Intercultural Workshops

“I attended Carole’s training for 23 days, and I am very thankful to her, especially for always encouraging us to argue with her, to question everything, which is not something we do in my culture. It taught me that I should not be afraid of saying what I think.”

She taught us everything about destination management so now I feel that I can be much better at my job at the ministry. She also trained us to teach what we learned. She also showed us how to make very complicated things very simple, which is very helpful because our communities are not well educated. So I felt very confident about delivering our community-based workshops in Liquiçá, and I felt very proud when she told me I had done very well.

I am also very thankful that she found funding to take us on field trips when we told her that we had not travelled in our country. The hike up Mount Ramelau was really hard and cold but it made me realise that my country has many beautiful places to visit. Now we will work hard to meet international standards to attract tourists.

“I attended ’mé Carole’s training in Lesotho for four weeks, two years in a row. In the first year, I learned how to make and sell excursions to the western market, how to access tour operators from overseas, how to price my packages and most importantly how to use social media and websites to promote my business with the use of videos and pictures. The training was an eye opener because it made us realise that Lesotho isn’t known to the international market and that we need to take responsibility to advertise our country. The second year was much more hands-on. I took ’mé Carole to hike in the Drakensberg Mountains and she gave me detailed feedback on how to improve every element of my tour. She also organised for me to sell my tour to a South African operator to grow my business. Since the training, I have also run tours to three regions identified as needing promotion and collaborated with Khotsofalang (one of the other trainees) to host an overnight tourism festival to earn more money. I hope she comes back again.”

“Carole is one of the best trainers that we have ever worked with. A natural communicator, she succeeds in making even relatively dull topics positively shiny. Carole delivered resource efficiency training to hoteliers in Morocco as a part of a project that RHP were managing for the Travel Foundation. Over the course of a three hour session, she ensured that each of the participants understood the issues, prepared an action plan and left the room with the necessary tools to reduce resource use in their respective properties.”

“About 40 representatives of hotels, restaurants, tour operators and tourism information centers took part in the training session on Responsible Tourism led by Carole. For the audience that was a very good opportunity to refresh perception about what is RT and how it may be relevant in Lithuania as developing tourist destination. On the other hand, we as lecturers took this occasion for a close look at a number of individual businesses and discussing their practices from a standpoint of RT.

Interestingly, most of participants admitted that before the session they associated RT exclusively with ‘green’. Moreover, they hardly could identify that some practices they were already following could be ascribed to RT. Finally, it was an enlightening idea for many of participants that there is a business case for applying RT principles in practice in our post-soviet country, which is still very dependent on Russian and Belorussian markets. That said, Carole’s online session was very helpful – especially as she knows Lithuania inside out. Her enthusiasm kept everyone focussed. The vast majority of the participants mentioned her workshop and the exercises she designed as the most inspiring part of our training.”

“We commissioned Carole to assist the Sustainable Tourism Committee with its strategic review. Her remit was to help restructure the role of the Committee and to help re-define sustainable tourism for the membership of over 120 members. Her approach was collaborative and enthusiastic, and her advice was practical and simple. She tailored solutions to the members and was realistic with expectations. Her training presentation was very well received, raising many questions answered with determination and clear expertise.

She challenged us to show in our operations how we are ‘sustainable’ rather than only claim we are it ‘on paper’. It was timely and refreshing to listen to her take on progressive methodologies in tourism, and her work will undoubtedly influence all those tour operators in AITO who aspire to the quality and expertise that is the hallmark of the organisation.”