CC BY
40
UDC 338.48:37.013:811
DOI: 10.24411/1995-0411-2020-10302
Svetlana Yu. NEIMAN
Omsk State Technical University (Omsk, Russia)
PhD in Linguistics, Associate Professor; e-mail: svetlana1414@bk.ru
Svetlana A. KATSIEL
Omsk State Technical University (Omsk, Russia)
PhD in Sociology, Associate Professor; e-mail: kats-1967@yandex.ru
LANGUAGE SCHOOLS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNGSTERS IN THE SYSTEM OF EDUCATIONAL TOURISM MARKET
Abstract. The article analyzes the phenomenon of language schools as it is and its role for the development of language tourism market in the system of educational tourism. The authors focus on the problems of language schools for children and young people, as they constitute 90% of the target audience of this market segment. The modern problems which language schools are now facing are also determined as well as the perspective trends in their development. Summer language camp is recognized as the most adequate form of the market leader for the development in this segment nowadays. For the purpose of the research, the authors distinguish between the language travel combining tourism activities with language learning and the tours where language acquisition is the final goal in order to continue education in another country's school or college and enter a university, or pass a qualification language exam. Main terms and definitions on the problem in question are also discussed in the article. Language schools are divided into network schools, large schools, small schools and home tuition schools. The marketing characteristics of each type of school are presented in order to suggest their comparative market analysis. The authors come to conclusion that a language school of any type appears to be a stimulating factor to the development of the national educational tourism market.
Keywords: educational tourism, language tourism market, language learning, language school, children and youngsters, language camp
Citation: Neman, S. Yu., & Katsiel, S. A. (2020). Language schools for children and youngsters in the system of educational tourism market. Service and Tourism: Current Challenges, 14(3), 27-38. doi: 10.24411/1995-0411-2020-10302.
Article History Disclosure statement
Received 28 July 2020 No potential conflict of interest was reported by
Accepted 2 September 2020 the author(s).
© 2020 the Author(s)
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
УДК 338.48:37.013:811
DOI: 10.24411/1995-0411-2020-10302
НЕЙМАН Светлана Юльевна
Омский государственный технический университет (Омск, РФ) кандидат филологических наук, доцент; e-mail: svetlana1414@bk.ru
КАЦИЕЛЬ Светлана Анатольевна
Омский государственный технический университет (Омск, РФ) кандидат социологических наук, доцент; e-mail: kats-1967@yandex.ru
ЯЗЫКОВЫЕ ШКОЛЫ ДЛЯ ДЕТЕЙ И ЮНОШЕСТВА В СИСТЕМЕ РЫНКА ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОГО ТУРИЗМА
В статье анализируется феномен языковой школы как таковой и ее роль для развития рынка языкового туризма в системе образовательного туризма. Авторы акцентируют внимание на проблемах языковых школ для детей и молодежи, так как они составляют 90% целевой аудитории данного сегмента рынка. Определяются также современные проблемы, с которыми сталкиваются сегодня языковые школы, а также перспективные тенденции их развития. Летний языковой лагерь сегодня признан наиболее адекватной формой лидера рынка для развития в этом сегменте. В целях исследования авторы различают языковые путешествия, сочетающие туристическую деятельность с изучением языка, и туры, где овладение языком является конечной целью для продолжения обучения в школе или колледже другой страны и поступления в университет, либо сдачи квалификационного языкового экзамена. В статье также рассматриваются основные термины и определения по рассматриваемой проблематике. Все языковые школы условно разделены авторами на сетевые школы, крупные, небольшие (маленькие) и школы, в которых реализуется домашнее обучение. Представлены маркетинговые характеристики обозначенных типов языковых школ, позволяющие провести их сравнительный анализ. Также представлено количество и география языковых школ, предлагающих программы и курсы русского языка. В статье определено, что языковая школа является стимулирующим фактором для развития национального рынка образовательного туризма.
Ключевые слова: образовательный туризм, рынок языкового туризма, изучение языка, языковая школа, дети и молодежь, языковой лагерь
Для цитирования: Нейман С.Ю., Кациель С.А. Языковые школы для детей и юношества в системе рынка образовательного туризма // Современные проблемы сервиса и туризма. 2020. Т.14. №3. С. 27-38. DOI: 10.24411/1995-0411-2020-10302.
Дата поступления в редакцию: 28 июля 2020 г. Дата утверждения в печать: 2 сентября 2020 г.
