About 100 service providers in the tourism industry have successfully completed training which is expected to have a positive impact on visitors experience on the island.
On Thursday morning, the participants were presented with certificates at the Garraway Hotel.
Head of Product Development at the DDA, Kathleen Cuffy, told the participants to use the training to advance them in their respective fields.
“The training was for Port Security Officers, tour guides, bartenders, taxi operators, vendors, police officers, immigration officers, custom officers, forestry officers and hotelier,” she said. “The DDA and the Ministry of Tourism is hopeful that the wealth of knowledge provided by the many facilitators in the areas such as Stall Designs, Customer Service, Tour Planning, Bartending, social media magic and marketing techniques will impact knowledge to service providers which can be used in their respective fields so as to improve quality service delivered to our visitors DDA will continue its commitment to the development of tourism in the human resource areas.”
She added that the DDA believes training should be ongoing and as such will continue to ensure that the appropriate resources are allocated for training.
“It is a fact that persons who are exposed to continuous training will in fact provide good customer service which we expect will impact positively on all visitor experiences while they’re on island,” Cuffy said.
In the meantime, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Tourism, Steve Hyacinth, warned the participants to beware of negative attitudes.
“If we are to have a dynamic tourism industry it has to be everybody’s business,” he said. “No one is exempted, everyone has a critical part to play in its success. You must understand that you are in the service industry, tourism is a service industry and that means that you interact with people on a day to day basis and as a result of that your attitude is critical because people observe certain things and that determines whether they come to you or they go to someone or somewhere else.”
The training seminar sought to refresh tourism service providers in the key components of the tourism product and the delivery of quality service and aimed at enabling the key players in the tourism industry to achieve excellence in their respective fields.
If we are to have a dynamic touism inductry it has to be everybody business , everyone has a critical part to play in its sucess. Mr Hyacinth sir , just by making that statement you made the news how sad , I have live in this country the land of my birth for the past 40 years and this centiment has been echo over and over again ( we should play our part . its every body business, govt should create the environment for this and for that . Can someone tel me what is that environment that we have to create that is taking so long to put in place . look at our site , the road , the side walk , drity drains , gabbage all over , stray dogs , the paros , with all that being said we welcome them with a hand shake from our homeless roaming the streets. What are we doing about , is that part 1 of the enableing environment , i dont need to see part 2
This government is the main culprit in destroying our Tourism Product. Look at what they are doing in the Roseau Valley with the Geothermal Project .In a few years there will be no Boiling Lake to visit, no Waterfall, no Sulphur Springs and no tourist coming to visit the Roseau valley and Dominica.
You all are the ones destroying the Island with all these negative attitudes.