Local Guide Training Expert

Trade Facilitation & Customs Support Programme

الوصف الوظيفي

FCDO Trade Facilitation and Customs Support (Tasdeer)

The Trade Facilitation and Customs Support programme (Tasdeer) is a three-year programme funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and implemented by Cowater International.

The objective of the Tasdeer programme is to improve the Palestinian private sector’s competitiveness and the PA’s capacity in the fields of trade, customs and import policy regulation and administration. The Tasdeer programme aims to increase sustainable private sector-led economic growth and job creation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the PA’s fiscal sustainability while ensuring equitable access to increased trade and improved institutional capacity. Gender Equality and Social Inclusion is a main tool and objective for Tasdeer to ensure the benefits of the programme are equally accessed by the diverse groups of men and women in the supply chain.

Tasdeer is designed to be flexible and adaptive and works politically and technically to make progress across four keys interrelated Workstreams:

Workstream 1: Support to expedite the movement of goods and reduce transaction costs. This workstream aims to develop systemic interventions that will seek to expedite the movement of goods and contribute to impactful reductions in transaction costs for Palestinian imports and exports.
Workstream 2: Support to improve Palestinian trade-related institutions and business enabling environment. This workstream aims to improve Palestinian trade-related institutions and strengthen the trade operating environment.
Workstream 3: Support to improve the private sector’s skills and innovation to export and create jobs. This workstream aims to support activities that will help Palestinian firms increase their exports through the application of a market-driven approach. This market-driven approach will identify potential buyers/markets while exploring the linkages between the buyer, the firms, and its suppliers.
Workstream 4: Support to improve PA’s Customs readiness to assume functions from Israel to collect revenues from trade-related taxes. This workstream aims to provide technical assistance to enhance the capacity of the PA (Palestinian Authority) Ministry of Finance Customs Department including the possible transfer of additional custom functions from Israel to the PA and to limit fiscal losses from inefficient clearance mechanism of trade-related taxes between the PA.

The interventions implemented by each workstream are designed to take into consideration the roles and needs of women, youth, and people with disabilities, including those in marginalized areas (i.e., East Jerusalem, seam zone, area C and Gaza), ensuring that all interventions and activities are GESI (Gender Equality and Social Inclusion) responsive.

Background:

Holy Land Incoming Tour Operators Association (HLITOA) is the incoming tour operators’ representative body in Palestine and is considered a major player in organizing the Palestinian tourism industry. HLITOA is a non-profit organization run by an elected board and has a membership of 48 tour operators who sell tour packages not only to visit Palestine but also to visit Jordan and Israel.

Tourism plays an important role in the Palestinian economy. Palestinian areas receive more than one million visitors each year. However, most tourists coming to Palestine stay for only a few hours and the revenue and employment benefit to the Palestinian economy are correspondingly lower than for regional counterparts. Palestine currently receives two large streams of foreign visitors (forms 90% of the overall tourism): . Moreover, Free Independent Tourists (FITs) forms only 10% of the overall incoming tourism. Increasing the economic impact of the tourism sector will require expanding the value added from these two existing streams of visitors, while engaging in strategic tourism promotion to expand the number of visitors and the money they spend in Palestine.

Holy Land Incoming Tour Operators (HLITOA) is leading an initiative to improve the tourism sector in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) with the aim of increasing the number of Free Independent Tourists (FITs) who visit Palestine. Currently, the incoming FITs to Palestine form 10% of the total number of tourists in Palestine.

As part of improving the demand on FITs tourism packages and increase the number of incoming FITs, HLITOA with the support of tasdeer intends to implement several interventions such as subsidizing 3 FITs tourism packages, updating YAHALAH.com website and building the capacity of around 20 local tour guides.

Tasdeer and HLITOA plan to utilize an effective tourism message that reflects the diversity and richness of Palestine whether it is religious or cultural or experiential to be used in social media targeting individual international visitors.

Hence; Tasdeer and HLITOA intend to hire a licensed guide to train local youth and individuals interested in providing Palestinian flavored information to tourists and visitors on the sold through Yahalah.com platform.

Objectives of the Assignment:

Tasdeer and HLITOA intend to hire a to provide training and coaching program for around 20 young Palestinians interested in walking with the tourists/visitors to provide the Palestinian story on the selected three packages. Eventually, the young trainees will be hired by HLITOA to walk with the Individual tourists and provide local guiding services. The Training will focus on building the capacity of the participants to be able to provide high quality tourism guiding services in which will enable the incoming tour operators to utilize in all future packages targeting FITs. The training should include training sessions in addition to personal coaching customized to the following three identified packages.

