CHENNAI: “You are the face of our country. You play a critical role in helping people understand the culture and heritage of a geographical location sensitively. With digitisation and the fourth industrial revolution, there needs to be constant reskilling and up-skilling to ensure people the experience that they expect in a connected world,” said Latha Pandiarajan, co-founder of Ma Foi, while addressing 25 tour guides from Chennai and Madurai, at the inaugural event of a three-day sustainable tourism workshop held on Monday, at Hanu Reddy Residencies in Poes Garden.
The event was hosted by FICCI FLO Chennai, in association with Friends of Heritage Sites (FOHS) and The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) Tamil Nadu chapter. Offering an overview of the agenda, S Suresh, convener, INTACH TN chapter, said, “We’ve done many such workshops in other parts of the country. This is the first in Chennai in collaboration with FLO and FOHS. It’s a fair mix of classroom lectures, group discussions, field trip and practical demonstration. The guides will not only gain theoretical knowledge but also practical experience to update themselves.”
While FOHS has been hosting many online sessions and Zoom conferences, this is their first physical workshop in the post-pandemic world. The workshop is exclusively for trained tourists with three to 40 years of experience. We’re told that the majority is well-versed in more than four foreign languages such as German, Spanish, Italian and Russian. “While hospitality and transportation has bounced back slowly, tourism continues to suffer. I’ve not had one trip in the year and this is the first dry spell for me in 40 years of my career. The business went on even during the Kargil war and plague of Surat. We had to switch over to other professions such as conducting spoken language classes, interpretation and translation,” said P Ashoka, president, Approved Tour Guides’ Association, Chennai.
Ashoka and other tour guides have been updating their knowledge of advancements in the tourism industry regularly on social media platforms and through web lectures. “We are regional guides operating under the Ministry of Tourism. After an interview, written exam, a classroom course for six months and practical sessions, we are given an identity card to operate. It’s a laborious process. We cover all of South India — Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The pay is agreed upon mutually between us and the tour operators. This workshop is much-needed at this point. For beginners, the workshop will help in enhancement of skills. For the experienced ones, it will open up more avenues and areas to explore in terms of digitisation,” he pointed out.
The day’s agenda featured a presentation on Dissemination of Information on Ancient Heritage: My Experience by P Sriraman. It was followed by lectures on Tourism and Heritage Management: Policies and Problems in India and the USA by S Suresh, Pandya Temples in Southernmost India by D Dayalan and Celebrating Chennai — Heritage Highlights of the City — by S Suresh.
Day-two will have a presentation on The Muziris Project and its Tourism Potential by Benny Kuriakose, The Queen of Hills: Unsung Tourist Spots of Nilgiris by S Suresh, Lead Kindly Light: The Story of the Lighthouses of Southern India by Hemachandra Rao and Poetry in Stone: The Art of the Pallavas With Focus on the Monuments of Mahabalipuram by S Suresh. Day-three will have a full-day field visit to Mahabalipuram and Saluvankuppam followed by a tour around monuments, stone carving demonstrations and group discussions.