Financial management specifics in tourism companies – online training course Erasmus Project

Project Title

Financial management specifics in tourism companies – online training course

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Open and distance learning; Economic and financial affairs (incl. funding issues); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The project is based on the idea of creating a new training course that will combine general economic knowledge with the specifics of the sectoral economy. During their studies in the field of tourism, students get acquainted with general principles and methods of financial management and business economics in basic courses. In the courses focused on tourism, they subsequently focus mainly on the operational specifics of tourism companies with only a marginal emphasis on the financial issues of business in tourism. The aim of the project is to combine the areas of tourism and financial management and to create a new holistic training course. The second impulse for the creation of the project was the current epidemiological situation, which emphasized the need for intensive use of modern technologies in teaching and pointed out the insufficient quantity and quality of available didactic materials in electronic form.
The main goal of the project is to create an innovative didactic material with the support of modern information technologies, which combines general economic knowledge with the sectoral economy specifics. Other goals are to support the internationalization of the educational process within higher education and to fill the gap in the education in the tourism sector.
The project involves three European universities (Prague University of Economics and Business, Technische Hochschule Deggensdorf, Universidad Europea de Madrid), which have extensive experience in teaching subjects in tourism, finance and business economics and in processing international projects. All partners have set up highly accomplished expert teams to work on the project. Representatives of partner universities consider the project to be very beneficial, as they perceive a gap in university curricula and study materials and are interested in using the created didactic material in their teaching. There is no comprehensive modern methodology on the topic Financial management specifics in tourism companies, which would mediate this issue to students with the use of digital technologies.
The output of the project will be comprehensive modern didactic materials (course content and methodology (syllabus), online teaching course, methodological manuals for teachers and students). All outputs will be in English The main output is an online training course comprising of 12 lessons, which will include in each lesson: a digital presentation of the topic, an example, a video / audio interview (podcast) with an expert, a case study, a control test. The content of the course is divided into two parts: the first part contains the theoretical background of financial management (4 lessons) and the second part describes the financial management specifics in various types of tourism companies (restaurants, hotels, travel agencies, guide services, transport companies, destination management organizations, spa facilities, event companies). Experts from the industry will also collaborate on the output – in the form of consultations and podcasts.
Other outputs will be accompanying materials to the online training course: methodological guidelines for students and teachers and course syllabus (course content and methodology). Methodical guidelines will be the basic support for teachers and students, they will contain methodological procedures, solving examples and case studies, expanding questions and tasks, recommended resources. The syllabus puts the course into study plans, defines the requirements for students, requirements for graduation, states the structure of the course and the recommended literature.
All partners will participate equally in the processing of individual outputs; one partner university will always be responsible for the finalization and final form of each output. Each partner will work on all outputs simultaneously. Representatives of partner universities will meet regularly at semi-annual intervals (a total of 4 meetings), further communication will be online (e-mail, video calls).
The main result of the project will be modern teaching material that will be available to students and teachers in the field of tourism free of charge online. The newly developed online training course can be used as a whole or only for selected topics. The training course will contain mainly timeless information. Due to the digital form, it will be easy to update, the update will be performed primarily by the project coordinator or the partner university under its direction. The sustainability of the project is estimated to be at least 5 years.
The main group that benefits from the project results are students and teachers of partner universities. The project results will be available to other schools on the platform Erasmus+. Given the expected average number of students per year at the partner universities, it can be estimated that the project outputs will be used annually by 360 students in the field of tourism.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 102740 Eur

Project Coordinator

VYSOKA SKOLA EKONOMICKA V PRAZE & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• UNIVERSIDAD EUROPEA DE MADRID, SAU
• TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE DEGGENDORF