BTB, “Defining Customer Service and Leadership”

The Belize Tourism Board is elevating the services being offered in the local tourism industry. B.T.B. recently inaugurated its ‘Elevate Training Program’ for tourism stakeholders, under the theme ‘Defining Customer Service and Leadership’. The project started with its first workshop in San Pedro Town, Ambergris Caye. Today, the training program moved to Belize City where over fifty individuals who are employed in the tourism industry gathered to improve their customer service and leadership skills. We spoke with Abil Castaneda, the Director of Quality Management at B.T.B. about the program.

Abil Castaneda, Director Quality Management, Belize Tourism Board

Abil Castaneda

“We are rolling out our Elevate Training Program, which is a national training program for tourism across the country. The current program we have is one of five sub-programs we have under that larger scale scope of projects. This one is called the ambassador program which is specifically geared towards frontline training, hospitality training, communications, leadership, for workers of the tourism sector. So, right now this particular cohort is primarily your tour guides, your tour operator employees, your hotel employees, your restaurant employees, and we have engaged a Canadian firm called Lemon eight that is world renowned for this type of training. So, we are doing a first round of trainings in the country. In fact, we just came back from San Pedro and Caye Caulker where we did a similar training with stakeholders on that side. Today, we are in Belize City, next week we go to Northern Belize to Orange Walk and Corozal. Then, in July the Lemon eight comes back and assist us to the West of the country and then southern Belize as well. Before we started this particular program we started a country wide assessment in each destination along with the trainers to see where exactly the level of hospitality, customer service, was at each destination. In each destination there is an internal sort of level that we have assigned them. So, the trainings are geared towards that. So, the trainings we get in San Pedro for instance may not be the same type of training we get in Belize City depending on what the assessment shows. So, based on that we do post evaluations of the workshops and then because it is a three years program there is follow trainings that will also be provided.”