Introduction
Education has become a kind of industry nowadays. Generation, distribution and reproduction of knowledge are becoming modern major drivers of economic growth, value added and new workplaces. The growth of international education and lifelong learning has stimulated cross-border movement for university student travel, language learning, and school excursions and exchange programs. From the other hand, segmentation of the tourist market, allied to product differentiation, has led to the development of a number of special interest tourism sub-sectors - including education tourism - which offer a wide range of products, services and experiences. As a result, educational tourism has been rapidly developing because the knowledge and education needs are raised to a higher economic level demanded by modern civilization, people mobility and globalization. UK International students for example, are estimated to generate GBP around €17.5 billion for the UK economy and support about 22,000 full time equivalent jobs outside higher education [1, p.12]. We may add that 2.4 estimated million children from the USA only travel internationally each year. Thus, over the past three decades, market ideas have come to influence how education is structured and managed, from theoretical considerations to reliable business practice.
The global language travel market boasts 2 million travelers annually as well as travel abroad to improve language skills has become a structured and important part of global youth tourism market. Approximately, there are 3,000 language travel providers, 50 related language travel associations, 16,000 education agencies functioning across the globe and 2 million students travel solely for the purpose of language acquisition every year [1, p. 22]. In 2012 language tourism as a source of income for Spain, for example, exceeded 2,000 million, a growth of 28% compared to 2011 [2, p. 139]. In 2013 in the Russian Federation, the annual market return in the segment was € 200 million [3, p. 60].
Among a number of products offered by education tourism it is obvious that globally, English language schools have seen the greatest demand over schools for other languages.
According to the British Council, 1.5 billion people today are said to be learning English worldwide, 750 million - as a foreign language and 350 million - as a second language1. Modern economic approach to a foreign language development has defined financial priorities of educational programs [4, p. 76]. English learning has experienced the real boom in demand over the last three years with the total volume of $60 million every year and an increase of 67%. According to data borrowed from the website of Study Travel by Wikipe-dia, the United States and the UK are the biggest players in the global English travel market accounting for 62% of the total revenue earned in 2013, and account for 65.5% of students worldwide2. Language learning comes in a variety of formats for adults, juveniles and children with their own specific characteristics and distinctions. Therefore, the situation needs to be investigated and interpreted as an independent direction in Educational Tourism Market Studies.
Literature Review In the educational tourism research embracing about three decades, a diversity of its perspectives is constantly being discussed from different points of view. B. Hall and C. Weiler (1993) developed their first study on educational tourism as a part of special interest tourism in their book under the same title [5]. That time, history, motivations, and notion of difference from other types of special interest travel were in the focus of educational tourism research. Reviewing education-through-travel investigations it is noteworthy to refer to H. Gibson (1998) and his argument about the growing amount of people who analyze educational activities during leisure tourism, in order to learn something new [6]. C. Wood (2001) aggregated the comprehensive research on educational tourism [7]. R. Huang (2008) developed a detailed examination based on different tourist experiences of international students from developing countries during educational mobility using the basic categorizations of a tourist [8]. Also, P. Glover (2011) has proved a strong
1 Beare, Kenneth. "How Many People Learn English?" ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/ how-many-people-learn-english-globally-1210367.
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_school
connection between travel and study by investigating the impact of a travel destination image on study destination choice [9]. Later, A. Pabel and B. Prideaux (2012) proved this by exploring possibilities of combining youth leisure travel with an educational course [10]. However, the research on language travel has mainly focused on Study Abroad experiences [11; 8] and ELT (English Language Teaching) evolution. Russian scientific approach when analyzing the similar problems deals with differentiating the theoretical notions within the field of study [12] and practical survey of international academic mobility but the scientific interest mainly is focused on the language program content, methods of the language teaching in language tourism segment.
Nevertheless, due to the fact the main research work is pivoted on the ideas and the model of educational tourism (edutourism) developed by the American scientist Brent Ritchie in his widely known book [13], the authors note it has gained the little attention of very few academic studies so far. While underlying its importance to the economy, the scientists also mark surprisingly limited understanding of the market concept of educational tourism as well as lack of research into the various educational tourism market segments and their problems (we have come across the only one [2]). As we see, an inconsiderable part of research projects investigates language schools in the English speaking countries but most of the studies concentrate on adult education, self-direct learning, motivation for learning, opportunity to learn and interact with other cultures. Little attention is also paid to language tourism from the point of view of following tourism practicing for children and youngsters as well as modern children's tourism trends and their classification, though this kind of language travel has become important both from social and commercial points of view as adults constitute only 10 % of tourist flow studying languages internationally [3, p. 61]. We may also add to the point that even Russian current legislation almost does not contain any reference to children's tourism [14, p. 62].
