Law in accredited tourism curricula at higher education institutions in Serbia

Abstract

Tourism is relatively new but still a very complex industry, which creates the necessity for legal regulations of different relations in tourism. Quite often, the relations are completely new to the existing legislation and legal practice. On the other hand, it is relatively easy to find appropriate examples for many of them in existing law of obligations, ownership, civil and other laws. The course of Law in Tourism is necessary for educating and training students in order to introduce them to legal disciplines and institutions regulating social relations relevant to tourism industry. It includes relations between a company (entrepreneurs) and the state, relations between companies in tourism industry and tourism service sector and agents with the direct user - a tourist. The aim of this paper is to attempt to present the updated situation of law courses by analyzing curricula of tourism colleges and faculties in Serbia. Methodology used for data collection is based on desk research with national and international references, mostly from tourism field. Comparison and analysis were mostly used in data processing. The paper consists of two parts. The first part is entitled 'Defining Tourism and Law in Tourism' and the second is 'Representation of Law Courses in Accredited Tourism Curricula at Higher Education Institutions in Serbia'. Based on the curriculum and sylabus analy­sis of tourism higher education institutions, it can be concluded that law courses are inadequately represented with a total of only 3.8%.