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The Palace Museum launched a tour guide training programme on Jan 13.Co-organized by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism Development, the program aims to ban illegal guides and maintain order in the industry.
The Palace Museum plans to train 600 tour guides. Once the number of professional guides reaches 2000, illegal guides will no longer be able to guide tourists in the Museum.
Beijing will gradually reform guide management and establish a professional team for capital tourism. Beijing now has 38,000 legal guides, 35,000 of them with only primary qualifications. 80 percent of the guides are under 30, which means their experience and historical knowledge may be limited. Some guides draw tourists’ attention with unofficial history and gossip stories, which is the program’s target problem, according to an official.
The training will be launched in the Palace Museum, and then at the other six World Cultural Heritages in Beijing, including the Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian, the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, the Ming Tombs and the Grand Canal.
The training will include six sessions. The Palace Museum pays high attention to the programme and has established a teaching team of experts. 600 guides with intermediate or senior qualification will take courses on the history of the Forbidden City, architecture, ceramics and jades.
There will be an exam after every session, according to Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum. In the future, if a guide wants to lead visitors in the Palace Museum, he or she must pass a test first. Qualified guides may enjoy a free visit to the Palace Museum at any time, while others need to be working.“Trainings for the guides outside the city are also in preparation” he said.
