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THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY IN RUSSIA AS A PROMISING SOCIAL PHENOMENON OF ECONOMIC CRISIS OVERCOMING (IN THE CONTEXT OF STAFF TRAINING FOR TOURISM)
V.V Gerneshy
Moscow state university of travel industry of Yu.A. Senkevich
Moscow, Russia v.gerneshij @yandex.ru
The article considers the possibility of creating a unified conception of human resources training for the travel industry, which could provide improvement of educational programs quality realization in educational institutions of travel industry. The existing educational system for specialists training, the effectiveness of which can be increased through planning and realization of action plan, including multiregion education projects is supposed to be taken as a basis of conception.
Key words: conception of human resources training, multiregion education project, dynamic development of travel industry, modellings of educational structure, academic mobility of students and lecturers.
In modern conditions domestic travel industry — is one of the most dynamically developing and upcoming trend in the service industry, which is able to become the basis of socioeconomic development of all regions of Russia. The processes in travel industry, which we observe during the latest decade, specifically, dynamic development of travel industry in the most parts of Russia, appear to be confirmation of this. New hotel complexes, catering establishments, transport, tourist structures, firms, which produce souvenirs, informational and advertising services, and also new institutions of touristic direction, were opened. There forms a large, independent, economic complex, consisting of industry groups and enterprises, and also of people, who work in every of them and strictly speaking appear to be the basis of this large mechanism subsistence. The whole touristic clusters were formed in particular regions. In this direction is especially important to note Black Sea and North- Caucasian regions. At the beginning of the second decade of XXI century Russian tourism became more and more clearly acquiring features of one of the most developing economy branches.
As is known, in 2014 a series of bankruptcies defeated a lot of domestic touristic enterprises. According to the specialists' research this situation was not unexpected. At first, this situation is conditioned by three factors, interrelated and negatively influencing on touristic sphere: artificially made economical sanctions in relation to Russia, as a consequence, sharp decline of customer demand in the segment of entry and visiting tourism and low management level in the branch. Essentially economic sanctions played a role of catalyzer, as they just accelerated revelation of travel industry painful points in Russia. The fact that the management of the branch, in virtue of insufficient professionalism, could not prepare situation development objective prediction in the market and duly offer measures on mitigation (prevention) of crises phenomena became the key moment.
In reality, travel industry in comparison with other spheres of economic activity is rather sensitive to alterations of political, social, economical, ecological, ethnical, climatic and other factors, overtly or covertly influencing on branch of economy. However, tourism has one incontestable advantage over various branches of economy - tourism by virtue of its high adaptability to situation, flexibility and variability, recovers and overcomes recessionary situations much faster. Even now we can confidently speak about certain level of overcoming of recessionary situations by domestic tourism. It's clearly that tourism will need some time for pre-depression level achievement.
However, amendments and additions to legislative rules, taken by State Duma of RF in autumn 2014, even now allow excluding cases of unfair rendering services to touristic product
consumers, providing a definite level of assurance and protection for a consumer and giving clearer legal and economical mechanisms of their activity regulations to touristic enterprises. Therewith, training of highly professional specialists (managers), who are confidently capable to develop travel industry and ensure its economic security, is considered to be the most difficult thing under these circumstances.
It is well known that tourism is - a complex inter-industry and interdepartmental multi-mode system and simultaneously a unique social phenomenon. It coordinates needs in human interaction, development of person and mentality with criteria of social fairness, environment protection, revival of historical heritage, culture and art. Branch specificity predetermined quality characteristics, required from its workers - it is a creative person, competent, moral specialist with a constant aspiration to improve his skill. Besides, the given criteria can and must refer to specialists of all levels from waiter, barman, parlour-maid, guide, to administrators (managers of top echelon) of hotels, restaurants, tourist complexes and etc. New educational requirements in the sphere of travel industry in Russia are determined by that.
In the conception of long-term socioeconomic development of Russian Federation for the period until 2020 (order of the government of Russia from 17 of November 2008 № 1662-p) tourism is considered to be as significant constituent of innovative development of our country in long-term outlook, economically sound and environmentally safe branch of national economy. Natural diversity, history and culture of multinational Russia permit to develop practically all types of tourism. However, great touristic potential of the country is not used in full. According to the world tourist organization joint board estimates (UNWTO), Russia is capable to receive to 40 millions of foreign tourists in a year and it is able to enter in the top 10 ratings of the most attractive from the viewpoint of tourism countries. Changed socioeconomic relations determine new treatment of travel industry development that in its turn leads to severization of touristic specialists qualification requirements. Qualified human resources act as one of the key factors of business activity success in the travel industry. In many European countries organization, working in the sphere of tourism, cannot get license if all its personnel doesn't have special education. "The future of business, economy and government depends on what kind of young specialists will come to our enterprises and to presidence of the country", - said in one of his interviews the chairman of Russian rectors union, rector of MSU named after M.V.Lomonosov Victor Sadovnichy.