The three identified packages in the Old city and its surrounding (see attached details on the tours):

1, Culinary Tour

2, Jerusalem Panoramic Tour

Cultural Tour

متطلبات الوظيفة

Scope of Work:

1. Get acquainted with the selected themes with the goal to suggest enhancements on the tour to make it more appealing and fitted with the selected time frame of either 4 hours tour or 6-8 hours tour.

Develop a curriculum for the three selected themes with the goal of having on-hand material to train more young Palestinians to become local guides in the future
Provide professional training to the selected participants and coach them on how to provide services to mainly individual tourists and to groups of up to 9 individuals.
Provide guiding services (as a mentor) with the participation of selected participants to showcase real example of services.

Based on the scope of work, the hired consultant will be responsible for:

Assessment and Benchmarking: the consultant will assess the participants skills and create a benchmark to be used as a future reference to measure the impact of the assistance
The consultant is expected to design a training Curriculum (informational based on the selected themes) that would include historical data and information. .

Provide professional in class training on the curriculum and as a next step provide practical training by walking the selected paths to check the readiness of the participants to provide local guiding.
Training would include enhancing communications skills and ethical standards to provide the best service possible for the tourists and visitors of Jerusalem.

Provide joint guiding with selected participants
Reporting: Consultant is expected to deliver:
1. Inception report
2. Assessment report and benchmarking
3. Developed Curriculum
4. Coaching plan
5. a final report that includes the implementation methodology, main results, and recommendations.
Please note: all generated material in particular the curriculum will be owned by HLITOA and for its sole use and cannot be used without its written consent.

Personal Skills:

A Licensed Guide with at least 10 years’ experience
Knowledgeable of Palestinian culture and the history of Jerusalem and the Old City.
Previous training and educational experience
Strong professional knowledge of the Palestinian Incoming tourism sector.
Experience in leadership and group facilitation skills.
Excellent communication skills (written and oral Arabic and English) are an essential requirement.

The deliverables for this assignment are as follows:

No. Deliverable

1 Inception report

2 Assessment and benchmarking

3 Training materials

4 Training implementation

5 final test, scores and recommendations per each participant Report

6 Coaching 7

Closing report

*In addition to CV, applicants are expected to submit a technical proposal that highlight the methodology and workplan that will be followed during implementation.

Geographic coverage and duty station:

The consultant is expected to cover Jerusalem during the assignment in close cooperation with HLITOA. They will be expected to maintain regular contact with Tasdeer. In addition, all activities of the assignment should consider gender, small-scale youth, and PWD (People with Disabilities) traders, for the duration of the assignment.

تفاصيل الوظيفة

المسمى الوظيفي Local Guide Training Expert

آخر موعد للتقديم 03 - Oct - 2022

المكان القدس

نوع الوظيفة العقود والاستشارات

المستوى المهني إدارة عليا/تنفيذي

الراتب TBD

الدرجة العلمية الماجستير

الخبرة 10 سنوات

التصنيف الإدارة والأعمال الفندقة والسياحة

آلية التقديم

Candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible to [email protected] no later than Thursday, 3rd of October 2022. For your application to be considered, please upload your documents as follows: Candidate Last Name, First Name, date, Title of the Position.

Cowater International is an equal opportunity employer, basing employment on merit and qualifications as they relate to professional experience and position expectations. Cowater does not discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of race, religion, sex, gender identity, disability, age, or any other basis protected by law.

We thank all applicants, however only those shortlisted will be contacted.

ABOUT US
With more than 35 years’ experience, Cowater International is Canada’s global leader in management consulting services specializing in international development and has managed the implementation of over 800 projects in more than 80 countries around the globe. We work with governments, partner organizations, communities and civil society to design and implement sustainable solutions that generate lasting social, financial and environmental impacts. Our adaptive approach to management has led to our award-winning work and recognition as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, Cowater International also has corporate offices in Montreal, Quebec; London, United Kingdom; Nairobi, Kenya; and Brussels, Belgium, in addition to project offices in a wide variety of other locations across Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

We thank you for your interest in building a better tomorrow with Cowater International.