NEW GUIDES JOIN TOUR OPERATION AT UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS

                                                            Note No. 5719

                                                            12 March 2002

Note to Correspondents

NEW GUIDES JOIN TOUR OPERATION AT UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS

Guided Tours to Celebrate Its Fiftieth Anniversary in November

A new group of 22 multilingual tour guides joined the staff of the Department of Public Information at United Nations Headquarters this week.  The new guides supplement the existing team of guides who conduct tours for the nearly half a million visitors who are attracted to this popular tourist destination each year.  By November, which marks the fiftieth anniversary of the guided tour operation, over 38 million visitors will have taken a guided tour of United Nations Headquarters. 

The Department of Public Information has a multifaceted agenda for observing the anniversary that will include some individual events, month-long programmes and long-term projects and feature a reunion of several hundred former UN guides in November 2002.  The approximately 2,000 former guides include notables such as former United States Cabinet Secretary Elizabeth Dole among others.  The fiftieth anniversary will serve as an occasion to encourage former guides to continue to be active advocates for the United Nations in their own communities.

The Guided Tours Unit, part of the United Nations Department of Public Information, now offers tours in over 20 languages, more than any other tour operation in New York.  The guides have long been considered the Organization’s “ambassadors to the public”, and their linguistic and geographic diversity adds a valuable dimension to the operation.

The new guides come from 15 countries, increasing the total number of guides to 60.  The full staff comes from the following 36 countries:  Albania, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Comoros, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, France, Ghana, Greece, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Myanmar, New Zealand, Nigeria, Russia, Senegal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United States, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

This year’s recruitment of guides continues to reflect the changing pattern of visitors to New York.  The increasing number of Chinese visitors to the United Nations, for example, has required an additional seven Mandarin-speaking guides. To become a United Nations guide, an applicant must be fluent in English and in at least one additional language.  College education and public speaking skills are also required.

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                                                            12 March 2002

In the course of their two-and-a-half week intensive training programme, the new guides are immersed in the history and functions of the United Nations main organs, as well as the current activities of the entire United Nations system. 

      The United Nations suspended its guided tour operation in the wake of the

11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, but resumed guided tours one month later.  Guided tours are conducted every day of the year, except on Thanksgiving Day, the year-end holidays, and weekends in January and February, as well as some days during high-level meetings of the General Assembly.  During the hour-long lecture tour, guides answer many questions about the role of the United Nations in current events and describe the unique collection of artworks on display throughout the tour route.

For more information, please contact Helene Hoedl, Guided Tours Unit,

tel:  212-963-3242, fax:  212-963 0071, e-mail:  hoedl@un.org or toursunhq@un.org or visit www.un.org/tours.

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