--- title: "Meet the Guides: The People Behind Prime Tours' Vienna Walking Tours" url: https://primetours.at/city-blog/meet-the-guides-the-people-behind-prime-tours-vienna-walking-tours/ description: "Meet the licensed local guides behind Prime Tours' Vienna walking tours — real names from genuine guest reviews and the specialists behind our Sisi and Viennese Women Stories tours." language: en --- # Meet the Guides: The People Behind Prime Tours’ Vienna Walking Tours By the Prime Tours team · 13 August 2026 · updated 7 October 2026 · 4 min read When travelers picture a Vienna walking tour, they usually picture the sights first: St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the Hofburg, the State Opera. What actually makes or breaks the two hours, though, is almost always the person walking next to you. At Prime Tours, Vienna’s original free walking tour company (founded in 2016 and locally owned by LoeX Local Experience GmbH), the guides are the product. Here is a genuine look at who leads these tours and what stands behind the name on your booking confirmation. ## Licensed, local, and trained — not just enthusiastic Every guide who leads a Prime Tours walk is a certified, licensed tour guide, a fact listed plainly on our tour pages rather than tucked away in the fine print. That matters more than it might sound: a license means a guide has been formally tested on Vienna’s history, art, and civic knowledge, not just enthusiastic about the city. Over the past decade, more than one million guests have joined a Prime Tours experience, led exclusively by licensed local guides who know Vienna’s streets, stories, and secrets first-hand. It is one reason the company is rated 4.6★ on Google from 2,585 reviews and 4.4★ on TripAdvisor from 1,610 reviews. Prime Tours is also, deliberately, not a global platform. It is a Vienna-based team of guides and travel lovers who brought the free walking tour concept to the city in 2016 — before several international operators later followed into the market that move opened up. Every tour, every guide, and every decision is still made locally. ## A glimpse of the guides behind the reviews Rather than invent guide biographies for this post, we went straight to the reviews travelers have left about the Free Walking Tour Vienna route — because those names and stories are already public, and they say more than any marketing copy could. - **Jan** is remembered by one group of friends for a calm, clear delivery in English and for turning the walk into a conversation, asking the group questions along the way rather than simply lecturing at them. - **Elizabeth** earned praise for keeping a group engaged “despite the freezing cold,” weaving humor into the history of Vienna’s key landmarks — proof that a good guide can save a tour even when the weather doesn’t cooperate. - **Katerina** is described by a visitor as helpful and professional, walking her group through the city centre with a strong grasp of historic places and dates. - **Stephan** was singled out by a guest who had taken three different guided tours that same week and rated his the most enjoyable — funny, enthusiastic, and, again, undeterred by cold weather. These are real, already-published guest reviews of Prime Tours’ Free Walking Tour Vienna, paraphrased here rather than quoted word for word. You can read the originals, alongside many more, on the tour’s customer reviews section. Tour tip ### [Vienna Like a Local — Hidden Gems Free Walking Tour](https://primetours.at/tours/vienna-like-a-local-hidden-gems-free-walking-tour/) The free walking tour for travellers who want to experience Vienna like a local. Hidden gems & the neighbourhoods Viennese actually love! Free tip-based Next: Wed 4 Nov, 10:15 [Book now](https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/primetours/items/731377/?full-items=yes&flow=no) ## Specialist guides with their own expertise Beyond the daily free walking tours, a couple of Prime Tours’ themed experiences are led by guides who bring a very specific, documented expertise to the walk. **Konstanze**, who created and leads the Viennese Women Stories tour, wrote the tour herself specifically to surface the female scientists, artists, hosts, and activists who shaped Vienna but rarely make it into standard guidebooks. Walking the route with her means walking through her own research, not a generic script. For “The Myth of Sisi,” the small-group tour dedicated to Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the private guide is **Dr. Renate Hofbauer**, the author of a published biography of the Empress. It is a rare case where the guide leading the tour and the person who literally wrote the book on the subject are the same person. ## How Prime Tours selects and trains its guides Prime Tours is always recruiting motivated, passionate guides to join its Vienna team, and it is explicit about what it expects in return: every guide must be fully licensed and trained to bring Vienna’s history and culture to life, whether that’s a free walking tour, a themed evening walk, or a private experience for a small group. Guides work alongside a dedicated office team that handles scheduling, bookings, and partner relationships, so the person in front of your group can focus on the tour itself rather than logistics. The company also operates on a clear set of values: mutual respect, diversity, and inclusivity, with no place for racism, sexism, extremism, or discrimination of any kind