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Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Visit Springfield wants you — businesspeople, residents, and other alike — to take a free online series of courses that could help grow tourism, and repeat tourism, to numbers not seen before. Visit Springfield’s Amy Beadle talks with WTAX’s Will Stevenson on the WTAX Morning Newswatch about the new “Online Tourism Ambassadors” program.
Beadle shares, “it is a free academy, it is online, you can sign up for the course just with your email address. There are 37 different modules in the course. It’s not that long, they are 2 to 5 minutes a piece. If you have a half hour, just take what you can, jump out, you can come back in and resume exactly where you are.”
Beadle also explained why tourism is so important, siting that last year Sangamon County had a record 603 million dollars in tourism income. Beadle states, “there is power in tourism. It’s jobs, hotels, restaurants, gas stations. Everything is affected by the influx of visitors.”
Beadle emphasized the goal is for tourists to come back and tell their friends and family about the great time they had in Springfield.
Beadle also gave us a little insight into some of what can be learned at the online Tourism Ambassador Academy like how to shake hands with someone, so they feel it’s genuine, or how to properly greet someone.
Beadle also shares at the end of the course there is a resource booklist for leadership and customer service books she has found helpful for her career.
Once you have completed the course you can print out a certificate of completion and you will officially be a tourism ambassador.
Listen to the entire podcast here.