On Monday July 18, begins in Valencia the face part of the COURSE OF TOURISM AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION FOR DEVELOPMENT 2011
The UNWTO.Themis Foundation has signed a training contract with the Institute of International Economics (IEI) for the organization, management and delivery in Spanish of the V Edition of the Course "Tourism and International Cooperation for Development". This foundation is the body responsible for implementing the programme of work on Education and Training of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
The fifth edition of this course started on 23 May and aims at training in tourism and international cooperation for development. Tourism is an activity that can contribute to development in countries or regions that have no other economic opportunities and that generally have exceptional cultural and natural resources. However, it is essential that the technicians in charge of this tourism development be able to evaluate the negative impacts and enhance the positive impacts generated by tourism activity, in a context of expansion in vulnerable regions and from a social and natural perspective.
It is a semi-attendance course, intense in its theoretical and practical dimensions. It lasts 150 hours on-line and 100 hours in Spain and Andorra. The first part of the course has developed five theoretical topics on-line: concepts and theoretical debates necessary for the understanding of the complexity of international cooperation for development, at a general level and at the level of the UNWTO. The second part, which was conducted in person, began at the University of Valencia from 18 July to 23 July and continued in Andorra, where the UNWTO.Themis Foundation has its headquarters. In this second part, students have the opportunity to receive lectures and talks on specific topics that are of interest for future professional development in this field. This course will be attended by the UNWTO STEP programme, Casa Mediterraneo, a representative of the IDB, the Banesto Foundation, the work carried out by Amadeus through CSR, etc. The students will also carry out practices and workshops that require the student to understand the tools and methodologies used in the UNWTO.Volunteers Programme, such as those proposed by the UNWTO STEP programme.
One of the advantages offered by the course is that those who have completed it have the opportunity to participate as UNWTO volunteers in international development cooperation programmes. The profile of the participants is very diverse, both from the point of view of their nationality (17 Europeans, 14 South Americans and two Africans), and from the professional perspective: there are predominantly tourism graduates, but there are a good number of students from other academic and professional areas such as biology, sociology, law, economics, etc.
