Abstract:

Although the tourism labor market is characterized by its dynamism, there is particular concern about the situation of human resources, job quality and technological innovation, so it is essential providing future professionals of tourism with differentiating capabilities to have competitive advantages in the tourism market work.

In this sense, the reform of university studies arises from the application of the European Higher Education Area, organizes curricula in order to train students for integration into the labor market, so that for any degree, it is necessary to establish among its objectives the differentiation and professional specialization, since currently the labor market demand for professionals with specific competence.

Thus, the mentoring program implemented in the subjects of Applied Economics at the Degree in Tourism is a systematic and structured care and support to the students of Degree of Tourism of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law at the University of Jaén. This program provides academic and professional support to students as part of national and international academic mobility, enabling them to acquire key competences and specific job skills in certain areas of tourism, around homogeneous set of knowledge that acquired in the subjects taught by the Department of Economics, always under a double articulation: academic and professional.

The overall objective of this mentoring program is to improve and complete the learning process of students in a particular area of tourism (tourism planning and development, tourism trends analysis and management and tourism policy) through a comprehensive tutorial action plan whose ultimate goal is to enable the employment in the tourism market work.

This process allows providing students a global vision, giving them the necessary skills to differentiate them both from an academic point of view and from the professional point of view, enabling them to function successfully in the tourism market work. Therefore, the program facilitates that future professionals of tourism can be differentiated from the rest of graduates through specialization in certain areas of tourism.

Keywords:

Mentoring, tourism, competencies, labour market.