Maharashtra Tourism has announced a unique course for individuals who could showcase the essence of Maharashtra to the travelers as trained tour guides with unparalleled zeal and zest.
The Directorate of Tourism (DoT), Government of Maharashtra has adopted an ‘Online IITF Tourism Facilitator Certification Programme (Guide Training)’ designed by the Ministry of Tourism (MoT), Government of India to become part of the bourgeoning tourism industry to serve as high quality tour guides at the state level.
This is a digital initiative that aims of creation of an online learning platform to facilitate tourism learning at the candidate’s own time, space, path and pace, eventually paving the way for the creation of Certified Tourist facilitators/Guides of the Maharashtra Tourism.
The overall programme registration fee is Rs 2000. The SC and ST candidates, the candidates who are domicile residence of the Union Territory of Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir and the candidates who are the domicile residence of Aspirational Districts as identified by NITI AAYOG are exempted from registration fee), while the examination fee is Rs 500.
In order to encourage more and more candidates to pursue the course, The Directorate of Tourism (DoT) has decided to refund the programme fee of Rs 2000 to those who successfully complete the IITF tourism facilitator programme.
The eligibility criterion for the online programme is as follows: Candidates between the age group of 18-40 should pass at least 12thgrade. And, the candidate aged above 40 years should have passed at least 10thgrade.
Candidates will be awarded an Online Course Completion Certificate (OCC) once they successfully complete all the seven modules of the programme after which, the candidate will be eligible to apply for the exam.
Post the exam, the candidates will have to attend 7-days behavior skill training conducted by IITTM. Furthermore, the IITF Basic Certificate would be awarded to the candidates who successfully undertake the mandatory internship of 7 working days with tour operators approved by Ministry of Tourism, GoI in support with India tourism.
According to the procedure, after completion of all the tourism facilitator programme formalities i.e. online module completion with OCC, qualifying the examination, internship, behavior skill training, verification of documents and police verification, the successful candidates would be awarded IITF Basic certificate. After producing IITF Basic certificate by candidate, one day assessment training will be conducted by the Directorate of Tourism, Government of Maharashtra and following this assessment, the final certification will be awarded stating, “Maharashtra Tourism Certification / licensed Guide by Directorate of Tourism (DoT), Government of Maharashtra”.
The successful candidates will be allowed to give guide services any tourist destinations (except ASI sites) in Maharashtra as a Maharashtra Tourism Certified/licensed guide.
