As British Columbia was getting ready to welcome the world during the 2010 Winter Games, customer service and job skills training was front-of-mind for many operators.
One of Canada’s Top Employers, Tourism British Columbia, leads the way in their commitment to tourism training. They use a myriad of training programs including their own SuperHost® (now WorldHost®) training services and emerit products.
Operating under the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, Tourism BC runs six visitor centres and supports more than 100 community-based visitor centre locations. Each visitor centre employee and volunteer is equipped with an emerit workbook or access to emerit’s online training resources as part of their job training program. The workbook includes occupational standards along with examples and exercises to help users understand what is required of their job, whereas the online resource offers the material with the addition of audio and video clips and interactive exercises.
Each year Tourism BC, in collaboration with go2, offers a scholarship to two Visitor Information Counsellors (TVIC) and two Tourism Supervisors from the Visitor Centre Network to support their completion of the emerit certification. At Tourism BC’s recent Visitor Centre Network Conference, three visitor centre information counsellors and three supervisors were recognized for demonstrating their commitment to their profession. They were awarded their designation as tourism certified professionals and tourism certified supervisors through the emerit program.
Among the recipients were Frances Franson, a TVIC at British Columbia Visitor Centre (BCVC) in Golden, and Lynne Romano, tourism manager of BCVC Golden as well as Frances’ supervisor. Tourism BC subsidized their emerit training as the organization sees the value of having their staff emerit certified and wants to encourage higher participation rate.
Frances has worked at BCVC Golden for three years. She describes the certification process as a “personal gratification, knowing that you have expanded your training and knowledge, as well as confirmation to others in the tourism industry that you are committed to the industry and that you are willing to go the 'extra mile' to be the best you can be for visitors, industry partners and yourself.”
In order to be emerit-certified, an individual needs to study the appropriate workbook, then complete a 100-question multiple choice exam and 400 hours of work experience, be evaluated through a visit from a “mystery shopper”, and finally, participate in a short interview.
According to Tania Loken, go2’s emerit coordinator, emerit-certified candidates are great assets to any organization. “emerit-certified tourism employees possess the skills to demonstrate professionalism in their respective occupations,” says Tania.
For Lynne, her training for the tourism supervisor program involved distance training for several months before she took her final test.
“In order to complete the requirements, I worked through a thorough set of workbooks and questions and completed a portfolio,” says Lynne, who has been at BCVC Golden since March 2007. “I really enjoyed the on-site visit. It really felt like we had accomplished something with honour to be given an on-site evaluation. The session was confirmation of the true professionalism that emerit offers its learners.”
Lynne is also a SuperHost®-certified trainer in the basic, disabilities and cultural awareness modules. She says she shares her knowledge and experience that her SuperHost® and emerit training has brought her with her staff as often as possible.
The six emerit recipients at the conference included:
Tourism Certified Supervisors (Tourism Supervisor)
- Nancy Gates (Vancouver Visitor Centre)
- Deb Chaffee (Dawson Creek Visitor Centre)
- Lynne Romano (BC Visitor Centre Golden)
Tourism Certified Professionals (Tourism Visitor Information Counsellor)
- Jody Howatt (Fort St. John Visitor Centre)
- Jai Farkas (BC Visitor Centre Golden)
- Frances Franson (Comox Valley Visitor Centre)
Above: Recent emerit-certified Tourism Supervisors and Tourism Visitor Information Counsellors (from left)
- Lynne Romano, Nancy Gates, Deb Chaffee and Jai Farkas - and go2's emerit Coordinator Tania Loken.
For more information on becoming emerit certified, click here.