Yes. It's all about the money, unfortunately. It does not matter if we talk about a church, a castle or a museum.
Something similar happened to me. I was told by a handyman to let my camera at the entrance or to get out. The handyman, not the guide!
I believe these people are trying to show us how important they are despite their actual jobs.
The company I'm working for is quite big. So they had to hire a 5 cleaning ladies. Working with foreign customers, we had different delegations visiting us on a daily basis. I still remember a funny thing.
We had some visitors from the UK and one of the guys (actually, the CEO of a huge company but a very friendly and nice person) spilled coffee during a meeting. It was an accident, something that can happened to everybody. The reaction that one of the cleaning lady had...the screams and the attitude. I've never felt so ashamed as I did that day. It didn't matter that the general manager had a conversation with her prior of this visit. Nothing was important apart from her broom.
I guess this behaviour is these people's way to express their frustrations. Our lady was not happy that so many "young people earn money just playing at a pc". This was her opinion towards our job. She could not stand the fact that working in IT is better paid than cleaning.
It is too bad that people like them make us feel uncomfortable at work or on vacation.
I guess, apart from religion, the education has a very important role.