International
Tourist Guide Day 2009 Cyprus
International Tourist Guide Day 2009 South India
International
Tourist Guide Day 2009 Singapore
International Tourist Guide Day 2009 Scotland UK
International
Tourist Guide Day 2009 Uganda
International
Tourist Guide Day 2009 United Arab Emirates
International Tourist Guides day Buenos Aires
International
Tourist Guide Day 2009 Cyprus
The Cyprus Tourist Guides Association celebrated the 21st of February by
guided walking Tours in all towns.Although it was a rainy day the
participation was rather good. The same day we visited the Mayor of
Nicosia Mrs Eleni Mavrou and we stressed the importance of the
International Tourist Guide Day and we discussed several problems we
face during our walking tours.
International
Tourist Guide Day 2009 South India
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International Tourist Guide Day 2009 Kenya
International
Tourist Guide Day 2009 Singapore
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This year, the Society of Tourist Guides Singapore created three brand
new heritage trails, each trail lasting 45 minutes:
1. Roman Catholicism in Singapore
2. Faith, Faith and Fame in Waterloo Street
3. Hainan Kopi Tales
National Library graciously made the space available to us and also
publicized the activity on their website. Society of Tourist Guides
(Singapore) is grateful for the support of Singapore Tourism Board in
the organizing of the event. With the assistance of STB, we were able to
reach out to the media – radio, television and newspaper to publicise
our event and create awareness about the role of professional tourist
guides. We have over 70 tourist guides who participated in the event and
a total of 1021 persons signed up for the tours.
International Tourist Guide Day 2009 Scotland UK
World Federation International Tourist Guides Day Event- Glasgow style!
The Glasgow and West of Scotland branch of the STGA marked the World
Federation day this year in a distinctive way. We invited students of
tourism from Glasgow’s four universities to go on a coach tour of the
city. Standard route- we’ve all done it- but this was with a difference!
At various points along the route Glasgow ghosts came on to the coach to
tell their story.
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We began at Glasgow Cathedral, a religious centre of enormous
significance before the Reformation in 1560. Our ghost Queen Langoureth
(aka Blue Badge guide Anne Robertson) dated from 800 years earlier.
Queen in that area, she had given a ring to her lover: silly thing to do
as it had been a gift from her husband. She approached Mungo, the man of
God, whose church stood where the cathedral now stands, as he was known
to be able to perform miracles. He, believing her to be truly contrite,
went to the river, prayed, and a fish appeared with the ring in its
mouth. Queen Langoureth faded into the shadows of history. Mungo went on
to be canonised, is the patron saint of Glasgow, the coat of arms of
which bears a fish. Thus Glasgow and our tour began.
After the Reformation Glasgow’s importance began to fade. The
Glaswegians searched around for an alternative way to way to finance
themselves. Tobacco was the answer. Grown in the fertile colonies of
Virginia and the Carolinas, it provided vast wealth to the Glasgow
merchants, who termed themselves the Tobacco Lords. They strutted in
their cocked hats and scarlet cloaks, striking from the Plainstanes
(pavements) any lesser mortal who dared to walk there. In flamboyant
style one of them William Cunningham (aka Blue Badge guide Stewart
Noble) regaled the students with a description of Glasgow in the 17th
century: tobacco filled coffee houses and trade with an ever-expanding
empire.
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From the Merchant City the coach made its way west, mirroring the
development of the city itself. At George Square, the beating heart of
this great city for over 150 years, Queen Victoria (aka Blue Badge
guide Moira Wadsworth) told of her two visits to the city during her
sixty four year reign. Her second visit was in 1888 to open the City
Chambers, a magnificent building from which Glasgow has been
administered ever since. It was, she told the students, perfectly
appropriate that she should visit the second city of her empire. Coming
back in 2009 she was delighted to see so many changes in the city since
her 1888 visit. She was certainly smiling: we assume she was amused.
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Blythswood Square is a lovely place: elegant houses and a beautifully
kept central garden. But here in 1857 there occurred a scandal, which
more than twitched the curtains of Glasgow’s respectable middle classes.
At no.7 lived a young lady by the name of Madeleine Smith. Respectable
Victorian, she was nevertheless conducting a rather more modern
relationship with an impoverished Frenchman, Pierre Emile L’Angelier.
She tired of him: he did not take the hint. Curiously he then began to
develop stomach cramps. but only after he had been visiting (secretly)
Madeleine. The cramps became more severe until one night he did not
recover. A funeral. Enquiries! An exhumation of the corpse! Arsenic!