on its tours or within its team. That culture shapes who ends up guiding for Prime Tours as much as any licensing exam does. ## Why the guide matters more than the itinerary Two people can walk the exact same route past St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the Hofburg, and the Spanish Riding School and come away with completely different impressions of Vienna, depending entirely on who is talking. A licensed guide with real local roots turns a checklist of sights into a story that stays with you — which is exactly what recurring names like Jan, Elizabeth, Katerina, and Stephan in Prime Tours’ reviews suggest is happening on the ground, tour after tour. If you want to experience it yourself, the Free Walking Tour Vienna runs daily in the historic city centre, tip-based and wheelchair accessible, with a licensed local guide waiting at the meeting point. For something more specialized, the Viennese Women Stories and Sisi tours put you directly with the guides who built those experiences from the ground up. Questions about a specific tour or guide before you book? Reach out to bookings@primetours.at — a genuinely local team, not a call center, will get back to you. Meet our guides in person on the [Vienna Like a Local hidden gems free walking tour](https://primetours.at/tours/vienna-like-a-local-hidden-gems-free-walking-tour/) or the classic [Free Walking Tour Vienna](https://primetours.at/tours/free-walking-tour-vienna-historical-city-center/). ## Explore Vienna with locals Free walking tours daily, plus pub crawl, Christmas markets and private tours. [See today's tours](https://primetours.at/tours/) [Request a private tour](https://primetours.at/private-experience-in-vienna/#request) **4.6** Google · 2,615 reviews **4.4** Tripadvisor · 1,617 reviews FAQ ## Quick answers ### Are Prime Tours guides licensed in Vienna? Yes. Every guide who leads a Prime Tours walk is a certified, licensed tour guide, tested on Vienna's history, art and civic knowledge. Prime Tours is a locally owned company, LoeX Local Experience GmbH, founded in 2016, and more than one million guests have joined its experiences with licensed local guides. ### Who runs Prime Tours in Vienna? Prime Tours is run by LoeX Local Experience GmbH, a locally owned Vienna company. Clemens Sengwein-Réti founded it in 2016 as the first free walking tour in Vienna, and Kamilla Sengwein-Réti joined in 2019 as co-founder and COO. It is rated 4.6 out of 5 on Google and 4.4 on Tripadvisor. ### Who leads the Women Stories and Sisi tours in Vienna? Konstanze, who created and leads the Viennese Women Stories tour, wrote it to feature the female scientists, artists, hosts and activists who shaped Vienna. The private guide for The Myth of Sisi, a small-group tour about Empress Elisabeth, is Dr. Renate Hofbauer, author of a published biography of the Empress. ### Can I become a tour guide with Prime Tours in Vienna? Prime Tours is always recruiting motivated, passionate guides, but every guide must be fully licensed and trained. The team works on mutual respect, diversity and inclusivity, with no place for racism, sexism, extremism or discrimination. An office team handles scheduling and bookings. Email bookings@primetours.at with questions. Book in seconds ## Tours that match this article [All tours](https://primetours.at/tours/) ### [Free Walking Tour Vienna](https://primetours.at/tours/free-walking-tour-vienna-historical-city-center/) Join the Free Walking Tour Vienna daily. Hear Stories about Sisi & Franz, the Habsburg, Hitler and see the historical highlights of Vienna. 2 h Next: Tue 3 Nov, 09:45 (ES) [EN](https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/primetours/items/140097/?full-items=yes&flow=no) [ES](https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/primetours/items/140102/?full-items=yes&flow=no) [DE](https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/primetours/items/168241/?full-items=yes&flow=no) [IT](https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/primetours/items/489521/?full-items=yes&flow=no) Free tip-based [Book now](https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/primetours/items/140097/?full-items=yes&flow=no) ### [Private Walking Tour Vienna: The best of Vienna – Exclusive Tour](https://primetours.at/tours/private-walking-tour-vienna-exclusive-tour-max-9-people/) Private walking tour in Vienna with a licensed local guide, tailored to your group. Small group, 2h, from 195€ per adult. Book your exclusive tour today. 2 h EN DE FR ES IT Next: Sun 8 Nov, 10:00 from €159 per adult [Book now](https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/primetours/items/349229/?full-items=yes&flow=no) ### [Street Art Tour Vienna](https://primetours.at/tours/street-art-tour-vienna/) Join our street art tour Vienna: a 2-hour small-group walk through Europe's longest open-air gallery, with murals by ROA, Golif, Stink Fish and Ruin. 2 h EN Next: Tue 3 Nov, 14:00 from €34 per adult [Book now](https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/primetours/items/140065/?full-items=yes&flow=no) Keep reading ## More articles on this topic [All articles](https://primetours.at/city-blog/) 1 June 2026 ### [10 Years of Prime Tours: Back to Where We Started — Vienna Like a Local](https://primetours.at/city-blog/10-years-prime-tours-vienna-like-a-local/) Ten years ago we started Prime Tours with one idea: be a local for a day. 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