South West Tourism -
Oldfield School
South West Tourism has responsibility for overseeing the South West’s thriving tourist trade, which is essential to the region’s economy and prosperity. The organization was partnered with Oldfield School in Bath, whose pupils learned that using the language of their customers was vital to tourism businesses if they wanted to be perceived as welcoming and professional. South West Tourism pressed home to the students that having a foreign language would help their chances of getting a job in tourism in the future.
Languages vital to attract visitors
Judy Graydon, Overseas Marketing Manager of South West Tourism explained: "In order to encourage and welcome more visitors from overseas destinations, we need to encourage a linguistic tourism workforce.
“We have a hard job in this country to encourage language learning given the importance of English across the world but it is important if we are to sell anything to those who do not have English as a first language. It is vital if we are to compete in attracting visitors from overseas to South West England, that we encourage language learning, and there's no better place to do that, than in schools."
Field trips give a taste of tourism work
Human Resources Manager of Bath Spa Hotel, Liz Ballinger gave a tour and presentation to a group of Year 10 students of the school to illustrate how the company communicates with customers from other countries and uses an understanding of other cultures through the course of its business.
South West Tourism organised a number of visits to tourist attractions and hotels in Bath for groups of 14 year old students From interviews held with the staff the students are going to come up with translations of the key phrases required and present these back to the establishments in order to help them communicate more effectively with their customers.
Tourist guides for young people
In addition to the visits year 8 students are also going to be designing some tourist booklets aimed at twelve year old foreign children and taking a look at South West tourism’s website.
Marie-France Perkins who teaches languages at Oldfields school described the value that the students got from the field trip: “To be working on the Business Language Champions project with South West Tourism has been very exciting. At Oldfield School, the Modern Languages Department has always been keen to develop links with industry as vocational language is taking a greater part in our curriculum.
“Promoting the use of Languages in the work place has shown our students the relevance of what they are learning. It is emphasising the need for our students to develop their skills in the languages that they are studying.
“The visits organised by South West Tourism have shown the use of Foreign Languages in a variety of contexts and situations from museums, hotels and other tourist attractions. Bath has got so much to offer to all tourists and being able to cater for tourists in their own languages adds to its international dimension.”
