The solidarity travel agency Bastina supports and trains migrants people to become tour guides in their cities.
Migrant Tour is a training program delivered free of charge to residents of Val-de-Marne that leads to the creation of guided tours. These guided tours focus on the cultural diversity of the districts and cities of the Paris region, the history of migration, the stories related to exile and welcoming.
The program is based on the memory of the territory's inhabitants, from here and elsewhere, and aims to develop solidarity tourism as a vector of links between the territory and its inhabitants, to change the way people look at each other and thus promote the citizenship of migrants.
> TRAINING : 12 volunteers joined the project and started to follow the training. The training took place during 3 months, managed jointly by the University of Paris-Descartes - Sociology and Ethnology Unit, INALCO (Language institute) and the Museum of the History of Immigration (courses on the collection of testimonies, transmission of memory, elaboration of tourist tour,...).
> GUIDED TOURS : Then, the inhabitants migrant guided finalised the guided tours under the coordination of Bastina. The first Migrant Tours with participants happened one year after the beginning of the trainning.
Val-de-Marne Tourism Board supported the whole process, offered its tourism expertise to the guides (how to improve the route, knowledge of the territory, contacts, etc.) and marketing & communication tools to promote this new offer.
Resources needed
- Financial ressources : 15 000 € to finance the training for migrant guides. Cofinanced by Val-de-Marne County Council.
- Human ressources : director of Bastina + Val-de-Marne Tourism Board project officer.
- Migrant Tours are sold 12€ per participant, which directly renumerates the guides.
Evidence of success
The practice resulted in the training of 5 guides who offered guided tours in 3 different cities.
In one year, 12 tours guided by migrant guides was proposed to the tourists and the inhabitants of Val-de-Marne, wich represent a total of 92 Visitors.
The Migrant Tour program contributed to the integration of these migrants into the local society, and sometimes helped them in their administratives procedures and job search.
A great solidarity has also developed between all the guides.
Potential for learning or transfer
The Migrant Tour program is an interesting initiative at the convergence of several objectives:
- to highlight the memory of inhabitants, from here and elsewhere
- to valorise the territory as a "land of welcome" that thrives on its cosmopolitan dimension, which is part of the "storytelling" of the destination
- to develop a tourism offer based on solidarity, a vector of links between the region and its inhabitants (sustainability)
- to change the way people look at each other and thus promote the citizenship of migrants;
- to support economic vitality and access to the territory's artistic, heritage and cultural diversity
Tags: Cultural, Migration, Sustainable development, Sustainable tourism, Tourism
