Systems approach to design and development of a tourist guide training program: a case study of Sharjah tourism

ABSTRACT

This study is a scientific synthesis of developing and conducting a tourist guide training program focused on destination – Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA), a wing of the government of Sharjah, in pursuance of the target of attracting ten million tourists to the Emirate by 2021, has undertaken several promotional and developmental projects. One of the projects under such a pursuit is to design an effective tour guide training program and issuing licenses to successful candidates helping them in the process, to carve out a gainful career for themselves. Adopting a systems approach and grounding it on stakeholder theory the study is divided into six phases starting from benchmarking the tour guide training programs in the region as the first phase and ending it with the conduct and evaluation. The study establishes a systematic approach to develop a tour guide training cum licensing program taking into consideration a variety of factors and adding another dimension to the stakeholder theory. The process of designing a vocational training program established in the study should prove useful for tourism businesses bothered with training needs.

KEYWORDS:

• Tour guide
• tour operator
• training
• Sharjah
• UAE

Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to the officials of the Industry Professional Training Department of SCTDA for conceiving the project, allocating it to the Tourism Studies Department of Skyline University College and also for providing all the resources critical to the completion of this ambitious project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The project was commissioned and funded by the Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA), United Arab Emirates.

Notes on contributors

Mohit Vij

Mohit Vij is serving as Associate Professor in School of Business, Skyline University College, United Arab Emirates (UAE). He has made significant contribution in tourism academia through publishing in journals & books, national newspapers and trade magazines. Mohit has also been actively involved in tourism consultancy and training projects for UAE Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) such as SCTDA (Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority), RAKTDA (Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority) and ATDD (Ajman Tourism Development Department). His areas of interest are tourism marketing and sustainable tourism development. He was honored with Award for Excellence in Teaching 2017–18 & 2011–12 and Award for Excellence in Services 2014–15.

Amitabh Upadhya

Amitabh Upadhya is a higher education scholar and administrator with a PhD in tourism studies; he is associated with several international institutions as visiting professor and member of institutional advisory boards. Widely published in journals and periodicals Amitabh sits on editorial boards of several prestigious academic journals and is a regular reviewer for many of them. His recent area of academic interest has been industry academia interface and collaboration on destination marketing & management, and tourism socio-cultural studies. As an educationist Amitabh has been recipient of a few distinguished awards including Academic Leadership & Education Leadership. Currently he is a Professor at Skyline University College Sharjah UAE.