engleski

In Search of the Best Practices' Model for Croatian Tourism Education

Traditionally, Croatia is a tourism oriented country. The growth of tourism activities in recent years confirms that Croatia is on the path towards fostering tourism as an inevitable generator of its further economic development. In this sense, higher education and/or training programs for tourism professionals should continuously offer more competitive, quality, and valuable subjects in order to maintain and improve their skills. The development of tourism studies can be progressed through the creation of additional new programs and/or through the revalidation and updating of existing provision. Radical changes in Croatia’s higher education system made after July 2003 introduced a significant expansion of courses offering tourism majors primarily in Economics and Business, both in public and private sector. Further diversification of tourism programs in Croatia will continue to change the tourism and hospitality scene by upgrading university and professional education and training to a West European level with comparable qualifications. This paper attempts to analyse present tourism education programs in Croatian higher education, concentrating particularly on the development of curricula, best practices' models and 'knowledge transfer' projects that should be adopted/adapted for implementation into the Bologna framework.

study programs of tourism; academic disciplines; quality; higher education institutions; Croatia

The International Conference organized by the University of Bologna, Rimini Campus, Faculty of Economics and TedQual, UNWTO.THEMIS Foundation