Dear WFTGA Trainers, WFTGA Members and aspiring trainers,
Dear Participants of the WFTGA Trainer Convention in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah,

I have now arrived in Kota Kinabalu and look forward to seeing you – either in-person or online – in just under 2 weeks’ time. Our hosts, the Sabah Tourist Guides Association, are pulling out all the stops to make the Trainer Convention extra-special and full of authentic Sabah experiences.

The programme is now also shaping up and you may have seen the additions over the last couple of days – WFTGA Trainer Convention 2025

Prices for the post-tours have been confirmed. Please see attached. We will let you know when booking opens.

Registrations will close this Sunday 09 February. So if you want to bring a friend and colleague, tell them now.

For in-person participants:

• The Sabah Tourist Guides Association is planning airport pick-ups. Please send your arrival time / travel itinerary to [email protected]
• The Ming Garden (Convention) Hotel is very comfortable with good size, air-conditioned rooms, a comfortable lounge area and restaurant, an outdoor pool and gym on the 4^th floor, a prayer room on the 09^th floor, 3 x a day shuttle bus to the shopping mall and, of course, the convention rooms on the 1^stfloor.
• We will be approximately 20 international in-person participants with many more local guides joining us.
• The weather is humid and warm and as I write this we are having a small tropical rain shower. Please come prepared!

For our online participants:

• The link will be send out next week to all who have made their payment.
• The programme WFTGA Trainer Convention 2025 shows you which sessions are included in the hybrid offer. This includes the key note speakers, panel discussion and one workshop in each session as well as some live streaming of tours and events. Other parallel workshops will be recorded and made available to you to watch at a convenient time. In other words, we try to be true to our mantra KISS.
• The Training Division Meeting is free to attend for all fully-paid up members of the Training Division. We will send a separate zoom link from our own WFTGA package for this meeting. As you will see in the programme, the meeting has been moved to Sabah afternoon, which is early morning in Europe, where a lot of you are based. More information will follow separately to the Training Division. The deadline for submitting agenda items is tomorrow.

Let me close by giving a big thank you not only to the local organisers, but also to the Training Committee, all workshop facilitators, everyone who has offered help and – of course – all of you, who have decided to join our Inaugural WFTGA Trainer Convention.

Keep watching the website and facebook page for up-dates.

Kindly make your payments if you haven’t already done so and … safe travel to Kota Kinabalu.

Many best wishes
Viola and the WFTGA Training Committee