Prospects of a small country

At the period from the 16^th to 20^th of September, 2013 within Geographical Department the lectures on Ecotourism were held for students, Master’s Degree students, applicants, young scientists and others.

The lectures were read by Slovak Professor Kucherova Yana who lives in a lovely town Banska Bystritsa and works at Tourism Department of the Matej Bel University. She has a great pedagogical experience; she used to teach tourism disciplines in Great Britain, Germany and United States.

Kucherova Yana has been to Brest for the third time, she has been visiting Belarus from the year 2006 within the execution of the educational projects of the tourism programme TEMPUS. At present a lot of activities on the project TETVET «Training and career enhancement of the tourism discipline teachers in the Republic of Belarus» are being carried out. The consortium of this project comprises Geographical Department of the Brest State A.S. Pushkin University.  

A lot of important, interesting and informative topics were discussed during the week of Ecotourism. Kucherova Yana told about the strategies of development of tourism in terms of Slovakia and EU. Planning and strategy of the tourism on local and national levels, development of tourism in the example of Slovakia were also on agenda. A special attention was paid to the development of the rural tourism. Professor shared the information about the ways to make a backward competitive in terms of tourism. Regional tourism planning and steadiness in this sphere were discussed at the lectures. One of the most significant topics was a strategy of tourism development in EU until the year 2020. That lecture was delivered in English.

We express gratitude to Kucherova Yana for reading lectures as well as to the Administration of the Department for given opportunity to listen to the lecture of one of the leading specialists in the sphere of tourism in Slovakia.

Iliutchik Anastasia,
 student of the 4^th year of the Geographical Department