EUROPEAN DIMENSION IN QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE TOURIST SECTOR AS AN INSTITUTION FOR RUSSIAN DESTINATIONS DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Adaptation of the best practices of the extensive and nationally specific European experience in the field of measurement of qualifications becomes particularly appropriate as there is some delay in the development of Russian scientific, practical and methodological approaches to the national qualifications framework. At the same time, the shortage of highly qualified personnel in the fast-growing tourist sector is becoming chronic, and the results of creating tourist clusters are ambiguous, with a large share of failures in the implementation of master plans for territorial tourism development. In this regard, the acceleration of the development of a structured measurement of qualifications in the form of a national qualifications framework becomes demanded not only to achieve greater maturity and effectiveness of the Russian educational and professional systems in the tourism sector, but also as a common institution for the strategic development of Russian destinations in training areas, technologies, competencies and the innovation potential of the tourism and hospitality industry. The projects of the European Commission ERASMUS+ are one of the effective network channels for the development of national and international expertise in structural measures to optimize educational systems, and in particular, to compare and develop systems, matrices frameworks for qualifications. The article represents an attempt to highlight how the implementation of a structured project in the field of qualifications can correspond both to general progressive trends in the evolution of educational systems and to the overall objectives of territorial tourist development. As a conceptual result, the authors identify six mid-term and six long-term effects of the developments of a national qualifications framework that directly and indirectly provide beneficial outcomes within the development of Russian destinations through improving the focus of retraining and advanced training programs, enhancing lifelong learning, promoting labor mobility in the tourism sector, successful validation of informal education, wider circulation of partial and intermediate qualifications in the tourism and hospitality industry. Adjacent to this issue is the problem of the relationship between the development of educational clusters in the tourism sector and the national qualifications framework, on the one hand, and tourism clusters, on the other, the consideration of which is also presented in this article.

Keywords

• tourism
• clusters
• destinations
• qualifications
• competences
• national qualifications framework
• professional standards
• educational standards