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Friday, July 22, 2005
Tourist guides urged to learn Cebu history, culture
Most tourists come not just for Cebu’s beaches and other attractions but also to experience and gain knowledge of the locals’ culture, heritage and ways of life.
That’s what Rafael Tura, president of the Cebu Association of Tour Guides (CAT-G), said during the Kapihan sa Turismo yesterday at SM City Cebu.
“While most of our Asian tourists stay for only three to four days, our European and American tourists stay at least one week.
They like to go to different places, even to the countryside, and they want to know the history, heritage and culture,” he said.
Since tour guides need to be equipped and should be able to answer the tourists’ questions, Tura said CAT-G now conducts various seminars, especially on heritage, culture and general issues.
“Tour guides should not only know where to take tourists but (they should) also be ready to explain from facts in history, to details of landmarks or even down to general information of things, like names of flowers. Tourists have different interests, and their questions are unpredictable,” he said.
CAT-G has around 130 members licensed by the city goverment and accredited by the Department of Tourism (DOT) 7.
However, Tura admits that language remains to be a big challenge for tour guides.
“Japanese tourists, for example, love to visit our museums, but we have no tour guides who could go with them and explain to them things in Japanese. Though we have many tour guides who can speak conversational Japanese, it is quite different and harder for us to explain history and features of a museum in Japanese terms that they can understand,” Tura said.
While DOT 7 Director Patria Aurora Roa was happy with the efforts of CAT-G to upgrade their skills and services, she also challenged them to study Korean and Mandarin so they could also serve a big number of the Korean and Mandarin speaking tourists who come to Cebu.
She noted that most of the local tour guides know only English and Japanese.
Since none of the local tour guides could speak Korean, the Korean tourists have to bring Korean tour guides.
DOT 7 reported a total of 46,818 Korean tourists in Cebu from January to June this year. (ALC)
(July 22, 2005 issue)
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