Providing Technical Support

Communities will require ongoing access to all types of professional advice and support in the design, development, management, marketing and monitoring of their products.

Many of the issues raised in these guidelines point to the importance of capacity building and training programmes within the local communities. A skills assessment should be included in the social impact study. It is also important to ensure that product delivery and the product itself meet customer expectation. If these efforts are poorly executed, the product will fail to satisfy the customer. It is essential to discuss the elements that are necessary for a successful tourism product with the community when determining whether tourism is appropriate for that area.

In a study conducted by Dunn and Dunn in 1994, in Negril, Jamaica, vendors made it very plain that they did not wish to have any more short courses as they felt that these courses did not give them the required competencies to effectively sell their goods. A similar conclusion regarding short-term training courses is drawn in the World Wildlife Fund in its Guidelines for Community-based eco-tourism (p.21). Therefore, consideration should be given to providing longer courses to communities to ensure the proper development of competencies necessary for satisfying customer needs. Some areas training are:

• product development
• handling visitors, customer care and hospitality skills
• marketing and communication
• environment management
• entrepreneurship
• working and negotiating with commercial operators
• management skills, legal issues and financial control
• guide training including content development and delivery
• basic language training
• conflict resolution
• leadership
• team building
• management of change

Another useful method for building capacity and instilling confidence is allowing various communities at similar stages of development to meet to discussion issues on relevance to them their respective situations.

Financing of community-based tourism projects is bound to arise during discussions on community-based tourism development. Most projects will require financial support. However, the nature of the financial support needs to be determined on a project-by-project basis. The Government by way of information on access to financial institutions and incentive schemes can assist communities in this regard.

The databases of the Jamaica Tourist Board and the Tourism Product Development Co. can be made available to communities depending on the nature and type of data required to assist with the development of the business and marketing plan. The creation of the gateway portal for Jamaica (www.developmentgateway.org) is expected to link various sources of information together for ease of access. This should prove useful for the communities. However, the issue of connectivity costs for using the portal needs to be explored. The concept of business development parks that serve clusters of communities can also be explored. These business development parks can be created on a much smaller scale but in a similar manner to the UTECH Innovation Centre. This could form the basis of a business for someone within the community with the requisite education, business and technology savvy and the willingness to provide such a service.

PIOJ document - Guidelines for South Coast Project -
prepared by Carolyn Hayle