Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
However, there is a clear will to try and
internationalize education in countries such as
Malta, as the international orientation of study
courses is also indispensable, especially for
a small island like Malta. This includes foreign
language segments as well as the widest possi-
ble integration of foreign teachers. Student
mobility should be regarded as an integral part
of study, and teacher mobility as a regular part
of career development.
One of the impacts of the success of the
SOCRATES programme has been a marked
imbalance of incoming and outgoing flows in
some countries. This is particularly marked in
the UK, where the widespread knowledge of
English among students in other countries
makes it a popular destination. In 2001, for
example, the UK sent out 8479 students, but
received 17,632. Of the outbound UK students,
only around 200 went to the new member
states, whereas almost 1000 students came
from these countries to the UK.
A large number of students from countries
such as the Czech Republic, Poland and
Hungary are also participating in working visa
programmes. For example in 2003, the Czech
student travel company GTS sent almost 1400
students abroad for work placements. The vast
majority of these (over 1000) were to the USA
and Canada, but the rest went to Western
Europe, predominantly the UK. The distribution
of these placements underlines the strong influ-
ence of English in the new member states.
rate to university education at over 50%, point
towards a continuation of this very favourable
development.
(EC, 2005)
There are also signs that sectors such as
tourism and other services are being targeted as
particular growth prospects:
Under its national development plan, the
(Hungarian) government is trying to diversify
further the pattern of specialisation towards
services, and in particular tourism and business
services, and also to attract foreign investors to
underdeveloped regions.
(EC, 2005)
In spite of the overall high quality of human
resources in general, however, the tourism
industry remains problematic in terms of attract-
ing high quality labour. For example, Szivas and
Riley (1999) saw the Hungarian tourism industry
as a sector which offered refuge to workers dis-
placed from other sectors of the economy during
economic transition. In contrast, in Bulgaria,
Ghodsee (2001) found that
. . . despite the seasonality of employment,
jobs in the tourism sector are highly desirable
and relatively well paid compared to other
professions available to Bulgarians. This is
particularly true for Bulgarian women who
make up the vast majority of both the
managers and operational staff. Additionally,
tourism employs many educated and
experienced women displaced from other
shrinking sectors of the economy.
It is clear that the tourism labour market
varies in each country. One of the main func-
tions of tourism education and training, there-
fore, is to develop human resources that meet
the needs of the tourism industry. In spite of
many previous studies which show a poor level
of coordination between tourism education and
the human resource needs of the industry (e.g.
Richards, 1996b; 2003), the development of
tourism education is still generally related to the
importance of tourism in the economy of the
country concerned.
The importance of tourism as an employer
varies considerably between the EU member
states. In Western Europe, the proportion of the
workforce employed in tourism is about 6%
overall, but higher levels are found in countries
such
Education and Human Resource
Management
Many of the new member states already have
significant high quality human resources. For
example
the
2002
European
Commission
report on Hungary states that:
The quality of its labour force is an important
asset in Hungarian competitiveness and
growth. Hungary ranks high with regard to all
major education indicators. The percentage of
the 25-64-year-old population with university
education, which indicates the share of
highly-skilled human capital, is 14%. More
importantly, the trend has been continuously
rising since the start of transition. Enrolment in
tertiary education at 72%, and the net entry
as
Spain
and
Greece
where
there
is
