Smile

Tourism Education Program

Program Concept:

The idea of Tourism Education schooling program, "Smile" is a complement t0 an effort to deepen the culture of tourism in the community by focusing on the educational community, as well as growing the awareness of a comprehensive understanding of interactive elements ( both tourist and host) as the parties to tourism’s simple process. This is to be achieved through various activities with a commitment to the duties and rules that govern the conduct of both sides.

Objectives:

• Strengthening the national affiliation and loyalty by paying attention to the importance of national pride and tourist tenets and aspects of civilization and historical sites in the Kingdom and work persistently for their preservation.
• To deepen the concept of tourism education among the member of the society, so that they can apply and practice the positive behaviors of tourism (for themselves and others).
• Instilling a culture of tourism activity in the youth, thereby contributing to the resettlement of the work culture in the tourism sector in the regions.
• Promoting the principle of respect, understanding and acceptance of others.
• Increasing exploration, education and passion for self-development through interaction with others.
• Developing and promoting a culture of positive relationship between the tourist and the host.
• Love for discovery and learning and self-development through interaction with others.
• Enhancing the connivance of tourism concepts in society through the provision of role models from the key tourism partners (Tourist, Recipient, Place, Tourism-program).
• Activating the participation of families through the transfer of tourism concepts to students through training aids and educational events.
•  achieving a high degree of positive interaction by the students and their families with the concepts of tourism culture, and strengthening its components to become part of existing social culture.
  
  Targeted Community:

The program targets the school community represented in (students and teachers) in public and private educational sectors across the Kingdom.

The target groups are:

·         Students.

·         Teachers.

·         The families of students and teachers.

Why the school community?

The school community has been selected to be an incubator for this program for several reasons due to its implied qualities reflected as follows:

-          One of the most disciplined communities (regularity of educational process and programs), and the ability to interact and accept, time-frame and viability for adoption.

-          An education environment who’s most important objective is transfer of knowledge, promote and guiding behavior of the learning community.

-          Overlap of educational community on other segments of society and its impact on their institutions.

-          To achieve geographical and social diversity

-          Ease of application and flexibility of time (i.e. the existence of the structured template with clearly defined and codified beginning and the end of time, governed by a fixed date).

-          The presence of the environment and the appropriate operational framework for implementation (programs, activities, educational trips and visits in addition to normal curriculum).

-          Extra-curricular activities of various dimensions, including visits, trips and summer programs which can be designed and implemented in a manner that serves the objectives of education and tourism sectors alike.  This is in addition to having the service goals that meet the education and contribute to the promotion of positive tourism culture.

Program Implementation:

The cooperation agreement between SCTA and the Ministry of Education, which was signed on 11/04/2004, is the beginning of the implementation of the Tourism Education School Program “Smile”.  The project team has developed an operational plan in two phases.  The first phase included training of trainers and teachers, and the second phase is the stage of training students in middle and secondary schools.

Trainers Training Period:

The project’s team envisages the program implementation plan for this phase by identifying the training schedule and the criteria for the nomination of educators after the evaluation of candidates.  Figure (1) illustrates the steps to implement the training program for trainers. 

Training of educators:

In this phase 65 educators were trained, who were nominated by the Ministry of Education from all the provinces of the Kingdom. The trainers were selected from 42 educational institutions to train the teachers, who will in turn train the students in this program. The teachers were selected based on their previous experience in the field of training in student activities. The decision for nomination of the trainers was assigned to the administrators of education programs, training supervisors, activity supervisor, and the activity leaders.

Training stages of 51,000 students:

In this phase, students from intermediate and secondary schools (Boys) were trained in all the provinces. The selected students were the most disciplined and an interactive social group with their possible impact on other segments of the society and institutions.  In the first academic year 2006–2007, the program implemented 1700 training courses with 30 students in each session.  Bringing the total trained students, in accordance with the plan, to 51,000 from all education institutions in the Kingdom that numbered to 42 institutions.

In all 1700 package tours were implemented to a number of archaeological and tourism sites in all regions of the Kingdom.

Training Phase of 100,000 Students:

100,000 students across the Kingdom were trained during the second semester of the academic year 2007-2008 and the first semester of the academic year 2008-2009.  The second phase of “Smile” program was inaugurated on Tuesday, May 6, 2008, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, represented by the Al Ahsa Directorate of Education (Boys).

By the end of the academic year 2008-2009 the program has been designed to train 100,000 students, as follows:

• The number of sessions held in this phase was 3340.
• 3340 excursion trips were conducted during this phase.
• 42 coordinators were involved.
• 1260 trainers had participated in implementing the courses from all educational departments in the Kingdom.
• 1823 schools hosted the training programs (both middle and secondary schools).

Ulysses Award 2008 of Tourism Creativity:

“Smile” program won the Ulysses Award 2008 for Tourism Creativity. The award is granted by World Tourism Organization (WTO) in Madrid, Spain. This award is given for leading projects being implemented by the government tourism authorities, tourism enterprises, and non-profit organizations for their excellence in contributions to support tourism organization and other related fields, such as environment and society in general. The Ulysses award is also given in recognition of innovation and employment of knowledge in the organization of tourism, as well as to outstanding researchers for their outstanding contributions to the knowledge of tourism.

The areas Ulysses Award 2008 are:

• For the leading contributions in raising the awareness and knowledge of tourism.
• For creative tourism projects implemented by governments as public sectors in partnership with private sectors.
• For tourism innovation projects carried out by the tourism businesses.
• For creative tourism projects implemented by non-profit organizations (non-governmental institutions and social institutions).

-          The training of students

-          The training of educators