Overview
The ASEAN Tourist Guides Conference brings together a diverse array of participants, including licensed tourist guides, tour operators, government officials, educators, researchers, and industry experts throughout ASEAN countries. With a focus on fostering excellence and innovation in guiding practices, the conference serves as a catalyst for driving positive change and promoting best practices in the tourism sector.
Key Objectives
- Professional development in new horizon:
The conference offers a platform for continuous learning, professional development, and skills enhancement for tourist guides. Through workshops, seminars, and interactive sessions, participants gain insights into emerging trends, to incorporate digital transformation in navigating the changing landscape of tourism, and the best practices in tour guiding.
- Knowledge exchange in tour guiding:
Facilitating the exchange of knowledge, experiences, and expertise among industry professionals is one of the core objectives of the conference. Delegates can gain valuable insights and wisdom from the heartrending stories of tourist guides, and stewardship of tourist guides profession across the time, thereby enriching their understanding of the diverse tourism landscapes within the ASEAN region.
- Remarkable roles of tourist guide:
Being a Tourist Guide is no mere profession, it is a commitment in managing tourists’ behaviour, uplifting destination image, and generating positive social, cultural, heritage, nature, and economic values. Often, they are deemed as a country’s mini ambassador in tourism and their industry without any doubt have a high expectation from them.
4. Fellowship building and business matchmaking session:
The conference provides a conducive environment for networking, fostering collaborations, and forging partnerships among tourism stakeholders. By connecting with peers, industry leaders, and potential collaborators, participants can explore opportunities for collaboration and business growth.
5. Resolution of the conference:
Proposing a resolution aiming to advance professionalism, advocating for the recognition, sustainability, and competitiveness in the tourism landscapes.
ABOUT ORGANIZER - SARAWAK TOURIST GUIDES ASSOCIATION
The history of tourism in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo which dates back to 1968, was more than just meet the eye. It was a weird but interesting beginning. Not only it didn’t start directly from tourism but apparently from a mere personal fishing hobby of our Tourism Pioneer collaborated with his Caucasian friends, which later turned out to be a regularly executed annual event. From there, his passion spanned into a successful tourism agency only to be pursued quickly by 2 other agencies. Venturing off the beaten track in Borneo’s wilderness in search of rainforest dwelling natives, was their norm of business then. Soon news spread like wildfire to Europe through words of mouth by his Caucasian friends. The result was amazing with the Neckermann, Ocean Liner, Kuoni Travel and Thomas Cook Holidays arriving group after group, series after series, just to name a few.
During the first decade of our tourism industry, most tour guiding was done by the agency’s bosses themselves backed up by their peers. Soon we saw an urgent need for Tourist Guides. In 1975, our first batch of Tourist Guides sprung off. The recruitment for more Tourist Guides were slow and tough then merely because not only the profession was hardly heard of, but interviewees were hesitant about accepting the tough nature of the tasks.
With the absence of Uncle Google and Auntie Wikipedia, this profession was made even more tougher – we were turning into historian, adventurer, and zoologist of sorts. When the situations became unbearable, we remember at one point we have to congregate in clusters to conduct our own educational workshops to update, upgrade and elevate to suit the endless questions we received from our guests over time.
Eventually, a small group of us – the veterans decided to form a more organized, effective and functional body to comprehend our needs and wants. That was in the year 1987 which saw the dawn of Sarawak Tourist Guides Association. With all the vision, missions, action plans properly laid out, our Protem Chairperson Madam Lily Fung led us to meet the Late Encik Idris Osman of Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) to seek his advices and to launch our movement.
In 1991, Sarawak Tourist Guides Association was officially inaugurated by Malaysian Tourist Promotion Board (MTPB). Over a span of 33 years, we have seen a relative number of changes. Notably, we have members who are holders of the Blue (City) and Green (Nature) Badges’ which were later synchronized into Region Specific Tourist Guide’s Badges. Today, not only have we grown to a sizeable organization of 30+ members, we are also affiliated to Malaysian Tourist Guides Council and Sarawak Tourism Federation.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF A TOURIST GUIDE
Being a Tourist Guide is no mere profession – it’s a commitment to education, a dedication to engagement, and a passion for sharing their places of interest with the world. It’s about striking the balance between historian, educator, and companion. With the recent global health issues concerning Covid-19, their roles have taken them a step further – by and large, an increasing number of them are already certified as First Responders in First Aids or even as OSH-C (Occupational Safety & Health Coordinator).
Often, they are deemed as a country’s mini ambassador in tourism and their industry without any doubt have a high expectation from them.
In a nutshell, Tourist Guides are expected to:
- Be in their best disposition when representing their country/regions
- Interact with their guests at all levels – while encouraging locals to do the same
- Be passionate about learning – sharing useful information with stakeholders
- Sharing and encouraging tourists to partake in local experiences
- Have positive mindset about their country, government, people and destinations
- Encourage local capacity building to boost local economy
- Practice conservation solutions as laid out by our government
- Give feedbacks on new potential tourist attractions to local tour operators
- Involve themselves in at least One Specialized Field – viz Heritage, Birding or Frogging
Join us at the ASEAN Tourist Guides Conference as we come together to inspire, innovate, and collaborate towards a sustainable and vibrant tourism future for the ASEAN region.
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