Tokyo to teach tourist taxi drivers where to go

Aside from sushi, green tea and ramen noodles, pretty much any visitor to Japan will also have sampled the country?s incredibly expensive taxis -- usually just the once, though, as it?s not just the cost that?s a deterrent to repeat business.

The more-or-less-accurate assertion made by many that the average taxi driver has no notion where he or she is going is, however, about to be challenged by a new scheme to train cabbies to act as tourist guides while on the job.

The brainchild of various taxi-industry groups and the Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau, the idea is to school around 50 drivers a year in how to be a more useful resource for sightseers and tourists.

There?s no detail yet on whether or not that will include a London-style ?Knowledge? test that entails learning the name and location of every thoroughfare, nor is there an indication of the possibility of languages other than Japanese being used.

Skytree to the fore

What we do know so far, though, is that when courses start in August, drivers will need to bone up on major tourist spots -- Tokyo Skytree, of course, is prominent in the scant literature made public so far -- and sharpen customer-service skills.

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Source: http://rss.cnngo.com/~r/cnngo/~3/dCdgsWcVtJ0/tokyo-teach-tourist-taxi-drivers-where-go-290240

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