Monday, May 22, 2006

National tour guide exam to be held overseas

The Construction and Transport Ministry is to hold a tour guide license examination overseas for the first time.

The first-stage written examination for the multilingual national tour guide license will be held in China, Taiwan and South Korea in early September at the same time as the test is taken in Japan.

The examination will be held in Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul and Taipei. The second-stage oral test will be held only in Japan.

In 2004, of the foreign tourists who visited Japan, 32.5 percent were from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. South Korean holidaymakers accounted for 25.9 percent of tourists.

However, only 9.2 percent of certified tour guides are licensed in Chinese and a mere 4.5 percent in Korean, forcing the government to train more qualified Chinese- and Korean-speaking guides.

(May. 22, 2006)

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060522TDY02010.htm

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