Overview & Mission

Mandated by the former Tourism and Industrial Development Company of Trinidad and Tobago (TIDCO), The Trinidad and Tobago Tour Guides’ Association (TTTGA) was established in October 1997. Pioneers in the Tour Guiding field such as Catherine Hackshaw, Sydney Valere, Cheryl Griffith, Christine De Gannes, Jalaludin Khan and Andrew Welsh founded the Association under Trade Union regulations with the vision of standardising the service of our local Tour Guides as well as the information being disseminated, thereby increasing their professionalism and, by extension, uplifting the nation’s tourism product.

Today, the Association continues to work closely with the Tourism Development Company Limited, (TDC) to develop the capacity of Tour Guides who benefit from workshops in, inter alia, Customer Relationship Management, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. Further, the Association is of the belief that their work should be all-encompassing and has received training from Persons Associated with Visual Impairment (PAVI) so as to offer tours to the differently-abled.

In 2014, the TTTGA, under the Small Tourism Enterprise Project (STEP) initiative of the TDC, completed an Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Building Programme which included charting a new strategic direction for the Association. As a direct result of this programme, the Association has launched its Signature Tours allowing locals to escape the bustle of day-to-day living and experience T&T from the viewpoint of a tourist.