TRAINING INITIATIVES
The National Department of Tourism (NDT) as an initiative to implement Local Government Tourism Development and Growth Support Programme, partnered with the University of Pretoria and piloted the Capacity Building for Tourism Practitioners and Policy Makers Course, which is one of the four pillars of the support programme.
CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAMME FOR TOURISM PRACTITIONERS AT LOCAL GOVERNMENT
There is a five-day training course aimed at empowering tourism practitioners (Tourism Managers and Tourism Officers) and enhancing their insights into all facets of tourism. This will enable them to implement effective tourism oriented development initiatives.
Tourism officials are capacitated on tourism planning processes with a focus on providing practical skills and knowledge to promote tourism, market local destinations within municipalities including how to conduct basic tourism research, etc.
The Capacity Building for Tourism Practitioners course consists of the following modules;
- An Introduction to Tourism.
- Tourism Legislation.
- Integrated Tourism Planning.
- Tourism Research and Statistics.
- Tourism Asset and Infrastructure Management.
- Tourism Marketing.
- Tourism in the context of Local Government
TOURISM CAPACITY BUILDING FOR POLICY MAKERS AT LOCAL GOVERNMENT
This is a two-day training course aimed at empowering Local Government's Policy Makers (i.e. Mayors, MMCs, Councillors, Municipal Managers, Executive Directors and Directors) to understand the value of tourism and its benefits to the local economy, gain an insight into the role of local government in planning for tourism as well as to get a deeper understanding of the policies that shape local government's role in tourism.
The outcome of the training is that Local Government will have capacitated and empowered policy makers, who appreciate and understand the benefits of tourism to the local economy. The course covers the following modules;
- An Introduction to Tourism and its Economic importance,
- Tourism Legislation,
- Integrated Tourism Planning,
- The Role of Local Government in Tourism.
VISITOR INFORMATION CENTRE (VIC) TRAINING
The purpose of developing the training module for Visitor Information Centres is to capacitate VIC personnel to undertake effective tourism promotion, marketing and management including advanced dissemination of information to visitors. Based on analysis done during the development of the National Visitor Information Framework, it was evident that there is a lack of consistency in visitor services approach in South Africa. The training module content was tailor-made to include promotion of national tourism products in addition to local tourism offerings.
The main aim of this training is to capacitate the staff, standardise the level of tourism information provision at all visitor information centres in the country and improve service excellence.