14 Newly Certified Tour Guides for Montego Bay

The resort city of Montego Bay now has 14 newly trained and certified tour guides.

The 13 males and one female, who previously operated as unofficial tour guides in the tourism capital, recently completed a 12-day course covering elements of customer service as well as Montego Bay’s cultural, historical and contemporary heritage.

The training was done under the Team Jamaica initiative and the Montego Bay City Guides programme, and is part of efforts to curb visitor harassment.

Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Homer Davis, commended the tour guides, noting that they have been empowered to make meaningful contributions towards the development of the city, the parish of St. James and the growing tourism sector.

“You must not allow anyone to destroy what you are out there to do. You have persons on the street who do the things that you do, but they are not certified. So what I would encourage you to do is to encourage them to get certified, because this is the first step in making sure that we all share a bit of the tourism pie,” he said.

Mayor Davis was speaking at the graduation ceremony held on Wednesday (March 20) at the offices of the St. James Municipal Corporation, which had partnered with the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCO) in organising the training.

He suggested that the Government “look at the legislative framework in order to make their activities legal, because even though they are certified, there is a law against soliciting as it relates to intercepting visitors to offer them a service”.