Ida-Viru County wants to become the second most popular tourist destination in Estonia. The region has beautiful nature and nice people, but the level of service can sometimes seem uneven to a Western tourist, Tuesday's "Aktuaalne kaamera" reported.

The local tourism cluster has hired a hospitality manager to help businesses attract more trade.

Anu Kõrge, service development manager of the Ida-Viru tourism cluster, started working at the beginning of the summer and has advised 20 tourism and service companies.

Staff have already learned to smile, but language skills need improvement, she told AK.

"Kindness and helpfulness are all there. On the minuses side, on the service side, the language skills are definitely something that could be improved. Unfortunately, there are also places where the waiters do not even speak Estonian, but ideally, of course, in addition to Estonian, you would also need to speak at least English at a communication level. It would be especially nice if the waiters could speak Finnish. But then again, that is all learnable. Now that foreign visitors will start to arrive, I believe that the situation will definitely improve in terms of language skills as well," said Kõrge.

Mereresto restaurant, located on Toila beach, wants to learn how to attract more customers during the winter season. The staff have no problems with communication.

"Our service staff are mostly high school students and have a pretty good level of English and Estonian language development and experience. And, of course, if you're studying at school or at gymnasium, you'll get some basic knowledge and some basic information that you can already develop more here," said Valentina Palkovs, Mereresto manager.

The training programs are supported by the EU's Just Transition Fund.

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