(Posted 26th November 2024)
Alain St.Ange, who travelled to Almaty in Kazakhstan at the invitation of
‘Visit Almaty’, the Almaty Tourism Department of Kazakhstan, was
working alongside local Kazak tourism training personality and official
guide Mrs Zhanar Gabit and Mr Tom Buncle, the Managing Director of
‘Yellow Railroad’ International Destination Consultancy to speak at
training sessions, an event totally dedicated to the Tourism Industry in
Kazakhstan organised for tourism related or industry support managers
working in different fields of government i.e. tourist police, rescue,
destination management, museums, customs and border guards.
Alain St.Ange, Head of Saint Ange Tourism Consultancy is also the Vice
President of the ‘World Tourism Network’ (WTN). He was a former
Minister of Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine of the Seychelles
and was a candidate for the post of Secretary General of the UNWTO
(United Nations World Tourism Organisation) now rebranded as UN
Tourism and was one of three candidates vying to be President of the
Seychelles in the island’s 2020 Presidential Elections. Alain St.Ange
manages the international affairs of WTN with organisations such as
WTTC, Destination International and tourism ministers in the 133
countries WTM members reside and operate from.
These training sessions in Kazakhstan concentrated mainly on
managers to empower them to follow up with training of their
department’s personnel on better ways to work with tourists in a manner
to show the country is attractive for tourism.
The Organisation rallied some 300 government delegates divided into 10
groups with 30 people for all day sessions spread out over two days.
“The knowledge of international tourism is average. The employees
understand what tourism is in general. And Kazakhstan is a new
destination on the world tourism map so many people do not understand
how to deal with foreigners. The format is the Facilitation training that will end with an extensive Q&A session” said a representative of the
organisers before adding: – “Mainly, the goal of this government
organised training program is: To firm up the understanding of
International standards implementation importance in hospitality industry to create ‘friendly’ environment for international visitors and to train people the high standards of behavioural norms towards visitors. Which can be addressed to Global awareness of Kazakhstan as friendly tourist destination”.
Alain St.Ange took on his sessions with “What is Tourism” and how each
and every Manager in attending the sessions can help tourism in
Kazakhstan to be consolidated. He also encouraged the Kazakhstan
authorities to work with its Central Asia countries and to develop a new
‘Central Asia Tourism’ as a new destination.
“I was amazed by what Kazakhstan has to offer the discerning travellers
looking for a new destination. The have the most incredible mountains
just 30 minutes for Almaty City centre with ski-slopes offering four feet of
snow now and this at very high altitudes, they have the rivers offering
incredible white-water rafting and they have lakes and a desert. They
have canyons, great nature as a remarkable asset and they people and
culture remain unique as they are not Asia and they are not Europe, but
well established as a tourism centre in Central Asia and are Eurasian”
St.Ange said as he encouraged the authorities to embark on cooperation
of collaboration with the likes of World Tourism Network (WTN) that can
help open up tourism to become a solid pillar of the economy after oil
and gas that they are so blessed with.
