Page 202 - Tourism The International Business

9. The management of tourism

Training for visitor services

Visitor services training programs must extend into almost every area of tourist interface, from the unskilled but
important jobs of busboys, bellmen, porters, and ticket takers to those who have the more sophisticated jobs of
arranging tours and giving out tourist information, as well as to the citizens of the community. Furthermore, the
program must be continuous because people change jobs, or get careless or forgetful, and need refresher course
training.
The primary focus of the visitor services training program is always on hosting: How to be a good host when

entertaining or serving strangers. Sound easy? It is not. Hosting is much more than putting on one's best smile,
being cordial and courteous, or just being "nice". To be a good host, one must understand the tourism philosophy of
the community as well as the individual tourist on his level of intellectual and emotional being.
Tourists are complex beings. Away from their own familiar environment, they are trying to relate to a
community's environment as quickly as possible so that they may absorb, ingest, and partake of everything that a
community has to offer them to satisfy their needs. They are guests in the community, and they expect to be treated
as guests.

Who needs to be trained?
Everyone! In differing degrees, everyone in a community should receive some training, even though the training
may only be informational. Generally, the segments in the community which must receive training are:
• Those who render personal services, are highly visible and have frequent opportunities to speak with

tourists such as hotel, motel, restaurant and service station employees; city employees; and those involved
in the attractions, amusements, and tourist businesses who give out tourist information.
• Those who must perform specialized services for the community as well as for tourists. These persons
include police, firefighters, sanitation employees, security guards, health services personnel, and the
bankers, and shopkeepers and their employees.
• The general community itself must be informed about tourism development, so a spirit of friendliness
prevails, and so tourists feel they are welcome. The better they feel about a community, the longer they will

want to stay and the sooner they will wish to return.
• Persons staffing the tourist information centers (TIC).
The general training focus should be on hosting and hospitality, but there should be some specific tourism
training for each of the above groups. Specifics of training personal and specialized services personnel are discussed
in hospitality training. Specifics for training members of the community are in the public awareness program, for
TIC staff in establishing tourist information centers.

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