The CEA will teach a course endorsed by SECTUR-ICTUR to nature-oriented tourist guides

In addition to instructing how to guide a group with professionalism, the course aims to train the guides themselves to detect the changes in the marine-coastal ecosystems (early warning), that sustain their commercial activity.

Por Iván Penié.

Recently, CEA received authorization to teach the course "SEA TURTLES, THEIR ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE TOURISM ACTIVITY", from the Instituto de Competitividad en el Turismo (Tourism Ministry), since the CEA is a official training institution accredited by the Quintana Roo Ministry of Labour, as well as having the endorsement of the Natural Protected Areas authority, to carry out the comprehensive training program for tourist guides, according to Mexican NOM-09-TUR-2002.

The General Objective of the course is: To form human resources with the ability to guide, interpret and provide current and interesting information to the visitor about sea turtles and their environment; demonstrating a specialized service attitude to guarantee the total experience enjoyment; with the ability to early detect alterations in the marine-coastal ecosystem, in order to carry out the activity ahead to safety and sustainability.

The course it is divided into five theoretical-practical modules with specific topics directly linked to the activity carried out by tourist guides, based on the non-extractive use of sea turtles in their natural environment. In addition to oral presentations, various Didactic Resources are used in the course, such as the distribution of a "Guide Manual" (digital); audiovisual materials; evaluation of specific cases; demonstrative practical activities and other group activities.

The knowledge acquired in the course is evaluated both theoretically (30% of the final evaluation) and in practice (65%), since a sixth module exclusively includes an individual practical evaluation, where not only the application in the practice of the acquired knowledge, but the satisfaction of the tourist on the performance of the guide is evaluated (5%).

The course is taught as Training Agents by researchers and professionals with at least 6 years of experience in modules and specific topics, especially in the Akumal area, where they currently carry out various research projects, environmental monitoring, management and environmental education; This will allow direct linkage and progressive monitoring of the training of the guides, through the evaluation of performance indicators and direct participation in the studies of marine planning and load capacity.

With a total duration of 11 days, the course is valid for 42 hours of training, annually creditable for tourist guides not only for its duration, but also for the inclusion of content specifically linked to the conservation and sustainable development of the marine-coastal ecosystem that it supports all tourist activity and, especially, sea turtles. The hours and days of the course try to impact as little as possible the guides working hours, so the theoretical sessions are planned to start at 5:00 p.m. and the practices will be also at noon.