Terms and Definitions
To characterize the object studied we should try to define main terms and notions
connected with the problem. Education has been traditionally defined as 'the organized, systematic effort to foster learning, to establish the conditions, and to provide the activities through which learning can occur' [15, p. 37]; as for the purpose of the paper developed: "education is a process in which and by which knowledge, character and behavior of the young is shaped and moulded" [16, p. 5]. For the sphere of tourism, the notion can be specify as follows: education uses different forms of tourism as a tool to complement learning, accumulating experiences from practice, which is often embodied in international or global education experiences.
Educational tourism, or edutourism, has taken several forms of definition. The Canadian Tourism Commission (2001) has determined that educational tourism or any learning type of tourism could range on a continuum from 'general interest learning while travelling (tourism first)' to 'purposeful learning and travel (education first)' [17]. In scientific literature educational tourism is often described as pursuits of learning that involves traveling or connecting with others from other geographic areas, either learning knowledge (historical, cultural, social) or even learning a new language. Therefore, the most applicable definition would be Ritchie's view on the term, whereby the educational and learning components play a dominant motivational role in the tourists' overall reason to travel [13]. Thus, overall, educational tourism can be defined as the type of tourism in which the primary or secondary motivations of the trip are learning and education. In that way, an education tourist is an individual doing tourism travelling by visiting education the tourism an destination and doing tourism activities related to education and learning.
Education tourism activities consist of conferences, research, national and international student exchange, school visits, language schools and study tourism organized formally and non-formally with a natural and artificial tourism destination. Educational tourism embraces adult study tours, children and teenagers' study tours, school students' travels. According to O. Kuznetsova, international educational tourism activity can be sub-
divided into language training courses; sport training tours; vocational training [3, p. 66].
The main difference of educational tourism from international academic mobility is the time limitation, as all the academic educational programs last for no more than 12 months. Internationally mobile students are those who have traveled to another country for a long period of study toward a degree (full-degree programs: bachelor, master, PhD - more than one year). In our research, we distinguish international student mobility as it aims at getting education mainly and language tourism as a combination of language study and tourism activities for a period no longer than one year. In the scientific literature, both notions are often mixed with no difference.
Language tourism in general may be defined as "a tourist activity undertaken by those travelers (or educational tourists) taking a trip which includes at least an overnight stay in a destination outside their usual place of residence for less than a year and for whom language learning is a primary or secondary part of their trip" [18, p. 9]. Herein, language tourists are those who have traveled to another country for a short period of study (language programs: short-term - from one week to three month, or long-term - from six month to one year).
Russian tradition determines Language Tourism (termed Linguistic Tourism by some authors [12] or Language-learning Tourism) as a subsector of educational tourism, when in the course of travelling a tourist combines recreation with learning a foreign language. Some of the researchers insist on differentiating the notions of language travel and language tourism [19, p. 30-33]. The term 'language trip' widely used in the tourism websites and advertisement as a combination of a vocation and a language course is synonymic to the meaning of the term 'language tour'. Language trips are opportunities to experience the natural environment of that language every day.
We did not find any special definition in foreign scientific publications applied to the investigation of children and juvenile tourism per se. But Russian authors distinguish this sub-sector of tourism in a specific category:
children tourism is a tourism sector where the consumers of tourism services are considered children and youngsters from the age of 5-7 to 17-19 travelling ranging from 24 hours up to 6 months for recreation, education or other purposes accompanied with a tourism leader, guide or instructor [14, p. 62; 22].
A language school is a school where a person can study a foreign language. Classes at a language school are usually geared towards, for example, communicative competence in a foreign language. Language learning in such schools typically supplements formal education or existing knowledge of a foreign language. The age of the language tourists ranges from 3-5-year-old children to golden-age people: nursery schoolchildren, pupils, students and adults. They also may vary widely by educational background and work experience. Classic language schools often combine language study with travel to destinations where the language is natively spoken. This concept of immersion travel makes it easier for the pupils to experience and understand the destination country's culture and language.
Discussion
Language travel market as a part of the educational tourism market system amounts to about 50 years and in the course of time, it has also significantly changed. Studying the social history of educational tourism we may conclude that language tourism actually started after the end of WWII, namely with the opening of so-called Language schools.
The founder of specialized schools, where the only one academician subject namely language is taught is considered Maximilian Berlitz, the German and American linguist and educator, and the first Berlitz Language School was established in 1878 in Providence, Rhode Island, the USA. His method of language learning for which only the language to be taught was spoken from the first day of class was then successfully spread internationally and is still used today. But nationally the modern followers of language education in Language schools appeared to become the British.
