Oceanwide Expeditions and Polar Tourism Guiding Association (PTGA) announce new status as an Accredited Provider

Friday, March 31, 2023

Oceanwide Expeditions and the Polar Tourism Guiding Association (PTGA) are excited to announce Oceanwide’s new status as an Accredited Provider for the PTGA.

In this role, Oceanwide Expeditions will adopt the PTGA’s ISO accredited Workplace Based Assessment program.

Oceanwide will be scheduling staff for the upcoming PTGA Assessor training course which teaches how to work with the assessment process and PTGA systems to make this such a robust and best-in-class program designed specifically for the needs of polar tourism and expedition cruise companies.

Expedition staff members who are new to the expedition industry will be trained and mentored within Oceanwides’s own program but will be able to undertake PTGA assessments at work and earn industry qualifications through this vital third-party standards organisation.

Oceanwide has met all the Accredited Provider requirements with their mentor and training program aimed at comprehensive staff development. The company is heralding in a post-Covid era in polar tourism and expedition cruising by proving to industry and their guests that they value industry standard training and development of staff for the good of the company, guests and the environment.

The PTGA was formed by a dedicated group of Polar Professionals with hundreds of polar expeditions under their collective belts and offers an extensive assessment, and accreditation program with 23 different syllabi of competency for use by individuals and companies. The PTGA is a US-based not-for-profit, Professional Industry Association providing standards assessment and certification for polar and expedition operators, field staff, and guides who operate either on vessels or on land.

“We strive to instil the highest level of safety and competence in our membership, for the benefit of the industry, our guests and the remote wilderness we operate in” said PTGA President, Graham Charles.“For PTGA, 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 on-line test or one-off check-list says 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.”

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