Alteration dynamics of travel industry, including, branch calls, which we observe nowadays, requires scientific understanding and processes substantiation, taking place in travel industry, creation of touristic human resources symmetrical system as high, so middle professional education.
On one side, knowledge specialization in travel industry makes training of touristic human resources as work, requiring a serious working out, understanding of thin agreement of education programs, long and strong practical training of students. On the other side, development rates of touristic technologies offer the counter challenge - to prepare multifunctional workers on the basis of new educational programs, based on multidisciplinary approach to education in reasonably short terms. Specificity of human resources training for travel industry is determined by diversity of knowledge and skills, which every specialist in this sphere should have. Besides knowledge on general methodology of travel catering, he should have knowledge of production method of concrete services, in other words knowledge on dining service technologies, hotel service technologies, freight service technologies, tourist sightseeing technologies. Also deep knowledge and skills on introduction of informational processes and new technologies in the whole spectrum of offered touristic services are also need. As experience of the latest years showed, it is very important to train a specialist for the work in quickly changing economic conditions. These specialists should have professional competences of work in crisis situations (these competences are especially needed now - in the period of gradual overcoming the crisis) [3].
Staff training - is a topical issue, which is very acute for factory manager of the travel industry. Currently we have a situation where graduates of Russian specialized educational institutions do not fully meet the professional requirements of the international standards. It is well known that the modern tourist market, with its highly competition, needs in highly professional
personnel, able to adapt to rapidly changing conditions, crisis situations in the industry, owning the advanced knowledge, skills and experience, catching the fast change of technology industry. In addition to general and special knowledge, employers now expect from the young specialists of travel industry presence of certain professional competences, without mentioning such obligatory skills as using of computer, knowledge of foreign languages, ability to work in a group and effectively represent results of own labor and oneself. [1]. The main complaint of employers to educational institutions - is a separation of knowledge, obtained by young professionals, from the practice of the travel industry. It can manifest in different ways - as in inefficiency to qualitatively perform official duties, so in the psychological unpreparedness to realias of everyday practical activity of travel industry enterprises, to the management by junior staff, to the norms of behavior in the business environment.
Under these conditions, qualitative implementation of the modern professional tourist education model is appeared to be one of the actual problems of travel industry professional institutions. The root of the matter lies in the understanding of qualification requirements and professional competences, required to tourism sphere specialists. The contradiction lies in the different representations about specialist functions of educational institutions lecturers and employers. According to the experts, the effective implementation of all problem solving variants is possible only with the active participation of the business community in the branch specialists professional training. The importance of cooperation of the education system and industry is also confirmed in the report of the European Commission EU, which declared industries as "full partners in the learning process". Unfortunately, the tourist business community, which "consumes" the graduates, did not clearly formulate the order. Requirements of the travel industry have not been evident for the educational institutions yet. That is why many of our actions toward each other occur spontaneously, and cooperation mechanisms are for the present in the process of development. One can only speak about the effectiveness of the tourism educational system in Russia if the employers act as a qualified customer in the labor and educational services market. Entire structure of the issue as a whole (how many bachelors, magisters should prepare educational institution) should be subordinated to the employer requirements and finally to travel industry, that is why multi variation is necessary for this.
Under these circumstances, it can be affirmed that the existing system of specialists education training for the tourism enterprises is not enough effective. Experts note a few key issues of personnel training for travel industry [4]:
• certain retard of the professional education content from country and labor market requirements, from world tourist market development tendencies, that evokes discontent of domestic employers and reduces the competitive ability of human resources training system for travel industry;
• structure and volume balance violation of the staff training, which do not meet real labor market requirements one can bring the following: travel industry educational institutions, according to the various estimations, graduate 1,5-2 times more specialists with higher education and 2-3 times less specialists with intermediate vocational education and nonprofessional occupations, than travel industry needs;
• the absence of the clearly defined qualifications and also the personnel order quantity for specialists training for travel industry enterprises from the customer side;
• absence of the monitoring requirements of the travel industry institutions in specialists of various profile;
• excessive academicism of profile higher education under the obvious practical skills and knowledge deficit, that leads to the significant abruption between branch requirements and offer from the educational institutions side. Higher school does not always quickly react to the forming situation according to the personnel training for travel industry;
• a significant need for qualified teaching staff, related to the absence of system involvement of travel industry workers to teaching;
• inefficiency of practical and pregraduation training passing of the students. This is conditioned by the fact that branch enterprises for the most part do not accept specialists and do not give them possibility to apply their theoretical knowledge in the real conditions.
It's evidently that it's impossible to provide innovative development and branch competitiveness without radical changes of the staff training system for travel industry, without providing proper quality and effectiveness, flexibility and dynamism, without its correspondence to labor market, without general and continuous promotion of human resources professional level.
There is a need for complex scientific investigations in order to create a unified concept of human resources training for travel industry, which would let more qualitatively train specialists of different levels for the work in the travel industry [3]. The basis of the concept should compose the existing educational training specialists system, effectiveness of which can be advanced by means of planning and realization of the following events:
• analysis of the real market demand for specialists of travel industry;
• content continuity of general, vocational and higher education;
• developments and implementation of professional service standards entire system for all subdivisions of travel industry, on the basis of which it is necessary to create educational standards;
• developments of unified qualifications for specialists training in the travel industry sphere;
• modelling of the educational structure and formation of its content by means of educational thematic plans and courses educational programs development, entering into model educational structure of travel industry;
• unity of studied technical, technologic, and other processes, creation of integrated educational courses on their basis;
• replacements of reproductive educational methods by productive and problem-research methods;
• improvement of professional training development, rational distribution of theoretical and practical trainings, towards growth of the last-mentioned;
• qualitative organization of practical training on the enterprises of travel industry;
• mass attraction of travel industry sphere workers to the teacher activity for staff training;
• effective use of human resources, material resources of travel industry base enterprise in educational sphere;
• close cooperation with business in order to enlarge research investigations networks for knowledge accumulation, innovations stimulation and supplying of new technologies fast promoting in the travel industry market;
• appliance of creative abilities development efficient modes in the processes of professional orientation formation on personal values, requirements;
• implementation of the new educational forms (distance learning, net education), improvement of already known (retraining of licensed graduates, advanced training);
• introduction into the travel industry staff training, as an obligatory element of - students and lectures academic mobility not only with foreign countries , but also with domestic educational institutions that will allow to contribute to more penetrative understanding of qualifications regional systems and educational results.
Realization of the above mentioned events in modern conditions is effectually accomplished during the educational programs development that will permit to take into account all human resources training peculiarities for the purpose of the further travel industry educational system efficiency upgrading. In this context, arranging of stable and regular academic mobility between travel industry educational institutions of Moscow and Black Sea basin is appeared to be highly perspective. Besides, this mobility can be not only in the form of generally accepted exchange between students and lecturers, but also within the framework of joint educational projects realization. Realization of large, long-term multiregion educational project, covering as capital, so regional and foreign educational institutions of Black Sea basin, is considered to be perspective. SAEI HPE MSUTI named after Yu. A. Senkevich has an experience of similar projects realization. Presently, practical-oriented educational project on personnel training for hotel complexes is
successfully realized. The project is realized by the university in collaboration with German chamber of commerce and industry and chain of hotels IHG. Four years have passed since the beginning of the project, and it confirmed its high effectiveness that all sides, involved into project, mark. The management of the institute considers possibility of joint educational projects realization with educational institutions of Black Sea basin as the next stage of the project activity development. We believe that such cooperation can be mutually beneficial for all sides that will permit them to strengthen their positions in educational field and give them real competitive advantages.
It seems that the project approach can permit to take the best student teachings of several regions educational institutions as a basis of specialists training effectively realize practical oriented method of staff training and use accumulated educational potential of these regions. The first step in the direction of the capital educational institutions cooperation with regional institutions of the Black Sea basin could be educational programs realization net form, which is under the law of RF. According to our estimates, realization of multiregion project approach in staff training for tourism sphere, thank to such uniting social phenomenon as tourism, will give everybody possibility to overcome crises in short terms.
References
1. Aleshin V.A. Modern educational technologies in formation of professional competences of travel industry specialists. Materials of the IX International workshop conference "Topical issues of business - education". Minsk, 2012.
1. Bolotov V.A., Serikov V.V. Competence model: from the idea to the educational program. Pedagogics. 2008. № 10.
2. Gerneshy V.V., Yandovsky A.N. Quality of educational process in educational organization - problems and ways of promotion. Monography. Moscow, 2014
3. Pyatkova S.G. Cooperation of university and business-community in innovative system of travel industry professional specialists training. Scientific electronic edition Service in Russia and abroad. 2012. № 5.
April, 10, 2015
