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.
Training for personal services personnel
Because personal services personnel have frequent opportunities to interface with tourists, their training program should include the following:
- The impact of tourism on their jobs and on the community should be discussed. The more they realize how important tourism is in terms of dollars, jobs, and community betterment, the more they will develop a respect for the need to be hospitable and to give good service.
- They should receive hospitality training. Learn to answer questions, how to be polite, how to be friendly toward strangers, and how to make strangers into friends.
- Some will need training in personality development so they will automatically show the best side of their personality. Visitors get a poor impression of a place if they are ignored, or if they are confronted with rudeness or sullenness.
- They should learn how to do their own jobs with greater efficiency and effectiveness. They should develop an attitude of "professionalism" about what they do, say, or how they act.
- They should be aware of their general appearance and impressions that are created by being clean, well groomed, dressing appropriately, and speaking clearly.
- They should become informed about the community and area in which they work. They should know the highway system and know about the natural resources, history, attractions, special events, and places of interest so they can answer tourists' questions.
- Specifically, they should be given a one-day tour through the community which highlights the area's attractions and services. (Employers should be willing to grant this one day with pay to improve their employee's ability to interact with tourist customers.)
- They should know what to do in an emergency whether it be a fire, robbery, fainting spell, heart attack, or someone choking on food (applying the Heimlich maneuver); whom to call first; how to, and how not to, react in an emergency situation.
Training for specialized services' personnel
In addition to knowing their own specialized jobs, service personnel should receive additional training as it relates to tourism and to the individual tourist.
Here again, the training should emphasize the impact that tourism has on their job or business. They should welcome tourists as they would any other guest. Their hospitality training should emphasize "doing the extras" that tourists like, but may not expect:
- extra help in giving directions;
- extra time to explain the nice things about your community and specific things that tourists should do while visiting the community;
- extra explanations that help tourists find whatever they are seeking.
Training the members of the community
Community training programs may be accomplished in two ways.
- Normal communication channels, for example, press releases, public meetings, or progress reports may be used.
- Special presentations to community interest groups by tourism personnel or by the community's leaders may be made.
What instruction should the members of the community receive? The most important training should tell citizens about the economic and social impact of tourism. They should know how tourism affects their taxes and where these dollars go in schools, hospitals, street repair, and community beautification.
The community members also must be taught the importance of civic pride, clean-up campaigns, and maintaining a good community image. Citizens must learn to understand tourists.
Who should do the training?
Ideally, the training should be done by experts in tourism training, or by the tourism organization personnel. Frequently, however, tourism training is handled by employers, or by osmosis, and, of course, is only minimally effective.
The tourism organization, if it does not provide the necessary training, should prepare a list of the training needs, based on the community's tourism objective, and establish a mechanism for training that it can coordinate or supervise and evaluate.
Some communities offer tourism courses in local high schools and colleges. The tourism organization should encourage all tourist-oriented businesses and their employees to take these courses. In other communities, the Chamber of Commerce or other civic organization or association may offer instruction-orientation in tourism.
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