7 News Belize

Horse and Carriage Drivers Learn Courtesy
posted (February 21, 2011)
The horse and carriage rides are a popular tourist attraction in the city - but now the Tourism Board is trying to make the guides more knowledgeable, courteous and tourist friendly.

They've received training and Monica Bodden went for a ride today to see how that went…

Horse and buggy operators gathered at the memorial park - to receive certificates - after completing a four day training called - Belize City Historical Tour Course.

Laura Esquivel-Frampton, BTB Dir. Quality Assurance
"This is a specialize training that we decided to offer primarily to the horse and buggy operators within the Fort George Tourism Zone and we do intend to extend this course to other people within the zone who are offering Belize City tours. It is the Belize City historical tour course, we hired historian Mr. Fred Hunter to talk to these participants. He created like a little manual if you will and has been imparting his long knowledge on the history of Belize City to these participants and we really want to do is enhance the knowledge of people within the tourism industry so that they can give a better tour and then better them tour themselves through that."

After the ceremony was over, the media was taken on a horse and bUGGY tour around the north side of the city.

Laura Esquivel-Frampton, BTB Dir. Quality Assurance
"It's very important. We found that we have people who are giving city tours who unfortunately were pointing our wring buildings and missing very historical buildings, just simply because they weren't aware and so we need to have this awareness so that we can improve the overall image of our city as well and that people know that yes this is a cruise stop but it is also a historical place within the country of Belize."

"The training was four days long and it includes some theory in the classroom but it also had Mr. Hunter taking out the participants on a tour himself and pointing out these buildings and these different locations and giving date and little quick facts to the participants."

The participants all agreed that they have gathered a wealth of knowledge over the past 4 days -

Laura Esquivel-Frampton, BTB Dir. Quality Assurance
"The participants at first they were a little hesitant, they were wondering why they had to do this course but coming out of this course this morning a lot of them said that they learn so many things that they haven't known before. They seem very grateful that we provided this course for them."

Training and certificates have also been provided for the hair braiders….

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