As the English language gained the international status in the middle of the 20th century, the first British language schools were
aimed at developing mutual understanding, providing qualified English language teaching to the people all over the world. Frank Bell who founded Bell International in 1955, the first language school in Cambridge, coined the idea. Among the first British schools were International House (1953), Eurocentres (1948), St Giles (1955), Kings (1957), Regent (1964), and EF English First (1965). At that time in Oxford and Cambridge there also appeared several language schools, which offered short-time language courses especially for foreign students. Similar courses opened at Canada and USA Universities.
The business was quite successful and crossed national boundaries. In the English-speaking countries, language schools were founded in Australia and Malta at first, then in Ireland and New Zealand, and recently, in 1990, the first Language center started in SAR. Later, other countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland joined the commercial project of teaching languages. Today, it is obvious that there is no any language in the world and, more exactly in Europe, except the exotic ones, which could not be taught in a language school. Even the Catalan, Romansh, Luxembourger or Friesian languages can be learned if you wish in the countries where even a small number of people at all speak them.
Now statistics shows there are several million language-teaching institutions in different countries today but they cannot be exactly counted. As for developing a typology or classification of language schools, it is also a problem as the language education market is dynamically changing depending on many reasons and factors. Even the place of FIFA World Cup could affect the supply and demand for language acquisition. The fact is language schools ranges from small learning centers with a limited number of language courses, sometimes rather local, for example,
to meet the needs of a factory where many foreigners are working at the moment, up to giant international companies having their affiliated schools in many countries all over the world. If the demand fails, the schools often close or change their status, and the economic or educational fate of each of them is difficultly predicted. We are not going to discuss language schools inside a country and their programs for kids and teens who dwell there, because they are not connected with tourism sector directly and are often busy with education problems directly connected with language acquisition. We are going to concentrate and discuss the schools falling under the idea of language travel and educational tourism, most of them being international language schools, summer language schools and camps.
At such language schools students usually have the possibility of selecting a specific course according to their language proficiency. According to the Certificate of English as a Foreign Language,six languages levels define student language proficiency based on their speaking, writing and reading skills. Students will be then assigned to the course that matches their skills. Most language schools are private and for-profit. Fees vary depending on a multitude of factors, including local cost of living, exchange rates, and demand for the language in the area where a school is located. Language schools are either independent entities or corporate franchises. Many language schools offer various kinds of accommodation to their students: host family (homestays), campus residences, shared housing, or hotels. Language schools commonly offer specific programs to those wishing to prepare for internationally recognized language exams.
Nevertheless, we should try a rough gradation, which is not purported to be complete.
Table 1 - Marketing characteristics of language schools
Type of Language School Location Number of students in the group Accommodation for students Benefits Price for two-week course/ program Tourism activities
IH - 160 schools in 52 countries, 8 languages depends on the program several options: campus, hostels, homestay Study online; Hybrid classes = £ 580 = € 480
Network schools GLN 100 classes in 30 languages Washington DC depends on the program several options: campus, home-stay 5 level courses including tourist student level = $ 860 city-brakes; sightseeing tours to several cities;
EF - 54 schools 10-12 children in a class Several options: boarding house, hostel, campus, homestay Online program interactive; Expert in children and youngsters language learning winter sports hiking
Large schools USA, UK, France, Cyprus 300-350 a week several options: campus, home-stay age range of the programs; safe transfer for junior programs; leisure programs = $ 764 sightseeing tours to nearby cities; hiking
Small schools any location according to the demand 6-12 students in a class host family children from age of 3; safe environment; on-line courses = € 550 = £ 850 landmarks nearby; eco-tours
Home tuition in any country of according the demand 2-4 students for a teacher teacher's home Individual approach; maximum language immersion = $ 2950 for individual classes family facilities
Despite different strata and design, the principles of functioning of different types of language schools and camps are similar in general. The uniformity develops because of two reasons: 1) the common model was borrowed from the classical English language schools achieved through trial and error; 2) uniformity helps to control quality standards, certifications, and accreditation in schools. Timetables, sizes of groups, curricula, division of student groups according to the initial level of language acquisition, teaching methods, language programs offered are similar on the whole at any language school in any location. However, it is rather difficult to be unique now trying unique programs and methods. The problem is often solved on account of the number of educational courses and variety of them, qualification of teachers, as well as the factors not directly connected with education, namely technical facilities or tourism background. Most of the schools open all the year round, but summer language schools stay the most popular among their clients.
The public guarantee for the schools serves their accreditation profile or membership in association. Language school associations can be regional, national or international groups the main tasks of which is to support quality standards of educational institutions. Each school has to meet certain requirements in order to enter the association. Special committees develop and control the standards required. Most of the schools strive to be the associated members as it signifies their professional and economic status.
Language schools all over the world have much of the same structure: the main building with classrooms, a library, premises for self-study with technical and recreation facilities. There also can be a café or a snack bar, a swimming pool, an assembly hall, play or sport grounds. Some schools possess their own hostels located in the main building or nearby. Usually each school also contacts with the family households for the student to have opportunity to live with the host family.
зз
All future students are tested beforehand to determine their starting level of language acquisition. Often the groups are compiled with the respect of national backgrounds to mix different nationalities in one group of students. The classes begin in the morning and stop at dinnertime when students and their teachers have meal together in the school canteen or cafe to have another chance to communicate. The educational programs are divided into an intensive (up to 30 hours a week) and standard (15-20 hours a week) course of study. The second half of the day may be devoted to entertainment, self-study or rest. The weekend is usually spent in different tourist activities. The period of study in a language school is not limited, but usually it is about 2-3 weeks, but it also may be a week or even a year by a special agreement. In general, upper limit does not exist at all if you have time and money.
As for price, language schools can be divided into three levels:
1) expensive private summer schools which are not attractive commercially for tourist agencies as the demand is low because of high educational tourism product cost and consumers' low income;
2) specialized language schools with average price products working in contact with tourist agencies specializing on educational tourism market (such as traditional English schools or Finnish people's/public schools);
3) various relatively inexpensive language programs (such as Russian boarding houses in Malta or language courses in the Crimea). These courses offered by a number of language schools are often not accredited in the international associations.
We have not discussed the problems of children safety or teaching staff leaving them for special research. But it is important to note that both problems have already been successfully solved nowadays and the quality of teaching and children and youngsters' safety is guaranteed.
Language camps may be considered a kind of language school as they are based on language learning in traditional or play form combining a language program with sport or tourism training. They can function all the year round: it depends on climate and geog-
raphy as well as a target consumers' demand if they work with schoolchildren. International summer camps are the most popular among the language camps. The participants in the programs of the summer camps can be housed in university campuses, at families selected by the camp school, in student apartments or hostels and hotels, depending on age, preferences and type of a program. The programs include educational, social, cultural, sports activities and trips and could take place through intercultural exchanges, meaning the host country will also organize these types of programs in the countries where the young people come from. The difference between a traditional language school and a language camp is not only in their location from the point of recreation and tourism facilities for children - not only teachers but students of higher educational institutions from different countries may give instruction there. Though the language program rarely exceeds 15-20 hours per week, the educational possibilities are broader for the camps: for example, you can learn English in international summer camps in Czech Republic, which have been working in the European tourism market for many years [20, p. 466]. Another example may be the language camp located near Moscow where you can learn foreign languages and live in tents studying and practicing tourism.
Children centers can be also mentioned. They are often called in Russian tradition as children camps but they are not exactly the same. Most of them are international and located abroad. They also combine education programs with rest and recreation, language programs being the most popular. International children centers successfully work in Cyprus, Croatia, Greece, Malta, Italy and Germany. Recently, Poland has come into the market offered similar tourist products. Children of various nationalities visit these centers usually in groups with their leaders.
The Russian tourism market also offeres the so-called education tours defining them as specific because they are rather expensive and in the term of the tour, the children and youngsters are planned to get secondary and high education studying abroad. In our opinion, these cannot be considered as education-
al tourism products to some extent because these tours are aimed at only educational purposes to provide enrolling into educational institutions, though the travel agencies take part in the process.
We can illustrate the language school market for children and youngsters using several examples.
1) Agencies specializing in language tourism:
a) Study Travel (Spain) now organizes language courses abroad, exam preparation courses, summer camps for juniors and teenagers instructing 5 languages, language courses abroad for families in 5 countries to combine beach holiday and study3,
b) STAR Academy (Russia) has been in the market since 1996 as a brand of STAR Travel. The company has its offices in 15 regions of RF and 2 countries abroad. It has partnership relations with 200 language centers and 150 schools, 300 colleges and universities in different countries. They have exchange programs for schoolchildren with Germany, USA, Canada and language programs for children in 11 countries4.
c) EduTravel (Russia) as a tour operator and international education agency it has been in the tourism market for 20 years, specializing in educational tourism. The agency is accredited for ICEF (International College of Economics and Finance), WEBA (World Education Business Association), BBSW (British Boarding School Workshop), Quality English, StudyWorld, ST Alphe English UK. They cooperate with 2000+ certified language learning institutions all over the world with the right to visit and inspect them. One of their international partners is the largest language education net Kaplan International. The agency has more than 1000 employees to support clients and organize language travel for children from the age of 7. Summer language schools and camps offers 19 programs in 12 countries5.
2) Educational companies:
a) EF- Education First (Switzerland) has been 50 years in the market. It was founded in 1965 in Sweden as Europeiska Ferienskolan (EF) like a summer school to study language
3 http://studytravel-spain.es/en/
4 https://staracademy.ru
5 https://edutravel.ru/
and travel abroad. That time the company arranged the journey for 407 Sweden children to GB to study English during summer vocations. After 2 decades of successful business in Scandinavia, then in the USA, the company became a global brand teaching languages for volunteers in 1988 Olympics in Seoul, 2008 Peking, and 2014 Sochi. In 2008, the first language school EF Academy for youngsters was opened in New York. In 2010-s EF started cooperation with UN Alliance of Civilization to open the summer schools for children all over the world. Now EF works in 114 countries of the world with the Reginal offices in Boston, London, Stockholm, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Zurich, language schools being now developed in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Kazan. The EF schools and summer camps offer 50 programs in 6 languages including kids and teens from 2 to 18, such as EF Smart Start for example, for children of 3-66.
b) Kaplan International (UK) has been 80 years in the market, serves 140 000 students from 150 countries each year. There are 45 schools all over the world with the company offering programs for juniors and teenagers from 8 to 17 years old. They also offer action-packed summer language camps for students aged 8+ to learn English, French and German in UK, France, Germany and Switzer-land7.
c) Voyager School Travel (UK) since the beginning in 2008 with language immersion programs to school in Normandy (France) now specializes in offering educational and cultural programs for schools and organizing non-language trips to different destinations. Combining function of a school and travel agency for schoolchildren it serves 250 000 students a year8.
3) Language tourism websites:
a) languagecourse.net (Spain) offers booking language courses. There are 16, 653 language courses in the list at the Platform with 1000 language schools worldwide. It also provides 22,120 clients' responses about the schools to develop their rating score, free consultancies, the cheapest prices for booking with the site, and exclusive discounts.
6 https://www.ef.edu/
7 https://www.kaplaninternational.com/
8 https://www.voyagerschooltravel.com/
b) languageinternational.com/ (Germany) is a language course search site offering booking of 150 schools, 1700 courses with 16 languages in the best cities of Great Britain, USA, Spain, France, Malta, Canada, Australia, Ireland.
Children tourism market does exist in Russia. Russian experts note a steady tendency for growing interest to educational tourism in the country (Table 2) as well as the interest for language learning and language traveling in particular [21, p. 54].
Table 2 - Development of Children Educational Tourism in RF (%)
There is a great number of language schools with a wide choice of different programs for different consumers' demand to study foreign languages in most of the average and large cities across the country. This is also true for tourism agencies specializing in educational language tourism offering Russian consumers almost of any age traveling abroad combining touristic and learning purposes. The tourism product offered by Russian agencies is objectively rather expensive, so its target consumers among youngsters are those who are going to get school (secondary) and then continue higher education abroad. This way they support outbound language tourism market and solve their own commercial problems. But it is noteworthy to mark that even Wikipedia points out that the interest for learning Russian along with Chinese is also growing in the world. Information on development of the language schools and programs offering the Russian language is scarce so comparative studies and discussion of their perspectives is now invalid (Table 3). We may comment that the number of Russian language schools over the world is rather small in comparison, for example, a tiny country such as Malta, which has more than 30 English schools effectively operating on the language tourism market.
Table 3 - Amount of language schools worldwide offering the Russian language programs and courses9
Country, city Amount
Russia 15
Moscow 3
Saint Petersburg 9
Sochi 1
Ekaterinburg 1
Petrozavodsk 1
Spain 7
Germany 6
Italy 6
Ukraine 6
Scotland 2
Austria 1
Canada 1
Cyprus 1
Czech Republic 1
France 1
Greece 1
Turkey 1
Results and Conclusion
1. Language schools constitute a considerable segment of language travel subsector of educational tourism market that can be justified by the development of the increasing number of the schools with enormous amount of various language programs and courses all over the world. The segment is characterized with certain instability as the situation on the market depends on many factors such as economic conditions or political situation, development of IT technologies, even ecological problems. We should stress that today especially in the terms of world pandemia (but not only because of that), there has been a difficult and competitive situation for language schools: most of them are physically closed searching solutions for survival. The market of online language learning is developing rather quickly. Nowadays 20% of language schools have already combined on-line classes with the traditional ones as to add a bonus to their language courses or programs. In general, the growth of online language education is impressive in decreasing with the greatest speed
9 Compiled by the authors on: https://www.lan-guagecourse.net/schools--russia.php3; https:// www.goabroad.com/language-study-abroad/ search/russian/language-programs-abroad-1
Year %
2013 10.03
2014 9.8
2015 10.81
2016 4.45
2017 13.0
2018 19.5
the perspective target audience of traditional educational language tourists and these is especially true for children and youngsters. Language schools response the challenge and offer extended versions of their traditional products: some of them provide the special program for parents to learn language alongside with their children and combine their beach or sightseeing holiday with study or to accommodate a young student in the family of his/her teacher to improve language practice and communication.
2. The international networks are most stable part of the market as they can vary different forms of language institutions to face changing conditions and adapt them more effectively. They sometimes absorb successive small or even large language schools often for better, as it is easier for the schools themselves to get accreditation and work under umbrella often not losing their unique character. Many schools have partnership relations, and collaborate with colleges and universities and become their institutions participating in their academic programs.
3. There is no special segment at the market aimed especially at children and youngsters: almost any language school has programs and courses for children beginning from the age of 3. We have found an insignificant number of travel agencies, exclusive top-class private language schools operating on the market to develop language travel for elite or special children and juveniles. However, the market is regulated by demand and supply only.
4. In our opinion, the most perspective form of a language school for young people for the education tourism market is a summer language camp where children can combine foreign language acquisition, rest and sport, as well as tourism activities. The country is not a decisive factor in this case. The trend is now intensively developing not only in the EC countries but also in developing countries and in Russia as well. Another trend is an exotic or remote location for a language school as it may offer cheaper price because the destination is unknown so far.
5. Language schools are a stimulating factor for the developing national educational tourism market. It is true not only for such countries as China where there already exists a number of international language schools for children to learn Chinese, as more and more people in the world show the interest to the language, but also in Guatemala where with opening Spanish language schools, the country has had the arrival boom of 2 million tourists a year. Because of perpetual economic crisis in Russia and constant decreasing of income of the Russian people, the outbound educational market of the country stopped its development after 2009, which influenced not only the sales of Russian travel agencies but caused the problems to English language schools in the UK especially in the juvenile segment.
6. The statistic and factual data is scarcely available for the field as the language school market is extremely diversified. The information is mainly of advertising character.
References
1. Arizmendi, A., Amaranggana, A., Cano, D., & et al. (Eds.) (2016). Student Marketing: Language Learning Tourism Insights for Destinations. The Global Report on Power of Youth Travel. Madrid: World Tourism Organization.
2. Xamani, M. I. (2015). Second language acquisition and the language tourism experience. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 178, 139-145.
3. Kuznetsova, O. I., & Fodorya, A. Yu. (2013). Mezhdunarodnyj obrazovatelnyj turizm kak napravlenie sociokul-turnoj deyatelnosti. [International educational tourism as a direction of socio-cultural activity]. Lichnost, semya i obshhestvo: voprosy pedagogiki i psihologii [Personality, family and society: issues of pedagogy and psychology], 32, 60-67. (In Russ.).
4. Neyman, S. Yu. (2015). Rol inostrannogo yazyka v epoxu globalizacii [Foreign language share in globalization process]. In book: Perspektivy razvitiya sistemy nepreryvnogo obrazovaniya v novyh socialno-ekonomicheskih usloviyah [Perspective Development in New Social and Economic Conditions]. Omsk, 66-75. (In Russ.).
5. Weiler, B., & Hall, C. M. (1993). Special Interest Tourism. Hospitality Research Journal, 16(2), 103-104.
6. Gibson, H. (1998). The Educational Tourist. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 69(4), 32-34. DOI: 10.1080/07303084.1998.10605533.
7. Wood, C., Douglas, N., & Derrett, R. (2001). Educational tourism. In book: Special Interest Tourism: Contexts and Cases. Brisbane: John Wiley, 188-211.
8. Huang, R. (2008). Mapping Educational Tourists' Experience in the UK: understanding international students. Third World Quarterly, 29(5), 1003-1020. DOI: 10.1080/01436590802106247.
9. Glover, P. (2011). International Students: Linking Education and Travel. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing,
28(2), 180-195. DOI: 10.1080/10548408.2011.546210.
