Heritage tourism ; Role of the tour guide
Professional Tour Guides are “masters of their art. They take an aerial image of a place and inject it with intense meaning by zooming in on one spot, one period of a time, one texture, and one story”. – Anita Mendiratta
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The theme for the 2015 Annual National Convention of the Tour Guides Association of Ghana (TORGAG), held at Bunso in February, was: “Promoting Heritage Tourism – the Role of the Tour Guide”. Readers may be aware that some local radio stations celebrated their Heritage Month in March.
Heritage Tourism is a special-interest tourism and an alternative to mass tourism. Heritage is what we value as a people. It has shaped the past and present, and influences future development. The US National Trust for Historic Preservation defines ‘heritage tourism’ as “travelling to experience the places and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present”. It includes historical, cultural and natural resources.
Properly developed and managed, Heritage Tourism provides sustainable livelihood to small communities, protecting and sustaining cultural and natural resources. It contributes to stability and growth. It promotes community pride, creates jobs and businesses, and diversifies the local economy. It helps preserve historic and cultural structures, and landscape of an area. Visitors have the opportunity to learn and understand unfamiliar places, people, and time.
World Heritage sites
World heritage sites include some of the world’s most spectacular attractions and stunning monuments of human creations. The first 12 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage sites were inscribed in 1978. By 2003, the list included 725 cultural, 183 natural, and 28 mixed sites in 153 countries. There are currently 1,007 sites. The Great Wall of China; Chief Roi Mata’s Domain in Vanuatu; Central Suriname Nature Reserve; Lake Ounianga in Chad; Acropolis in Athens, and Elmina Castle in Ghana are examples.
Ghana has forts and castles, slave sites, unique Asante and northern architecture; old mining sites, Paga crocodile pond, fascinating waterfalls, ancestral caves and endangered forest reserves. There are also traditional religious shrines, festivals, family life and unique cultural practices.
Tourists’ expense
The advent of information technology has led to the acquisition of more knowledge on heritage sites. The increasing accessibility to various mode of transportation and availability of more leisure time have resulted in a great demand to explore and personally experience the culture of others.
Heritage tourists spend longer time and more money than other tourists. However, their length of stay and quantum of expenditure depend on the quality of reception at the sites.
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Many heritage travellers use simple but clean accommodation facilities and eat local food. Some even prefer to stay with host families. But what they need most is the right interpretation about the sites or events. “The interpretation of heritage is important to defining, evoking and enhancing its meaning. Interpretative services are not a special favour to visitors; they are an essential part of the work of heritage management” (Moscardo, 1996). In fact, there is no heritage without interpretation.
Impact of tour guide
The tour guide, who does the interpretation, makes a visitor return home with a rewarding experience and unforgettable sweet memories. The professional tour guide should have successfully received specialised training in guiding or an equivalent training by a recognised institution. He or she should have been certified and licenced, and by way of occupation, conduct tourists to and around places of interest, giving relevant information. The guides also implement tour arrangements and provide or assure visitors of their safety and comfort. Additionally they “prepare and lead visitors to be more sensitive, ethical, exhibit responsible behaviour, and encourage respect for and proper consideration for local traditions and customs”.
Some of Ghana’s tour guides have performed creditably and had the privilege of visiting their clients outside Ghana. Some have had the opportunity to make presentations at various universities in the US and Suriname. One has been the guest of former President J.A. Kufuor, based on information he had received from a tourist, Sam Bans.
Need for trained guides
Unfortunately, there are also non-performing guides. Many of our tourist attractions, which are mostly heritage sites, are manned by young men masquerading as guides. Consequently, there is a lot of misinterpretation. Some guides become instant fund-raisers for football teams, orphanages, or a school. Information they give is not factual and myths become facts. There is no dress code at some sites. Even at sites where there are tertiary-educated ‘guides’, information is adulterated.
Highly trained heritage guides benefit both the tourists and the communities. Unfortunately, the tourism departments of our tertiary institutions have failed us. They are concentrating more on the other aspects of tourism, to the detriment of tour guiding. The Hotel, Catering & Tourism Training Institute (HOTCATT), which has trained many members of TORGAG, has been neglected. The good news is that it was mentioned in the president’s state of the nation address this year.
UNESCO has become aware of the importance of professional tour guiding and taken a proactive role in benchmarking heritage interpretation, especially in Asia. It has helped establish a Cultural Heritage Specialist Guide Training and Certification Programme at the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies. Manila has developed a “framework for an employment plan that will address the needs of tourists and operators in training future heritage workers such as competent and professional tour guides”.
TORGAG, with help from the sector ministry and the Ghana Tourism Federation, recently sourced funding from the Skills Development Fund of the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training ( COTVET) to train 170 members in customer service. But we have a lot to do. Representatives of the sector ministry, Ghana Tourism Authority, Ghana Tourism Federation (GHATOF)-TORGAG and tourism departments of tertiary institutions need to meet, examine and develop appropriate framework for the training of guides.
HOTCATT should be resourced and restructured to perform its role. There are enough committee reports on HOTCATT at the sector ministry to fall on.
The writer has discussed research and training for heritage guides with faculty members at the University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). Even though they are willing to help, funding is an initial problem. We can overcome this with help from UNESCO, ECOWAS, and other international organisations. At the local level, municipal, metropolitan and district assemblies ( MMDAs) can invest in the training of heritage guides for the sites under their jurisdiction. In the meantime, TORGAG will continue working with interested organisations to improve the interpretative skills of its community and site guides.
The writer is a member of TORGAG.
Phone: 0277544644
E-mail: snrpassah@gmail.com