Narva Department for City Development and Economy carried out training of guides for new tourist attraction «Casemates of Victoria bastion». The training objective was to prepare guides for the work with a new tourist object and improve Narva guides service.

BDA Consulting OÜ carried out the training.
Subjects of training were history of Narva and Narva bastions, exposition «Casemates of Victoria bastion», but special attention was paid to the role of a guide in the creation of visitor`s impressions, tourist product development, presentation of region through modern opportunities for guide work and practical skills as well. Customer services, service design, verbal technique, microphone use, artistic skills base, narrator skills, tourist services packaging were considered during the training.

Totally 22 guides were trained in two groups (Estonian and Russian speakers). On 3 September 2014 final exam took place, guides had to answer theoretical questions and carried out short walking tours. In the end of the day results were summarized. All participants got diplomas and evaluation sheets.

One of the participants, guide Jevgeni Olenin, positively evaluated the training: interest and usful aspects of training are a new challenge for work. It means that city guide is not only the narrator, but the first person for tourists in a new place. During the training we considered how to solve the following problems: how to introduce the city and country in short time; how motivate a tourit visit touristic objects as well as city events, cafes, shops, souvenirs shops. Therefore, during the final exursion it was nessasary to keep under control not only historical facts and keep smiling, but to carry on a dialogue with tourists, involve them in activities, create route suggesting additional opportunities.

Ülle Puustusmaa, manager of training from BDA Consulting OÜ, summarized the results : “Narva city is an amazing tourist place. Narva more and more discovers its own historical heritage for tourists. In the near future several new objects of interest will open in Narva, among them a modern exposition in casemates of Victoria bastion. During the training we were happy to see active development of the begginners and readiness of practical guides to share experience . The main training result is undestanding importance of target groups during compiling a programme for excursion and understanding the fact that guide is a visiting card, because his/her competence in region presentation and good contact with a tourist group are very important.

Training was implemented in framework of a large scale project „Development of the unique Narva-Ivangorod fortresses ensemble as a single cultural and tourist object”, which has been approved by the Estonia-Latvia-Russia cross border cooperation Programme within European Neighbourhood and Partnership instrument 2007-2013. www.estlatrus.eu Total budget of the project is about 6,9 million EUR. Programme co-financing is about 6,2 million EUR including co-financing from the State Budget of Estonia about 1,8 million EUR. Project is implemented by Narva City Government, Department for City Development and Economy together with and „Museum Agency” of Leningradskaya Oblast.

Anna Karina
Project overall manager
Narva City Government, Department for City Development and Economy
Phone: +372-35-99082