During a visit to Lhasa in November 2016 to follow up with participants of the USA Exchange Program and give marketing support to the members of the Tibet Eco Travel Collective, we received three requests for hospitality training.

Since the focus of the USA Exchange program is also shifting from focussing mostly on travel agencies to including more guesthouse and hotel owners in the program, we decided it was a logical progression to offer a basic hospitality training in Lhasa in April 2017.

IMG_2846

We started looking for trainers to build a team and we were fortunate to find Cameron Davenport willing to come to Lhasa from Bozeman USA to join Sam Voolstra to give the training. Cameron is very experienced in developing and managing tourism properties in the USA and South America. He has given lots of staff training over the years and helped hotel and guesthouse owners improve their service levels, marketing and management.

IMG_2848

Sam Voolstra is co-owner of a resort in Nepal since 2005 and has trained all levels of staff. She also has a wide experience in hotel marketing and management.

Together they developed a basic four day training focussing on guest relations and services. The hospitality training focussed mostly on practicing interaction between hotel staff and guests, in role play and group sessions. The training was in English, and translated in Tibetan. The training had 20 Tibetan participants from 9 different hotels and guesthouses based in Lhasa.

IMG_2850