Training Guides

ITIHAAS excels in training tour guides to enhance their content delivery and other critical skills intrinsic to their job. An ITIHAAS guide training programme includes imparting interpersonal and soft skills, technological capacity building, socio-cultural sensitization and sharpening knowhow around research and fact-checking. The training sessions adhere to government recommended approaches and modalities. Following are a few examples of these training interventions. These trainings are held in partnership with various state tourism departments, and private and government-run museums. As a direct impact, these trainings have led to an increase in visitor footfall, attracting overwhelmingly positive feedback from a range of patrons, including an esteemed delegation of educators from Bhutan.

Guide Trainings with NSDC

The National Skill Development Corporation collaborated with ITIHAAS to organize a series of ‘bridge course’ workshops across 15 cities, certified by the National Skill Development Corporation and focused on upskilling the existing workforce of tour guides. The courses were designed to give the participants an exposure to contemporary trends and more effective ways to connect with their audience. Carried out in several batches between 2019-21, the project impacted 3,000 tour guides from UP and MP Tourism, privately-run city museums in Udaipur, Jaipur and Jodhpur, those managed by the Neemrana Group of Hotels, and the National Museum and the Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti in Delhi. Other cities include Gwalior, Bhopal, Jhansi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lucknow, Ajmer and Patiala, with a special focus on high footfall attractions.

Guide Trainings with City Palace, Jaipur

The Jaipur City Palace invited ITIHAAS to train 200 guides who have been associated with the prestigious institution for years, and contribute to preserving its significant legacy. The intervention resulted in a marked improvement in the visitor experience and the forging of newer linkages between the various strands of the palace’s tangible and intangible heritage. Designed to be a 2-day intervention, the guides were provided ITIHAAS’ standard upskilling techniques, along with a specialized training in the nuances of the palace’s exquisite miniature paintings gallery, which enriched their work further.

Guide Upskilling with MakeMyTrip Foundation

These included extensive primary research, which led to the identification of several walking routes along which immersive heritage walks were curated and delivered, apart from the training and capacity building of guides identified by ITIHAAS, supported further by MA (History) students from the Allahabad University. It was arguably the first time that women from the city were engaged as guides. It was also the first time that ticketed heritage walks were made available to the visitors inside the mela enclosure. The project largely involved local boys and girls, apart from other residents of the city, who took great pride in talking about their vibrantly unique city.

ITIHAAS is in the process of developing and curating more such events across diverse geographies and cultural contexts. Watch this space for the updates. The MakeMyTrip Foundation engaged with ITIHAAS to organize a series of guide upskilling programmes, in their ongoing effort to enhance the overall travel experience available in the country. The engagement focused on helping the participants get hands-on with technological tools and harness the power of social media. The intervention strengthened ITIHAAS’ vision to help tour guides have more agency and confidence to operate in the evolving tourism ecosystem. It was a stepping stone for our long-term goal to enhance the structure, viability and dignity associated with this profession.

All India Guide Competition

ITIHAAS organized a national-level competition that invited professional tour guides to showcase their work through video submissions. These were assessed by an eminent jury, and the best entries were awarded cash prizes. This instilled a sense of pride in the participating guides for the commendable work they do. It also helped ITIHAAS expand its country-wide network of custodians and collaborators. The only one of its kind in India, this platform enabled guides - the most critical yet underpaid stakeholders in the domestic tourism sector - to attain professional agility in the existing landscape of online content consumption. This is an important step in ITIHAAS’ larger objective of building an online portal through which tourists may book their guides directly.