Kwintessential Launch New Intercultural Etiquette Training for UK Hospitality Industry

London, UK January 11th 2005 – Kwintessential, a UK cross cultural communications consultancy, has launched a new intercultural training course aimed at supporting the tourism and hospitality industry through providing guidance on how to deal with foreign guests.

The UK hospitality and tourism industry, which caters to both tourists and visiting business personnel, is estimated to be worth in excess of £75 billion per year, with visitors spending £11 billion per year.

Keen to promote the UK as both a tourist and business destination of quality, national organisations such as the British Tourist Authority and the National Centre for Languages (CILT) are pushing for better customer service through greater cross cultural awareness by staff.

With experience in many business sectors, Kwintessential are now keen to support the leaders, management and staff in the industry to polish up on their intercultural skills.

"After successfully completing a few projects for some clients in the hospitality industry, we decided there was enough need to roll out the training courses nationally,' explains Managing Director, Neil Payne.

"Our first client was one of London's most exclusive hotels, used by many visiting dignitaries and V.I.P.s. The management had been having trouble with their front of house staff in terms of etiquette and protocol when dealing with foreign guests. Offense had been caused on a few occasions through culturally insensitive behaviour,' reveals Payne.

Together with the in-house training staff, Kwintessential developed a training manual covering etiquette and protocol with reference to different cultures and nationalities in areas such as meeting, greeting, communication, proxemics, serving, gender and conflict resolution. The in-house trainers were given an initial instruction on how to use the manual, which they then used to train their staff.

Through their experience the cross cultural communication consultancy is now offering tailored courses to hotels, caterers, restaurants, event organisers, corporate entertainers and tourism agencies in the UK on culturally sensitive customer service.

For additional information please visit http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/cross-cultural/hospitality-training.html or contact Kwintessential at training@kwintessential.co.uk

About Kwintessential
Kwintessential are a London, UK based cross cultural communications consultancy offering specialist intercultural training courses, language tuition, translation and interpreting.

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Neil Payne
Kwintessential
+44 208 406 9288
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk

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