Leading North-east tourism agency VisitAberdeenshire believes local residents hold the answer to fill a shortage of international language speaking tour guides. The tourism authority is encouraging residents from Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire to register for the University of Aberdeen online training programme on history, landscape, culture and economy, the first stage towards achieving the Scottish Tourist Guides Association green badge certificate for North-east Scotland.
Yvonne Cook, head of tourism development of VisitAberdeenshire says, “Tour guides play a vital role in creating a great visitor experience. Our guides offer a dynamic and personal experience for individual visitors and groups. It is vital that there is a bank of confident international speakers, particularly German, to ensure we can meet the demands of our visitors, travel trade and for the opening of the new harbour in 2020. I would encourage anyone with an interest to complete this training course, and if it is something they would like to take further, there is a follow-on course on tourist guide training facilitated by the Scottish Tourist Guides Association.”
Germany is the top international source market for Scotland from Europe, and the second largest globally contributing £285m annually to the Scottish economy. Research by VisitScotland show that over 370,000 German visitors came to Scotland in 2017.
For more information on the North-east Scotland: History, Landscape, Culture and Economy training course facilitated at University of Aberdeen visit on.abdn.ac.uk/courses
