The main goal of the project is to improve conditions for student´s and teacher´s mobility in specialization „tourism“. The content of the project will be creation and accreditation of a new course “Interpretation of European Cultural Heritage through Tourism Attractions” at all partner universities. The course will be prepared by an international expert team. Complex and detailed didactic material (syllabus, content and methodology of the course, textbook, examples of good practice and case studies) will be prepared within the project. Introduction and implementation of the course at all partner universities will not only contribute to mobility, it will also support internationalization of lectures and improve the quality of preparation of tourism graduates. The new course will enrich the portfolio of subjects and courses offered. It is the topic, which is specific and “hot” but which has not been taught at any partner university yet.
Development and international dimension of the study is a priority of EU educational policy and of all universities involved. The VSE actively participates in international cooperation and mobility programmes for students and teachers. About 800 students go abroad to foreign universities every year and approximately the same number of students comes from abroad to the VSE. However, regarding mobility of VSE students of tourism there is a long-term incompatibility of study programmes and courses offered. Coming to a host university, our students can hardly find a suitable subject in the field of tourism that would be recognized by their home university and for which they would get appropriate credits when they return. Thus, the Tourism Department carried out a research in 2015-2016 with the aim to create a survey of the offer of professional subjects in tourism for Exchange students at European universities, to assess compatibility of syllabus contents of the subjects offered and to identify disparity. The results of the survey unambiguously confirmed the lack of offered subjects for specialization; the only compatible and thus recognizable subjects are in two thematically close, nevertheless only general fields – intercultural competences and marketing, or general subject of geography. Students interested in acquiring deeper knowledge in tourism cannot find any adequate offer. In the bachelor programme the offer of courses is smaller and thus the situation is worse. Therefore, the course will be designed for this level. Consequently, even teacher´s mobilities are difficult, as specialized lectures of outgoing teachers hardly fit into subjects regularly offered by host universities. The same situation and the same problems appear during the implementation of mobilities also at partner universities involved in the project.
The main group benefiting from the project results are students and teachers of partner universities. The outcomes of the project will be available also to other schools and experts from the industry (organizations of destination management, managers of cultural heritage sites, etc.)
Outputs of this project will support strategic partnership among universities and improve the current situation and could become model for creation of other compatible subjects.
The new course will be created in cooperation of six universities, i.e. at least at all partner universities the offered course will be fully recognized and will enable barrier-free mobility both for students and teachers.
The topic chosen for the course is a global one and “hot” at the European level. Europe is an important destination of cultural tourism with a growing number of visitors from different cultural regions. Therefore, it is necessary to develop methods of interpretation of cultural heritage all the time. EU and ETC documents consider products based on utilization of diversity of European cultural heritage one of priorities of tourism development in Europe and its competitiveness.
A course with this content (Interpretation of cultural heritage through tourism) hasn´t been taught at any university yet. This will enrich the portfolio of subject offer in compliance with the needs of the industry.
In the same time, it is desirable that experts from different parts of Europe participate in the preparation of this course, which will enable us to cover a wide range of European cultural heritage both thematically and regionally as each country will have the opportunity to pass on their experience and best practices from the field, in which they achieve best results while interpreting cultural heritage. International dimension of education will be strengthened.
