141 Qualify As Tour Guides Licensed By Ministry

SERI KEMBANGAN: A total of 141 students from the Travex Institute of Tourism have become the country’s first batch of professionally-trained tour guides. They completed a diploma course last year to qualify them as tour guides licensed by the Tourism Ministry. Travex International College chief executive officer Kim Jung Pyung, who presented the scrolls at the graduation ceremony, said the course was aimed at meeting the demand for tour guides in tandem with the increasing number of foreign visitors.

One of the graduates, Yip Jin Hoe, 22, said he had always been interested in the tourism and hospitality industry as he was fascinated by the job ever since he was a child. “I’d always pictured myself to be either in the hotel industry or showing tourists around the places I’m proud of, especially in my hometown Taiping when others wanted to be lawyers or doctors,” he said. Yip, who graduated with a double distinction and obtained the world-recognised distinction tourism diploma from the International Air Transport Association, Canada, said he had already been offered a job as a tour guide by a travel agency. Travex Institute of Tourism founder and managing director Keriun Ong said Travex had come a long way since its establishment in 1985 to become a household name. He said the institute was responding to the call of the Tourism Ministry to have professionally-trained and multilingual tour guides.
-The Star