ENHANCING RUSSIAN TOURISM STUDENTS’ EMPLOYABILITY THROUGH NETOUR TEMPUS PROJECT

The network for excellence in tourism through organizations and universities in Russia (NETOUR) is the name of an ambitious project funded by the European Commission through a TEMPUS grant which aims to promote Russia competitiveness as a tourism destination by improving the employability of Russian tourism university students.

Nowadays, Russia is one of the fastest growing tourism source markets world wide, at the time that it has a high potentiality as a tourism destination with many resources that are yet unexploited. However, according to the last reports by the World Economic Forum (2013, 2015) one of the pending subjects for Russia to be competitive, and appealing for international tourists, is to enhance tourism professionals’ qualification. Accordingly, researchers have found various existing gaps between what Russian universities propose in tourism management education and what tourism professionals expect from higher education training and the skills and competences needed for succeeding at the tourism markets.

In this context, NETOUR promotes a university community model, which looks forward providing the context where tourism stakeholders may cooperate with Universities in order to reinforce future tourism professionals’ qualification. Thereby, the main objective of NETOUR is to provide guidelines for Russian high educational institutions to support them in adapting their curricula to the real needs of the tourism sector, as well as, in designing lifelong learning programs that assures the productivity of the Russian tourism industry’s human capital.

More precisely, the implemented analysis reveals the need for reviewing the design of the current tourism management curricula delivered at the Russian universities to include those professionals’ skills and competences required by the industry. Moreover, consideration for the diverse needs of tourism stakeholders (entrepreneurs, local population, students, professors, and policy makers) is desirable when planning lifelong learning initiatives. Furthermore, a special emphasis to service quality and design is required in the curricula, as a mean to favour tourists’ involvement at the destination, and to facilitate their co-creation / participation in the tourism service delivery, enhancing their experience at the destination. Finally, to increase the knowledge transference from universities through society is stimulated by creating cooperation networks as NETOUR.