Madeleine was arrested and charged with murdering her lover. (Curtains
shaking off their rails!) It hit the headlines in London, Paris and New
York, but the verdict was Not Proven. Madeleine was free. Emile (aka
blue Badge guide Bruce Cochran) was buried in the Ramshorn Kirkyard, but
his memory loves on.
The tour continued with Blue Badge guide Viola Lier in her normal place,
microphone in hand, linking the locations from ghost to ghost.
At the university there are gates installed in 1951 to mark the 500th
anniversary of Glasgow University. On the gates are the names of famous
people associated with the university, eg the bishop who founded it, the
king in whose reign it was founded, Adam Smith and that eminent
scientist, James Watt, responsible for inventing the separate condensor
for the steam engine which set in motion the Industrial Revolution. Here
James Watt (aka blue Badge guide Roy Stewart) explained the significance
of this to the 18thc world and the enormous impact it had on the
development of Glasgow.
Thence we made our way to the Glenlee, a tall ship built on the Clyde,
the river which flows through Glasgow, and which circumnavigated the
world four times before coming home. It was an ideal location to
conclude our tour as River Clyde in the 19th century was the larges
shipbuilding location in the world. Appropriately the ghost of shipyard
owner David Elder (Ian MacDonald) met and told us about his shipyard’s
significant impact on the Clyde – later to become Fairfileds. We have a
saying in Glasgow: ‘the Clyde made Glasgow and Glasgow made the Clyde’.
The river and the city are tightly woven together. Here is Glasgow’s
story: pre- reformation pilgrims arriving by boat, tobacco from the
Americas, shipbuilding, heavy engineering being transported all over the
world, emigration and immigration.
The students were piped on board by another Blue Badge guide Tom
Mitford. There they were addresses by the Chair of the Glasgow branch of
the STGA, Maggie McCann. She explained who Blue Badge guides are and the
position of Scottish guides in relation to the World federation. Viola
Lier as the STGA trainer then spoke on the training necessary to become
a Blue Badge guide. Liz Cameron, Glasgow’s ex Lord provost and now Chair
of Culture and Sport Glasgow gave a motivating speech on Glsgow’s
development and the importance of tourism in the city today.
This being the year of Homecoming, it was appropriate that Robert Burns
was part of our day. Sandra Middleton sang two Burns songs. Over tea and
biscuits the students mingled, watched a DVD about Scotland’s Blue Badge
guides, asked questions and examined the World Federation banner brought
along by Pat Blain secretary of the World Federation.
The entire event took only three hours, but we believe its impact will
be much longer lasting. Most of the students had never heard of Blue
Badge guides. Now they do.
The organisers of the event would like to thank all the Blue Badge
guides involved, the Edinburgh Woollen Mill, the Glenlee and Southern
Coaches.
International
Tourist Guide Day 2009 Uganda
Kampala Uganda.
Uganda Safari Guides Association celebrated the International Tourist
Guides Day on April 25, 2009 at the Uganda Museum.
The busy day began with bird watching and cultural walk in the city. The
afternoon session attracted over 100 participants. These included
members of the Uganda Bird Guides Club, Uganda Cultural Guides Club,
tourist driver guides club, mountaineering guides, and the Bwindi
Gorilla Guides Association. About 240 species of birds were recorded
around Kampala on only half a day. 10 cultural sites were visited.
The invited guests included Members of the Uganda Tour operators
association, Uganda Wildlife Authority, Association of Small and Medium
Enterprises in Tourism and Hospitality and the Ministry of Tourism.
Other companies that contributed to the success of the day included
Bird Uganda Safaris, Escape Safaris, Birding in Paradise, and Volcanoes
ltd.
The Chairman Herbert Byaruhanga empasised the need for more training in
different areas of tourist interests. These include birding, culture,
wildlife, history and archeology, and insects. He also cautioned
unregistered guides to stop using the association’s umbrella to offer
unprofessional services. He appealed to the Disciplinary Committee to
take action immediately and bring wrong doers to book. Quoting from the
Tourism Act 2008, he congratulated the guides for making a break through
now that the “ tourist guides “ were clearly defined in the tourism law.
It defines a “ tour guide” as someone registered and licensed to guide
people’s itineraries.
A services delivery rating excersice was conducted the best
personalities and facilities were ranked.
These included the Best Hotel Manager of the Year, Best Waiter of the
Year, Best Logdge of the year, Best National park of the year etc. This
exercise was carried out by the members of the newly founded Uganda
Tourism Journalists association.
International
Tourist Guides day Abu dahbi
International Tourist Guides day
Buenos Aires
