The United Kingdom is using a made-in-B.C. customer-service training program to prepare its tourism industry for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
The B.C. government said in a release Wednesday morning that WorldHost Training Services, as the program is called, trained approximately 39,000 tourism industry volunteers and staff in preparation for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
“Our price tag for this particular license is US$100,000, which gives the licensee geographical rights to the U.K.,” said Raymond Chan, an assistant deputy minister at the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts. “They searched worldwide and B.C.’s WorldHost customer service program continually came up.”
A program of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, WorldHost was initially launched as SuperHost to prepare B.C. for Expo 86.
The government said it has granted more than 20 international licenses for the program, which in turn has been used to train nearly one million people worldwide.
People 1st, an industry-organized council representing the U.K.’s hospitality, leisure travel and tourism industries, will be using WorldHost.
The government said that organizations delivering the program are licensed to administer workshops and are trained by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts.