Lifelong education system in Russian tourism and hospitality: Models, technologies, context

Abstract

Paper's goal is to elicit features of formation a lifelong education system in Russian tourist and hospitality industry. Internet resources monitoring of 30 organisations realizing programs in tourist and hospitality; 10 in-depth interviews with program heads are used as methods. The results show that the absence of a special division for coordinating programs; that the existing theory and methodology do not correspond to a problem of training competitive experts; incoordination of purposes and problems of programs and priorities of employers; absence of professional competences; non-standard-issue documentations; absence of the unified registering of documents of graduation prgrams. The current system has to be modernized. The principle of lifelong education has to be the basis for developing drivenness and responsibility, strengthening ability to adapt to the economic, social and professional transformations. Keywords: Continuing education system, hospitality, tourism, supplementary vocational education.