Jeonbuk Province, Customized Advanced Training for Local Ecotourism Guides

Jeonbuk Province will conduct an advanced training program for three days starting from the 28th at Wonsaek Myeonghwa Village in Jeonju for about 30 eco-managers (local ecological tourism guides) to promote community-led ecological tourism.

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Gominhyeong] Jeonbuk Province will conduct an intensive training program for about 30 eco-managers (local ecotourism interpreters) over three days starting from the 28th at Wonsaek Myeonghwa Village in Jeonju to revitalize community-led ecotourism.

Since 2015, Jeonbuk Province has been accelerating its ecotourism development project to utilize Jeonbuk's pristine natural heritage as a sustainable tourism resource in line with changing domestic and international tourism trends.

In particular, since 2017, the province has been supporting growth through education by discovering and nurturing eco-managers centered on local residents to enable autonomous operation of ecotourism councils and other organizations in the future.

An ecotourism eco-manager refers to a community-centered ecological activist within ecotourism sites who is responsible for complex operations such as interpretation and guidance to enhance understanding of the village, environmental conservation efforts, and raising awareness among tourists.

This training aims to recruit local interpreters (natural environment interpreters, forest interpreters, geopark interpreters, cultural tourism interpreters, etc.) and activists (various guides, guardians, etc.) to promote the stable professionalization of interpreters in the long term while integrating their experience and know-how into ecotourism sites across cities and counties.

The three-day training, conducted in strict compliance with quarantine guidelines such as mask-wearing, social distancing, and disinfection, invites experts from various fields to provide an in-depth course covering overall ecotourism operations in each region. This includes methods for local resource surveys, planning programs utilizing ecological resources by city and county, providing interpretation to visitors, and using online promotion.

Especially on the last day, the 4th of next month, comprehensive evaluation and assessment will focus on classifying eco-managers' competencies into levels 1, 2, and 3, with plans to strengthen customized training accordingly in the future.

A provincial official stated, “To cultivate skilled eco-managers, we plan to gradually expand region-specific customized training courses beyond basic interpretation and guidance, create distinctive ecotourism sites, operate differentiated programs, and encourage voluntary participation of residents to develop a higher-level self-sustaining ecotourism destination.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.