Cook County News Herald

Visitor services training offered June 13-14




Cook County mostly makes its living as a beautiful, rustic place visitors come to relax, recharge and have fun. But the attraction can be fragile: Provide visitors a great experience, and they probably will stay longer, spend more and come back; provide a miserable experience, and they probably won’t.

Dr. Charles Metelka has made it his life’s work to understand how tourism destinations like Cook County can make visitors feel at home. Metelka is chair of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. He will share his insights into good customer service in two Cook County training sessions Wednesday and Thursday, June 13 and 14.

This customer service training opportunity is sponsored by the Cook County Visitors Bureau and is available free of charge to anyone, in any occupation, who wishes to attend. Cook County Higher Education organizes the training on the Visitors Bureau’s behalf.

The first training session will run from 1-5 p.m. Wednesday, June 13 at Higher Ed’s North Shore campus in Grand Marais. The second training session will be Thursday, June 14 from 8 a.m. to noon at Lutsen Resort.

The training will not only be informative, it will be fun. Even those who’ve been through half a dozen of these customer-service sessions will find this worth their while. Metelka is a lively, highly entertaining expert who focuses on the creation of tourism experiences, visitor expectations and the challenge of providing quality service by area residents and employees alike.

To register for both the Grand Marais and Lutsen sessions, call Higher Ed at 218- 387-2466 or email highered@northshorecampus.org no later than June 11.



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