The Most Effective Way To Deliver Better Tour Commentaries

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I REFER to the recent Bernama report “Motac calls for multilingual tour guides to improve tourist experience”.
After an engagement session with Negri Sembilan’s tourism industry stakeholders on Sept 22, Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing called on tour guides to master at least three foreign languages to improve communication and service quality for international visitors.
He said that language skills are essential to help tourists better understand Malaysia’s attractions, especially its historical sites.

Tiong disclosed that he has received complaints from foreign tourists about unclear and shallow explanations from tour guides, and some even struggled when speaking in English.
He said that mastery of additional foreign languages can help address this issue and added that his ministry does not specify which languages guides should learn, leaving the choice to them.
As of June, there were 9,386 licensed tourist guides nationwide, much lower than 15,701 registered in 2019.
I was a tour guide in 1973 before licensing was introduced in 1975. Later, I was actively involved in the training and assessment of tourist guides from 1990 to 2000.
During this decade, I was the organising chairman for tourist guide training courses in MATTA, and they were mostly held in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Langkawi.
I was invited by other training institutes to give lectures or to be an examiner for practical tests that included oral interviews and their commentaries when shown various transparencies and the passing scenery while on board a tour bus.
Normally, half the candidates would fail these practical tests, as many would be tongue tied.
(Image: The Star)This was because tourist guide courses then were lecture based and trainees did not have enough practice, although most could pass the written tests, which they could answer in Malay or English.
But for practical tests, they would have to choose one language at a time, or even a dialect such as Cantonese or Hokkien.
If a candidate has passed both written and practical tests, he may apply for a tourist guide badge and be licensed to do guiding for one language only.
However, those who are also competent in other languages may apply to sit for practical tests again, and upon passing, will be licensed for the additional language.
Here, Malay, English, Mandarin and Tamil are regarded as local languages; and popular foreign languages include Japanese, Korean, German and French.
Over the years, there had been attempts to conduct training for tourist guides to learn foreign languages, but had not been as successful as hoped for various reasons.
For example, from 2005 to 2009 when I was running MATTA School of Tourism which offered tourist guide courses, I was approached by a local Arabic language centre for collaboration.
However, most course participants were working adults and attending night classes and weekends, with little time left for other pursuits.
They were more concerned and focused in passing the tourist guide exams and obtaining the badge, so that they could do guiding part or full time.
Moreover, it is much easier to master a language by being immersed in a foreign country and forced to speak the language daily with just about anyone, and also learning the culture.
The longest established tourism training institute, still operating in downtown Kuala Lumpur, organised a Korean language tourist guide course in the early 2000s.
Its success seemed assured because one of its directors was a locally based Korean and he was passionate and hands-on in training.
While many of the participants completed the course successfully and were granted the licence to conduct guiding in Korean, they failed to secure assignments.
This was because the tour business is not as straightforward as outsiders may think, and could even confound tourism industry personnel.
There was even a tussle between tourism ministry officers and those from Tourism Malaysia, as they have different responsibilities and results to deliver.


They include licensing and enforcement by the former, and tourism promotions and development in the latter, which was best measured by tourist arrival figures.
Sadly, most tour guides have not truly mastered the language they are licensed for, then learning and guiding in another language would be worse.
Here, mastery of a language is beyond the ability to read and speak casually. Tour guides must be able to observe, think, describe and interpret professionally and meaningfully.
But most regurgitate what they have memorised, using the same facts and figures they have learned during training and to pass exams.
But such information can be found online and tourists interested could have learned about them before arrival, or if need be, on the spot using their smartphones.
Hence, it was no surprise when some tourists complained that explanations were unclear and shallow, as many tour guides gave disjointed information, unable to connect the dots.
Just like learning additional languages, the Continuous Tourism Related Education (CTRE) courses are of not much help in the guiding profession.
Tour guides are required to attend CTRE courses to renew their licence but few pay attention and apply new knowledge in their work.
This is because experienced tourist guides have already memorised what they have to say for the entire airport transfer of sightseeing tour, and would simply parrot out without making changes.
Instead of attending CTRE passively, participants should be made to repeat their commentaries in class. Chances are, half of what they said could either be inaccurate, wrong, outdated, unclear, not interesting or useful.
As the same mistakes are likely to be made by many others, correcting one is as good as correctly half the class.
And this is what training is about. Just like sports, it is not confined to listening to lectures but to demonstrate by performing repeatedly, and then have errors pointed out and weaknesses corrected.
But too many people involved in the training of tour guides stick to traditional methods. If so, the quality of tour guiding will not improve. 
YS Chan is master trainer for Mesra Malaysia and Travel and Tours Enhancement Course and an Asean Tourism Master Trainer. He is also a tourism and transport business consultant.

The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of  MMKtT.
- Focus Malaysia.

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