Oceanwide Expeditions announced a partnership with Polar Tourism Guiding Association (PTGA) announcing Oceanwide’s new status as an Accredited Provider for the PTGA, according to a statement. 

The new role implies that Oceanwide Expeditions will adopt the PGTA’s ISO accredited Workplace Based Assessment program. Accordingly, Oceanwide will be organizing the upcoming PTGA Assessor training course for staff which teaches them how to work with the assessment process and PTGA systems to create programs curated for the needs of polar tourism and expedition cruise companies.

“For PTGA, a skills assessment is far more about why guides make certain choices and collecting a range of evidence of actual job performance to prove competency than simply sitting an online test or one-off checklist said PTGA President Graham Charles.

“In the end, professional guiding is about judgment, correct decision making, reliable performance and guest engagement and as a mentoring organization it is our role to foster all these attributes in the guides we assess.”

New expedition staff members without prior expedition experience will be trained within the Oceanwide’s program and will have to complete PTGA assessments at work and earn industry qualifications through this association.

Oceanwide’s mentor and training program has met all the Accredited Provider requirements aimed at staff development. The company has thus demonstrated that it values industry-standard training and development of staff for the benefit of the company, guests and the environment.