THEORY AND METHODS OF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH TOURISM ACTIVITIES

Abstract

The topicality of the article. Having analyzed scholarly publications on the theory and practice of education in tourism, summarized contemporary methodological and theoretical approaches to substantiating the system of principles and methods of education existing in modern pedagogy, and drawing on the author’s own experience, a study of the patterns and specific features of tourism-based education was conducted.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the internal, essential, and relatively stable relationships manifested in tourism during the organization and implementation of the educational process.

Scientific novelty. The methodology of personality education through tourism activities has been improved. Tourism facilitates the socialization of the individual and contributes to the formation of social experience within a multidirectional axiological space of natural and cultural heritage. This heritage is assimilated through educational institutions, family, mass media, excursions, travel, and other forms of tourism activity.

Conclusions. The pedagogy of tourism studies education as a conscious and systematic process of preparing an individual for life-creation in society. It reveals the essence, patterns, trends, and prospects of such preparation and examines the principles and rules that regulate educational activity.

The selection of appropriate methods of tourism-based education depends on consideration of the goals, content, and characteristics of educational influences on the participant in tourism activities, the pedagogical mastery of the educator, and the methodologically optimal combination of specific circumstances and conditions of the educational process. Its objective is to ensure that subjects of tourism acquire cultural intentions, norms, and rules of dignified behavior; develop universal and national traits; cultivate aesthetic feelings and imagination; overcome stereotypical thinking; and move toward the constructive transformation of the world.

Tourism-based education promotes the activation of citizens’ engagement in fostering mutual understanding and respect among peoples and societies, ensures comprehensive personal development, and contributes to the formation of collectivist thinking.