Enhancing Silk Road Interpretation and Quality Guide Training

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• 31 Aug 16
• 31 Aug 16

Enhancing Silk Road Interpretation and Quality Guide Training  

Almaty, Kazakhstan

27 September - 10 October 2016

Recognizing the paramount importance that tourist guides play in the tourism sector, the UNWTO Silk Road Programme has been working to improve guide training by delivering agreed guiding skill standards along the Silk Road. The Almaty training is part of the Enhancing Silk Road Interpretation and Quality Guide Training Initiative, launched in 2015 to improve the standards of heritage interpretation and provide visitors with better travelling experiences.  

The current course build on the successful pilot course which took place in autumn 2015 in Khiva, Uzbekistan with participants from five Silk Road countries (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), resulting in an international pool of Silk Road heritage guides and Silk Road heritage guide trainers.

Organized by the Tourism and foreign affairs department of Almaty city, the UNWTO Silk Road Programme and the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations (WFTGA) the training certified and provided specialized know-how on site-interpretation, presentation and management to tourist guides operating across the Silk Road.

The training course aimed to develop common capacity building standards and guidelines, in particular:

• Enhance the overall visitor experience to sites with an outstanding cultural and natural heritage;
• Improve the connectivity and accessibility to sites, encouraging the development of specific tourism products and services;
• Spread the dispersal of tourists and encourage increased length of stay and yield;
• Enhance international cooperation and engagement of stakeholders across all levels;
• Present this initiative as a best-practice example to be replicated across the Silk Road.

This specialized training was conducted by the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations (WFTGA), a UNWTO Affiliate Member and the leading organization in the training and certification of tourist guides, with the support and input of UNWTO (responsible for the provision of tourism know-how) and UNESCO (responsible for guidelines and tools on heritage management and protection).

For this training initiative, a specific Silk Road Guides Handbook has been developed, which was used as the main source material and was given to all course participants free of charge.

Programme