Abstract:

At the present time, educational formation in universities requires that students receive not only intellectual but professional and even personal teachings, which enable them to develop in an integral way. It is not enough that students have a pure theoretical learning, but to extend it to a practical one that allows them to transfer the knowledge acquired in the classroom to a real environment, in order to establish its real use.

The integral learning includes not only the memorization of concepts but the transfer and application of them. Based on this premise, the objective of this article is to demonstrate the creation of touristic routes as an educational strategy that allows students of tourism and related areas of Higher Education Institutions to achieve an integral learning.

The creation of touristic routes comprises the documental registration of several resources involving the use of different concepts, skills, aptitudes and values by the student.

A touristic route is a programmed process where schedules and specific activities are identified by the user-tourist, which main objective is not only the mention of attractions but also the identification of attractors that give life to the route designed.

To develop a touristic route, students must:
• Make an inventory of the destination or destinations resources that comprise the route
• Define the purpose of the route
• Detect the qualities of the route
• Structure the route (itinerary)
• Determine financial aspects
• Identify the market segment
• Develop the delivery process

The present article provides the results of a comparative study between groups with the same members’ characteristics (age, education, educational institution and course). Some groups designed touristic routes as part of its final evaluation; others, did not create any.

One on the results, among others, was the notable difference in the integrality of the acquired knowledge by the participants who designed a touristic route, where they were able to implement skills, aptitudes and values learned in the classroom.

Keywords:

Touristic routes, educative strategy, integral learning, tourism.