TOT in Adventure Tourism

Training of Trainers in Adventure Tourism

One of KEEP’s main elements within its Mission Statement is focused on Porter and grass-root guide welfare. Within this sector, KEEP not only runs the Porter Clothing Centre, and community programs but also a wide range of training initiatives designed to provide a better understanding of the environment in which the porters work. This improves their risk awareness and assessment capabilities, which, in turn, enhances the experience the trekkers have while trekking in Nepal.

People of all ages learn in different ways, through watching videos, role-play, lectures, activities, group discussions, and doing presentations, therefore it is important that trainers deliver their topics in a variety of ways to meet the participants learning styles.

The program was planned to run over three years and to deliver training to over 600 porter/guides. KEEP managed to deliver the first program but then due to the pandemic and the financial impact on tourism word wide the sponsor was unable to meet their commitments for the second and third years.

As a result of the pandemic future visitors to Nepal participating in adventure tourism activities, (mountain biking, trekking, kayaking, rafting, paragliding, etc) will expect a better and more professional service from the Nepalese agency staff in order to meet their expectations.

This program is designed to help experienced guides to lead training within individual agencies by providing the opportunities to develop more effective teaching techniques that will enhance the learning process of those in-house staff being taught, thus enabling them to be in a better place to meet and deliver client’s expectations.

This program is not based on delivering hard technical skills, agencies are in a better place to deliver those skills in-house. This program was specifically designed to give Agency staff the tools to deliver effective training/teaching for the soft skills of adventure tourism. The course was designed to make staff better teachers.

Over the last 14 years KEEP training programs have been delivered, in the main, in English, and by me. It was obvious that many of the porters and guides attending these programs only possessed basic English language skills and consequently, much of the information presented was beyond their understanding. One of the major issues for this happening is that I do not speak Nepali and that I provided training on a voluntary basis while experienced Nepali-speaking practitioners demanded a substantial fee. It was essential that if KEEP was to deliver effective training this must be conducted in Nepali and if the Nepali trainers demanded payment then KEEP required additional funding.

In 2019, KEEP secured a significant donation in order to run this initiative and train experienced guides to teach, and also to pay them a tentative amount. The Training of Trainers program was designed around developing effective teaching practices not technical trekking and mountaineering skills, as the potential trainers were required to have at least 5 years of experience in a professional capacity.

Criteria for participations who will be potential trainers –

• A minimum of 5 years of leadership experience
• A minimum of leading 15 recognized trips within their own sector of expertise
• The submission of a short letter of application, authorized with the company logo
• A small training fee is payable in advance by those accepted on the course
• Outline Program 10 days, 9.30 – 4.30 per day with lunch and all learning materials

By: Ian Wall 
KEEP International CEO