10. Pabel, A., & Prideaux, B. (2012). Education Tourism - Linking Pleasure Travel with Tertiary Education in the Youth Market. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, 24(4), 22-31. DOI: 10.1080/10963758.2012.10696678.
11. Lopez-Serrano, S. (2010). Learning Languages in Study Abroad and at Home Contexts: A Critical Review of Comparative Studies. Porta Linguarum, 13(13), 149-163.
12. Klyap, M. P., & Shandor, F. F. (2011). Sovremennye raznovidnosti turizma [Modern types of tourism]: textbook. Kiev: Znanie. (In Russ.)
13. Ritchie, B. J. R., & Crouch, G. I. (2003). The Competitive Destination: a Sustainable Tourism Perspective. Wallington: Oxon (UK): CABI Publishing.
14. Golikova, O. M. (2013). Issledovanie osnovnykh napravleniy detskogo turizma [Research of the main directions of children's tourism]. Services plus, 1, 62-67. (In Russ.).
15. Smith, R. M. (2016). Learning How to Learn: Applied Theory for Adults. London: UK: Pearson Prentice Hall.
16. Rather, A. R. (2004). Theory and Principle of Education. New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House.
17. Barra, P., Marco-Lajara, B., & Cachero, C. (2019). Economic impact of language tourism on mature sun and sand destinations: The case of Alicante (Spain). Tourism Economics, 25(4), 926-941. doi: 10.1177/1354816618811556.
18. Iglesias, M. (2014). The transformational impacts of the language tourism experience. Proceeding from The European Conference on Language Learning 2014. Brighton: The International Academic Forum, 10.
19. Laborda, J. G. (2007). Language travel or language tourism: have education trips changed so much? Tourism Today, 7, 29-41.
20. Zolotareva, Yu. V. (2016). Organizaciya detskogo turizma v stranah Zapadnoj Evropy [Organization of children's tourism in Western Europe]. Mezhdunarodnyj zhurnal prikladnyh i fundamentalnyh issledovanij [International journal of applied and fundamental research], 10-3, 463-467. (In Russ.).
21. Vapnyarskaya, O. I. (2018). Razvitie detskogo turizma: osnovnye statisticheskie metriki [Development of children's tourism: main statistical metrics]. Servis v Rossii i za rubezhom [Service in Russia and Abroad], 12(2), 46-58. DOI: 10.24411/1995-042X-2018-10204. (In Russ).
22. Maslakova,E. A.(2009).Upravienierazvitiem detskogo tutizmav novyh ekonomicheskih usloviyah hozyajst-vovaniya tManagingtge devtizpmeniof caildren'o knumism tnthe nsmeconomic konOihiony of management]. Candidate Economy thesis. Moscow, State University of Management. (In Russ.).
ТУРААЙДЖЕСТ
TOURDIGEST
ВСЕРОССИЙСКИЙ КОНКУРС ДЕТСКИХ ТУРИСТИЧЕСКИХ ПРОЕКТОВ
С 27 ноября по 6 декабря 2020 года на сайте Проектдети.рфпро-водится прием работ Всероссийского конкурса детских туристических проектов. Конкурс проводитФедеральное агентство по туризму (Росту-ризм)при поддержке Агентства стратегических инициативи Проектного офиса по детскому туризму, Российского союза туриндустрии.
Цель конкурса - выявление конкурентоспособных, безопасных и востребованных детских туристических проектов для продвижения Дет КИЙ туризм среди целевых сообществ.
всероссийские оннурс „ ,, . ^
В Конкурсе могут принять участие представители сферы образования, культуры, туризма, отдыха и оздоровления детей из всех регионов России.Заявки на конкурс принимаются по следующим номинациям:
• культурно-познавательныйтуристическиймаршрут;
• туристическиймаршрут в сфереэкотуризма;
• туристическиймаршрутвсферепромышленноготуризма;
• новые идеи (проекты/маршруты/продукты) по детскому туризму.
Все, подавшие заявки на конкурс, получат сертификаты участников, призеры будут награждены дипломами, а, самое главное, получат обратную связь от экспертного сообщества, информационную и органи-зационнуюподдержкуотПроектногоофисаподетскомутуризмуРоссийскогосоюза туриндустрии (РСТ).
Сильные проекты будут размещены на платформе «Смартека» Агентства стратегических инициатив как лучшие практики организации детского туризма и будут рекомендованы к внедрению в регионах России. Победители также получат возможность войти в разрабатываемую программу субсиди-рованиядетскоготуризма врамках Национального проекта «Туризм и индустрия гостеприимства».
Источник: проектдети.рф
