Ministry launches tourist awareness brochure in Braille

Energy Tuesday 12/November/2019 21:28 PM
By: Times News Service
Ministry launches tourist awareness brochure in Braille

Muscat: Oman tourism has announced the launch of tourist awareness brochure in Braille language as part of its drive to make the country more travel-friendly.
The brochure in Braille, the tactile writing system used by the visually-challenged, will help tourists and residents get information on the destination while visiting the Sultanate.
Efforts are on to reach out to visually challenged persons, in cooperation with Al Noor Association for the Blind.
The tourist awareness brochure in Braille language is the first-of-its-kind in the Middle East, according to the Ministry of Tourism.
The ministry has carried out a series of meetings on tourism awareness with officials in each governorate, managers of hotel establishments and tourism companies, as well as the local populace around tourist spots.
This exercise is meant to make them realise the importance of the tourism sector and its impact on development.
Amna bint Mohammed Al Baloushi, Director of Tourism Awareness in the Ministry of Tourism, said that the aim of establishing a department for tourism awareness is to develop the culture of tourism among citizens, residents and tourists coming from outside the Sultanate of Oman.
The move also aims to encourage youth to avail of employment opportunities in the tourism sector, enable families to benefit from tourism, develop their skills in arts and crafts and popular food, and bring delegations and tourists so that they can learn about the Omani culture closely.
Reaching out
On awareness campaigns in schools, Amna Al Baloushi said the department had reached out to about 11 governorates, even in the remote villages.
“We held awareness programmes for school students. Programmes were prepared to visit some tourist landmarks and get acquainted with them closely. This mechanism has strengthened inter-ministerial relations and fostered the concept of tourism in educational programmes.”
She said, “Teachers were targeted in the second phase of the campaign. We contacted around 450 teachers of social sciences and 90 from vocational training in 11 governorates of the Sultanate between 2010 and 2018.”
“In the third phase of the campaign, we went to other segments of society -- elderly people and those with special needs, including the visually challenged and those who require sign language. This is because they are part of society. This stage required us to provide tools and means to communicate with them regarding tourist messages in a simple and clear language. This drive also comprised tours and tourist educational tools according to the requirements of the targeted groups. We also focused on students of colleges and universities to encourage them to work as tourist guides and learn the required skills, empower them to become ambassadors of tourism, motivate them to learn other languages including English, German and French along with their mother tongue Arabic.”
Al Baloushi said that workshops were conducted for students according to their age groups. For children, workshops involved teaching them about the tourist sites and preparing them to be tourist guides in future. “Under this campaign, we could reach out to 25,000 students, both male and female, between classes 10 and 12, as well as 7 and 8 between 2009 and 2010. From 2010 to 2015, we reached out to over 4,000 students undergoing higher education in various governorates of the Sultanate,” she said.