THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR DESIGNING AN INTEGRATED PROFESSIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL SPACE FOR TRAINING SPECIALISTS IN THE FIELD OF TOURISM

Abstract

The modern tourism industry requires specialists with multidisciplinary knowledge, variable skills, and the ability to work in a team, interactively, and multiculturally. Designing an integrative professional and educational space at a university is becoming a key element of modern training of future tourism specialists. The article studies an integrative professional and educational space as a socio-pedagogical phenomenon in the context of training tourism specialists at universities. The researchers consider the essence, structural components, key characteristics (relevance; focus on results; integrity, consistency, complexity; dynamism, flexibility, and adaptability; interdepartmental interaction, network cooperation, and partnership), the advantages of such a space, as well as its importance for the formation of a system of competencies necessary for successful professional activity in modern tourism. The methodological approaches to designing the space in question are substantiated, taking into account interdisciplinary integration, technological progress, and international cooperation. The work highlights the main stages underlying the design of an integrated professional and educational environment of a university that promotes the development of a set of trans-scientific knowledge, skills, abilities, professionally important and socially significant personal qualities in graduates that are necessary for working in the complex conditions of the tourism industry. The results of the study demonstrate how the creation of an integrated professional and educational space can improve the quality of training of university graduates (young specialists in the tourism industry), providing them with the necessary system-structured multidisciplinary knowledge, skills, competencies for working in a highly competitive environment, and their adaptation to the requirements of the rapidly changing tourism industry market.