfortable using ChatGPT for basic tasks (Level 3)
• Your tour scripts, notes, or content organized in a folder (any format)
• 2-3 hours for initial build; 30 minutes/month for maintenance

The Concept

A Custom GPT is like hiring a personal assistant who read every document you've ever written about your tours, memorized your storytelling style, and is available 24/7 to help you write, research, and problem-solve — without you ever repeating yourself.

You configure it once with:

• Instructions about who you are and what you need
• Knowledge files (your tour scripts, historical notes, FAQ documents)
• A personality that matches your brand

After setup, every conversation automatically has this context. Ask it "draft me a proposal for a 25-person corporate group next Thursday" and it knows your pricing, your tour options, your style.

Build It Step by Step

Part 1: Gather and organize your knowledge files

Before opening ChatGPT, collect these documents (any format — .docx, .pdf, .txt all work):

Required:

• Your main tour script(s) — even rough notes work
• A list of your tour stops with brief descriptions

Highly valuable:

• Interesting facts and stories you've collected but not yet scripted
• Your standard pricing document (for proposal drafting)
• A FAQ document for guests (if you have one)
• Your cancellation/refund policy

Optional but powerful:

• Positive review excerpts showing what guests love
• Notes on difficult questions you've been asked

Save everything in a single folder. You'll upload these as "Knowledge files."

Part 2: Create the Custom GPT

1. Go to {{tool:ChatGPT.url}} and log into your Plus account
2. Click your profile photo (top right) → My GPTs
3. Click Create a GPT (green button)
4. The GPT builder opens with two panels: Create (left — a conversation to build it) and Preview (right — live test)

Part 3: Write your system instructions

In the Create panel, you'll see "Configure" tab at the top. Click it. This gives you direct access to the instruction fields.

Name your GPT: Something you'll recognize, like "New Orleans Ghost Tour Assistant" or "[Your Name] Tour Expert."

Description: 1-2 sentences summarizing what it does: "Custom research and writing assistant for a professional ghost and historical walking tour guide in New Orleans."

Instructions: This is the most important field. Paste and customize the following template:

You are a specialized AI assistant for [Your Name], a professional tour guide in [city] who specializes in [tour type(s)].

ABOUT MY TOURS:
- Tour types: [list your tours]
- Primary route: [describe main route/stops briefly]
- Tour duration: [X minutes]
- Typical guest: [age range, origin, what they care about]
- Group size: [typical range]
- Pricing: [private tour pricing, public tour pricing]

MY STORYTELLING STYLE:
[Describe your voice — atmospheric and spooky? Educational and scholarly? Warm and accessible? Give an example sentence if possible]

HOW TO HELP ME:
1. RESEARCH REQUESTS: When I ask about historical topics, synthesize information into story-ready talking points. Give me 4-6 facts with a suggested narrative arc — not bullet points of data. Keep each story to 2-4 minutes spoken length.

2. WRITING REQUESTS: Match my voice as described above. Never use corporate or generic language. For proposals, use the pricing structure in my knowledge files.

3. TRANSLATION REQUESTS: Translate to natural, idiomatic [list common languages for your guests]. Flag any local cultural references that won't translate well.

4. EDUCATIONAL CONTENT: For school groups, I typically work with grades [X-Y]. Make content [describe appropriate level and tone].

5. REVIEW RESPONSES: Professional and warm. Acknowledge all feedback specifically. For negative reviews: empathetic, not defensive, always invite them back.

IMPORTANT RULES:
- Never suggest story content you're uncertain about as established fact. Flag uncertainty clearly.
- Always keep story suggestions within the [X-minute] timeframe I specified
- My guests are adults/families [specify] who want authentic local knowledge, not sanitized tourist content
- Don't use consulting jargon or corporate language ever

Part 4: Upload your knowledge files

Still in the Configure tab, scroll to Knowledge section. Click Upload files. Upload all the documents you collected in Part 1.

ChatGPT will use these files to answer questions about your specific tours, stops, and content — not just general knowledge about your city.

What you should see after uploading: Your files listed under Knowledge. The GPT will reference them when relevant.

Part 5: Test and refine the Preview

Switch to the Preview panel on the right. Ask it real questions:

• "What's a good 3-minute story I can add about [stop on your route]?"
• "Write a tour proposal for a 20-person corporate group visiting next month for a team outing. Budget seems flexible."
• "A guest asked me why [something historical happened]. Give me a 90-second answer."

If the response doesn't feel right: Go back to the Instructions and adjust. Add more specifics about your style or what you don't want.

Part 6: Save and access your GPT

Click Save (top right). Choose visibility: Only me (recommended — keeps your tour knowledge private).

Your Custom GPT now appears in your My GPTs list. Access it any time from the ChatGPT sidebar. Every conversation starts with full context.

Real Example: Tour Guide Workflow

Setup: Sarah runs ghost tours in Savannah, Georgia. She uploaded her 10-stop tour script, her historical research notes on the LaLaurie Mansion, and her private tour pricing sheet.

Input: "I'm adding a new stop about the Sorrel-Weed House. I know it was built in the 1830s and there are stories of tragedy there. Give me story options I can tell in 3 minutes."

Output: Her Custom GPT returns 3 story angles based on the historical context she provided, in her atmospheric storytelling style (because she described it in her instructions), with a suggested opening hook and closing beat for each.

Input: "Draft a proposal for the Johnson corporate group — 18 people, visiting from Chicago for a sales conference, want a 90-minute private tour Thursday evening."

Output: A professional proposal in her voice, with her standard pricing for groups of 18, her Thursday evening departure time, and an invitation to add a post-tour dinner recommendation.

Time saved: What would have taken 45 minutes of context-setting and writing took 4 minutes.

What to Do When It Breaks

• Response ignores your uploaded files → The file may not have uploaded correctly. Delete and re-upload. Files over 512KB sometimes fail silently.
• Responses don't match your style → Go to Configure → Instructions and add more style guidance with a specific example sentence in your voice
• It hallucinates historical facts you didn't provide → Add to Instructions: "If I ask about a historical topic and you don't find relevant information in my knowledge files, say so explicitly and ask if I want general research rather than inferring from your own knowledge"
• It gives generic responses instead of specific to my tours → Your Instructions may be too short. Add more specific context about your tours, stops, and typical scenarios.

Variations

• Simpler version: Use Claude Projects instead of a Custom GPT — same persistent knowledge concept, slightly less customizable but easier to set up (see Level 3 guide)
• Extended version: Create separate Custom GPTs for different tour types (ghost tours vs. family tours vs. school tours) with different instruction sets tuned to each audience

What to Do Next

• This week: Build the GPT with at minimum your tour script and pricing. Run 10 test queries.
• This month: Add more knowledge files as you create them. Update instructions based on what responses aren't landing.
• Advanced: Connect your Custom GPT to a simple website chatbot using ChatGPT's sharing features — let website visitors ask your "expert" about the tour before they book.

Advanced guide for tour guide professionals. Custom GPTs require a ChatGPT {{tool:ChatGPT.plan}} subscription. OpenAI's interface updates regularly — the core build flow (Configure → Instructions → Knowledge → Test → Save) is stable.