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Our guide for Bangkok City Tour

Image courtesy of re-ality

Objectives

US 18317, Version 1, Level 3, Credit 2 Demonstate knowledge of visitor interpretation - Element 1

Activity

Using the six key principles of interpretation:

1. Personality and experience of the visitor

Did the interpreter relate to something within the experience of the audidience or involve the audience?

• Audience profile - it is not always possible to know about your audience and the ways they best learn, before you meet them. They will however, have certain commonalities eg. age, gender, nationality, experience and will usually have an interest in the subject of the tour they will be taking part in.

First visual and auditory (listening) impressions may provide some clues about your audience:

• they are from a specific country or region
• they are speaking a certain language
• they may look of a similar age

The next step would be to ask some questions or try some communication techniques (before the tour gets started) which could help you learn more about them:

• tell a joke - see if they understand your sense of humour
• wear something or hold something up which may provoke a question from someone in your audience
• ask if there is anyone from a particular country eg. USA, then ask where others are from
• ask if there is anyone with a strong interest, or experience in the topic of your interpretation

2. Create an interpretation (weave a story into the facts) with a message from the factual information gathered

• (Revelation based on information)

3. Generate some thought, provoke a response and action from your audience

4. Address the whole - What is the big picture - if there is one thing you would like your audience to remember about the attraction then you must highlight the mainpoint or what is most important about the site in your interpretation in such a way as that they will remember it. eg. The main theme is best illustrated by your answer to the question "if a visitor spends time going to programs, looking at exhibits, etc. while they are visiting my site, by the time they are ready to go back home if they only remember or learned one thing about why our site is so special, that one thing better be__________________________! The answer to this question is "the whole." An example of such a theme might be "We are using state of the art land restoration techniques to improve this site for people and for wildlife."

Is an art and therefore teachable