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Southampton set to offer visitors a special welcome!
Southampton Bargate
4th April 2008
Visitors to Southampton are set to enjoy a warmer welcome to the city after more than 200 frontline staff from different local businesses completed the unique Southampton Welcomes training programme. The programme was launched to help local businesses benefit from the increased number of cruise ship visitors to the Port.
Participants developed advanced customer service skills, through a scheme which combined UK-leading customer service training course Welcome Host with additional detailed knowledge of Southampton, to help visitors make the most of their stay.
230 staff from 41 different businesses ranging from taxi and coach companies to shops, restaurants, hotels and leisure businesses received customer care
awards at a ceremony at Dockgate4 Bar & Grill in Southampton on Thursday 17 April.
The programme was run by Tourism South East between January to March 2008 and incorporated a series of training courses and a guided walking tour of the city, to help improve participants’ familiarity with key attractions and services.
Southampton Welcomes was funded by The Learning and Skills Council and the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Skills for Productivity Alliance. The specially-tailored courses aimed to improve customer service skills and give customer-facing staff extra knowledge to help improve visitors’ experiences - encouraging them to spend more and stay for longer.
Sue Gill, Head of Tourism South East Training and Skills, said: “We were delighted with the positive reception from local businesses to equipping staff with advanced customer service skills. It was based on highly practical, focused training designed to improve the service they deliver to local customers and visitors on a day-to-day basis.
"It was a highly innovative programme tailored specifically to Southampton and we hope it will enable businesses to provide an exceptional welcome and to better highlight what the City offers to all visitors."
Tourism South East Tourism and Skills delivered Southampton Welcomes as a tailored programme through its Welcome to Excellence suite of customer service training courses, which have been taken by more than 300,000 people across the UK. For Further information contact Gill Heighington at Tourism South East Training and Skills on tel: 023 8062 5533 or at: www.tourismtrainingsoutheast.com
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