Participants posing in front of the entrance to the Fairy Caves in Bau.
KUCHING: To strengthen the state’s tourism sector, a total of 107 tourist guides sat for a five-day migration course since last December to elevate their blue licence to gold.
With the gold licence, which is still out of reach for the 107, tourist guides will be given the freedom to bring their clientele anywhere in Sarawak, except National Parks as that would require them to hold a park guide licence.
Spearheaded by the Sarawak Tourist Guides Association (SKTGA), the migration course was conducted in six batches that included classroom and hands-on sessions.
During the course, the participants were taught on topics such as thematic interpretation, camping, bird watching, kayaking, sustainable tourism and adventure caving.
“Gone are the days when it was just a classroom or theory sessions to train tourist guides. My hope is that one day, all the tourist guides will be trained in a hands-on approach before they enter the market,” said course facilitator Bob Zakaria to The Borneo Post yesterday.
According to him, the course includes camping at the Permai Rainforest Resort, while caving activities were held at the Fairy Caves’ lower passage in Bau while the kayaking session was held from Bengoh to Semadang.
To top it all off, a written exam was conducted on March 24 while the practical exams were held from March 25-27 which was sat by 80 participants.
“If they (tourist guides) pass this test, only then will they be eligible to apply for the gold licence,” said Bob, adding that to date there are no gold licence holders in Sarawak yet.
On another note, Bob also pointed out that nature guiding is the in-thing now, especially for Sarawak due to the state’s natural surroundings and vast eco-tourism potential. He said these areas are among the major lure for local and international tourists to flock to Sarawak each year, making the migration course an important platform to meet the increasing demands of tourists.
Meanwhile, the migration course was jointly sponsored by the state’s Ministry of Tourism and (federal) Ministry of Tourism and Culture.