For some unauthorised foreign guides, the old red hospital building is Colombo’s oldest mosque

National tour guide lecturers hit by dearth of tourism arrivals, poor pay and unlicensed operators

Sri Lanka’s tourist guide lecturers have met diplomats from major tourist markets to persuade them to facilitate the arrival of more tourists from their respective countries, although they are hit by not only the dearth of tourists but also poor pay and unauthorised foreign guides.

The national guide lecturers’ meeting with the diplomats came as World Tourism Day was officially celebrated in Habarana on September 27.

Tour guide lecturers, like hundreds of thousands of others directly employed in the industry, have been hit by crisis after crisis that has affected the tourism industry, since the Easter Sunday terror attacks, followed by the Covid pandemic, and now the economic crisis.

Adding more woes to their plight is the issue of unauthorised persons, both local and foreign, acting as tour guides.

Sri Lanka Institute of National Tour Guide Lecturers (SLINTGL) Chief Manoj Maddage said the entry of unauthorised persons into their domain had hit them hard as they struggled to earn a living with a few tourists in the country.

SLINTGL director publications Senaka Jayadeva said the issue of illegal guiding was linked to the issue of a decent guide fee. He said that when national guide lecturers demanded a decent guide fee in keeping with guide fees in other South Asian countries, Destination Management Companies ( DMCs) opposed it on the basis that they could not pay higher guide fees due to the dearth of tourist arrivals.

He said that since the guide fee was charged from tourists, the companies should be able to pay it to guide lecturers. When the guide lecturers kept on demanding a decent fee tour, the companies would employ unauthorised persons.

“They would ask a driver or an unlicensed area guides to lead bus groups though this is illegal,” Mr. Jayadeva said. The tourists, as customers, have the right to be led by authorised licensed guides. If they are given unauthorised guides that it’s a serious violation of their rights, as per the agreement with the tour operators, he said.

The guides are now paid a fee of Rs. 3,500 a day. The SLINTGL has demanded that they be paid US$ 35 ( Rs. 12,500) a day. This is the amount tour guides are paid in other South Asian countries.

SLINTGL’s former secretary Sumedha Chandradasa claimed there were many unqualified and illegal foreign nationals who were working as tour guides in Sri Lanka.

National guide lecturers are pressing the authorities to stop unauthorised guiding by both locals and foreigners as it was detrimental in numerous ways to the already-weakened industry.

The group’s former president Mahinda Brandigampola said some 54 unauthorised persons had been detected and deported in 2019 because they did not have work visas. Among them were many Chinese, he said.

These unauthorised foreign tour guides did not have proper knowledge of our landmarks, he said.

“They would point to the Hospital Square’s red building that was once the eye hospital and say it was Colombo’s oldest mosque,” Mr. Brandigampola said. “Some have even told the tourists that the architect of the Dalada Maligawa was the world renowned Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa. They distort the country’s heritage.”

Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority ( SLTDA) officials said they investigated complaints of unauthorised guiding, and the Immigration Department would take action to deport any foreigner working as a tour guide.

The country has about 16 Tourist Police stations, which are not enough to deal with the illegal issues besetting the industry. The SLTDA officials said they had called for the expansion of the tourism police force.

A problem the SLTDA faced in arresting unauthorised tour guides was tourists being abandoned without a guide.

As regards the guide fee, the SLTDA said that its request for a higher guide fee had been turned down by the Sri Lanka Inbound Tour Operators Association ( SLAITO), an umbrella organisation of tour operators, citing the pandemic and the economic crunch.

Sri Lanka Tourism’s former chairperson Kimarali Fernando said the industry was controlled by DMCs (tour companies) which, for various reasons, were not giving a decent guide fee and allowing unauthorised foreign guides to operate in Sri Lanka.

These unauthorised persons without any knowledge about the country and its people may speak the language of the tourist but would give wrong information about the country. If they so wish they could follow the relevant course and become a licensed guide lecturer, she said.

“I am not against foreigners engaging in lawful occupations here, but one must follow the law of the land,” she clarified.

She also called for proper training for our guides to give a better service to tourists on par with international standards.

“With the help of Australian Aid, we had a project to upgrade guide lecturer courses and we were studying the syllabus of Thailand and South Africa, to improve the quality of the guide lecturers in line with the industry’s best practice. Guides in Africa have some amazing knowledge of their wildlife, while Thailand receives some 38 million tourists a year,” she said.

With months of training and passing exams and having spent some Rs 80,000 for the course, can one expect these people to work for a meagre guide fee, she asked. “While recommending a higher fee, I also worked to improve the quality of the profession,” Ms. Fernando said.

The guides as the cliché goes are “the unofficial ambassadors,” who would represent their country to the foreign tourists and market the country as a tourism destination, she said.

She said that in terms of the current law, the Tourism Police is not empowered enough to arrest unauthorised persons working as tour guides.