Yucatán Launches English Course for Chichén Itzá Guides

Yucatán’s tourism office has opened an English course for tour guides working at Chichén Itzá, part of a broader push to sharpen the skills of the people who greet the site’s visitors each day.

The Secretariat of Tourism Promotion (Sefotur), working with the Cultur trust that oversees state cultural sites, launched the Diplomado de Inglés para Guías Turísticos this week at the visitor center in Chichén Itzá. The course is separate from, and in addition to, Sefotur’s 2026 tourism training program, which is expected to reach more than 3,700 service providers this year through 114 courses in 25 municipalities. The state is putting MX$5.8 million (about US$343,000) into that broader effort.

Eighty-six guides are enrolled in this first round, split into three groups by proficiency: 30 at a beginner level, 39 at an intermediate level and 17 closer to fluency. The Universidad de Oriente, based in Valladolid, is running the course and building lesson plans around each group’s starting point.

Raúl Alejandro Paz Noriega, Sefotur’s deputy director for sustainable tourism development, led the opening alongside Diana Parra Manzano, the office’s director of quality and competitiveness. Also on hand were officials from the Chichén Itzá and Balankanché site office and the Great Museum of Chichén Itzá.

Paz Noriega said the idea came directly from the guides themselves, who had asked for more tools to communicate with English-speaking visitors. Guides work independently at the site, and stronger language skills are widely seen as a way to raise both the quality of tours and guides’ own earning potential.

The state is also offering 30 spots on “Habla Mundial,” a Ceneval-run digital English platform for tourism workers, giving guides who aren’t in the in-person cohort a chance to build the same skills online.

The training comes as Chichén Itzá works through a rockier-than-usual stretch of tourism. A prolonged dispute between vendors and site management over the relocation of market stalls dented visitor numbers earlier this year, and rival site takes lead as Teotihuacán briefly overtook Chichén Itzá as the country’s most-visited archaeological site. Investing in guide training is one of the more direct ways the state can shore up the visitor experience while those larger issues get sorted out.

INAH certification is required by law, and Yucatán Magazine has previously covered how untrained guides can undercut both quality and safety at the site.

Fast facts

• 86 guides enrolled in the first round of the English diplomado
• Groups split by level: 30 beginner, 39 intermediate, 17 advanced
• Course run by the Universidad de Oriente in Valladolid
• Part of a MX$5.8 million (about US$343,000) statewide tourism training push reaching 25 municipalities

With reporting from La Jornada Maya.

Facebook teaser: Chichén Itzá’s guides are heading back to the classroom, this time to sharpen their English before the next wave of visitors arrives.