Thanks to Katrine Prince, who has died of cancer aged 64, British tour guides now have the government-approved Institute of Tourist Guiding, and the Blue Badge - created by the London Tourist Board (LTB) in 1951 for the Festival of Britain - is a recognised qualification worldwide.
In 1974, when Katrine qualified, women guides were still required to take their examinations in a hat and gloves and to enunciate, without microphones, in home counties tones audible to the examiners in the back of the coach. This formality did not extend to the way the freelance guides were organised - fees were ad hoc and there was no properly managed association.
When Katrine was appointed secretary-general of the Guild of Guide Lecturers in 1976, she set up a professionally run central London office. And, following her appointment by the LTB as director of studies for guide training in 1983, she made a fundamental impact on every aspect of guiding.
Out went the requirement for cut-glass accents. Recruits from all walks of life were welcome, provided that they could pass the intensive courses she developed, which, as well as insisting on in-depth knowledge, covered everything from voice production to how to get your group safely across a road. Her work was then still London-based, but her vision was always internationalist and languages were encour aged - she spoke French, German and Italian.
By 2002, 700 London Blue Badge guides had graduated from Katrine's courses. With her meticulous eye for detail and intellectual rigour, she could be exacting, but she was also renowned for her understanding and generosity. She recognised that as students were usually in middle life and starting a second career, they often had complicated personal circumstances.
Katrine was born in Surrey, but her family emigrated to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) when she was 11 years old. Her mother was Swiss and, after gaining her school certificate in Bulawayo in 1954, Katrine completed her schooling at Brillantmont, Lausanne, before working in Geneva, Milan and Frankfurt.
Married in Zambia in 1965, she moved to London in 1970, juggling the bringing-up of two small sons with achieving a London University honours degree in French and German, and then with the demands of guiding.
By 1989 she was gaining international recognition in the profession. Hong Kong, Cyprus, Finland, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, French Polynesia, Austria, Russia, the Caribbean, Latvia, Switzerland - the London Blue Badge standards began to influence guiding everywhere. Katrine trained the guides in Florence and worked closely with the European Federation of Tourist Guide Associations, becoming its secretary in 1998. In Britain, she ran guiding workshops and was appointed director of the City of London's guide course in 1994. In 1997 she published The Art Of Guiding, and in 1999 was awarded an OBE.
Katrine believed it was vital that guiding should have a professional institute, to recognise the contribution the profession makes to the tourist industry and to set standards throughout Britain. The Institute of Tourist Guiding was launched in April 2002. She would have been the natural choice for president, but she had been diagnosed with leukaemia in 1997 and the illness returned this year, despite a bone marrow transplant in 2002.
She is survived by her husband Martin and sons Philipp and Christophe.
· Katrine Elisabeth Prince, tour guide, born September 22 1939; died September 10 2004
