Photo: Gabriel Asenie for Rewilding Chile
Training tourism and conservation guides in Chile Chico: the value of sharing the life experience of a mountaineer
The program was launched with Patricia Soto, a renowned mountain guide and instructor, who was the first Chilean to climb Everest and complete the challenge of the seven summits.
Sitting among rocks and coirones, sheltered from the permanent wind of Chile Chico and on the shores of Lake General Carrera, the first class of the “Integral Training for Tourism and Conservation Guides” program began, an initiative promoted by the Friends of Patagonia National Park program of Rewilding Chile Foundation and Universidad Austral de Chile, Patagonia Campus.
The diploma, which also has the collaboration of Conaf, Sernatur, Per Turismo Aysén, the Regional Government of Aysén, and the Universidad San Sebastián, seeks to increase specialized human capital among the residents of Chile Chico, specifically in adventure tourism guides, through professional training courses that follow the standard required by Sernatur.
The first of these was called “Leadership and Soft Skills for Guiding,” a course taught by Patricia Soto, a renowned mountain guide and instructor who was the first Chilean to climb Mount Everest and to meet the challenge of the seven summits, the highest mountains on each continent. Patricia is also an academic in the career of Expedition and Ecotourism Management Engineering at San Sebastian University.
What are you looking for when you tell your experience to this group of Chilechiquenses?
“I want them to be injected with energy, to dare, to unite, to assemble, to work together to move forward in tourism, which is a very nice way to develop an area, to bring work, an income, but it has a dark side. If they don’t get together to see and decide what kind of tourism, what kind of client we want to deal with, what kind of service we want to provide, this can get out of hand”.
What is your call to them?
“To empower themselves, to believe the story of their capabilities, to be proud to be who they are, to continue contributing to the region. Tourism is a way to contribute to the care of nature, to make visitors fall in love with the territory”.
It should be noted that in this module, the students received knowledge related to motivation, leadership, teamwork, and conflict resolution, developing skills, and learning the use of tools for a quality tourist service considering the profiles of the groups and types of clients.
Regarding the updates that those who work in tourism should receive, Patricia explains that it should be permanent and that they should leave the first course as techniques and protocols change.
“My first aid course was 30 years ago, and I continue to take a new course every two years because knowledge keeps changing. We have to be constantly improving ourselves. The client is also changing; the previous client is very different from now, how services are contracted also changes, the techniques also, so the question is what comes next, and for that we have to continue training,” says Soto.
About the program
At Rewilding Chile Foundation, in addition to working on the creation of national parks and making efforts to restore ecosystems, another of the objectives is to generate links with local communities in the vicinity of national parks, developing initiatives that strengthen culture and natural heritage and promoting economic development as a consequence of conservation.
In this line is that this training program is generated for people linked to tourism in Chile Chico, a specialization designed based on the local reality and soon begins its counterpart in the commune of Puerto Montt, under the Friends of the Alerce Andino National Park program, for the inhabitants of the Chamiza River valley.
To learn more about the activities developed by the Friends of Patagonia National Park program, we invite you to follow the Instagram and Facebook account @amigos_PN_patagonia.