Some 35 senior citizens from Tacloban City and nearby Palo town completed a community tour guide training program as part of the Department of Tourism’s (DOT) goal to make tour guides inclusive of all sectors.

The seven-day training included topics on first aid, Filipino Brand of Service Excellence, tour guiding, and a mock tour.

Among the sites included in the mock tour are the Tacloban City Hall, Madonna of Japan Shrine, Magsaysay Boulevard, the old provincial capitol building, and McArthur Park in Palo town.

In her message during the culmination on Thursday, DOT Eastern Visayas Regional Director Karina Rosa Tiopes encouraged the participants, whose ages range from 60-75, to “gather more reliable information and stories about their locality and enhance their story-telling skills.”

“Tour guiding is storytelling. Tourism is all about stories. You may have a very beautiful natural site, but that is just a site if there is no story to tell. As guides, we have a great responsibility to be able to bring out the best of our place, the place we call home. You are the heart of the tour,” she said.

The training also aimed to capacitate the seniors to provide excellent quality service of globally competitive standards to tourists.

After their program completion, they could now apply for DOT accreditation to become full-fledged tour guides, Tiopes said.

The training is in partnership with the local tourism offices of Tacloban and Palo, the municipality of Palo, and their senior citizen affairs offices. (PNA)