PhD, Associate Professor A.V. Shigaev¹
PhD, Associate Professor L.V. Gryzlova¹
PhD, Associate Professor E.A. Akimova¹
PhD, Associate Professor E.A. Shunyaeva^1
1Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute named after M.E. Evsevyev, Saransk

Keywords: youth tourism, development, youth, students, tourist club, amateur tourism.

Background. Presently the national government gives a growing priority to the sports promotion policies and provides the relevant finance for the sector. Modern tourism is ranked among the most popular sports in the youth community as it helps young people cope with problems of self-identification in life natural for this age group. This is one of the reasons why many experts tend to believe that sports tourism at this juncture may be viewed as a highly important element in the efforts to encourage high goals setting and effective self-identification, self-fulfilment, socialising and tolerance cultivation in young people [3].

In modern education science a growing attention have been given to the matters related to sporting and children’s tourism, vocational-self-identification-assisting and country-exploration tourism for the last few years. It resulted in a number of relevant studies, but most of them do not cover the issues of youth tourism.

In context of the present study we concentrated on the situation with the youth tourism that may be defined as the age-specific form of individual or team tourism or adventures designed for the young people who prefer recreation with friends motivated by the common goal of world exploration and recreation. It should be emphasised in this context that young people in the country are still in need of accessible, interesting and active recreation services including the sporting and recreation tourist services [1].

It should be mentioned that the Republic of Mordovia, in our opinion, was lagging behind in the sporting, recreation and youth tourist services just a few years ago, and it was the reason for the M.E. Evsevyev Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute (MSPI) management to come up with their own youth tourism service design and promotion project.

It was in 2009 that the Physical Education Department of MSPI established an Amateur Tourist Club (still active and popular today) for the students who love sports tourism, and these enthusiasts literally formed the core of the MSPI-supported youth tourism movement [2, p. 3-5]. The Tourist Club mission may be formulated as follows: sporting youth tourism encouragement and support at the Institute; promotion of tourism in the academic communities; training of the club activists; and municipal, republican and regional youth tourism promotion projects and events. Therefore, the MSPI-supported youth tourism projects and festival have been on the rise for the last few years despite the fact that they were started up from a scratch just a few years ago.

Objective of the study was to analyze the design and educational conditions for a variety of the MSPI-supported youth tourism models and highlight the most promising academic tourism promotion formats.

Methods and structure of the study. Youth tourism may be interpreted as a social environment, lifestyle and efficient spiritual and physical development toolkit that fosters an attitude of care towards nature, mutual understanding and respect and offers recreation models with a wide range of activities.

For the purposes of the study we drafted a questionnaire survey form to find the students’ attitudes to different tourism services including trekking tours, contests, excursions, master classes, tourist camps, trainings, mountaineering etc.; and explore their interest in the youth tourism models and relevant events. Subjects were split up into the following two groups. Group 1 was composed of the students (n=41 including 27 female and 15 male respondents) fairly experienced and active in tourism, active contributors to the youth tourism events; plus the MSPI tourist club activists dominated by the Physical Education Department and History and Law Department students. Group 2 was composed of the students (from different departments and disciplines) inexperienced in youth tourism (n=94 including 31 female and 63 male respondents).

Group 1 respondents were offered questions to rate their degrees of satisfaction with the tourism events and tourism service models offered by the Institute; rank the most memorable and successful events in the last calendar year; analyse the students’ daybooks to profile their attitudes to and happiness with different tourist events they participated in; and find the most successful formats of off-class tourism events. The study was completed in the academic year of 2016-17 in MSPI using the following methods: theoretical analysis; summaries of tourist event records, reports and other data; questionnaire survey data; and mathematical methods of data processing.

Study results and discussion. The study found fairly high degrees of the students’ interest in the tourism services and events under the academic youth tourism promotion projects implemented at the Institute and beyond; with mostly the relevant republican and regional events being subject to the study. Group 1 having a tourism experience and systemically engaged in youth tourism project and event design, management and refereeing procedures showed the highest interest in the youth tourism promotion activity. The reportedly preferred activities were dominated by the trekking and camping tours that offer ample opportunities for mastering the tourism basics. Group 2 respondents reported a high interest in different models of youth tourism preferring the role of trainees due to the lack of practical experience; albeit 45% showed interest in the tourist activity management and relevant training to be able to advance different youth tourism models in MSPU: see Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1

Table 2

We believe that at this juncture a list of the process management policies and educational provisions shall be offered to advance different youth tourism models in MSPU and in the Republic on the whole. The key objective of such policies and provisions will be to develop the conceptual basics of the process and facilitate a wide range of trekking tours, youth tourism projects, events and contests to further promote tourism in MSPI with due support from the Institute management and interested corporate entities. The initiatives shall be geared to attain the following goals.

In the youth tourism promotion and research activity:

– Analyse every element of the existing system of the youth sports tourism, adventures and excursions; and

– Implement the youth tourism service system in the academic curricula.

In the practical projects to generate the relevant social and economic benefits: 

– Step up the numbers of youth tourism events, festivals, contests in every tourism discipline including trekking tours, mountaineering, ski tourism, rafting and rescue service;

– Improve efficiency of the republican and regional children’s and youth tourism advancement projects;

– Expand the opportunities for the young people’s health improvement and active recreation in natural environment; develop leadership qualities and determination in their self-fulfilment domain;

– Advance youth tourism as the health improvement and healthy lifestyle cultivating activity; and

– Train more young people competent and experienced in the socially-centred education and recreation service programs and expand the opportunities for their vocational identification.

In the period from 2009 to 2017, the academic tourism activists and the above corporate contributors have been increasingly active as verified by the following events geared to promote and develop the youth sports tourism services in the Republic of Mordovia:

– Special advanced training courses “Rescue technologies with application of mountaineering skills” were offered in MSPI;

– Advanced education courses “Tourist and excursion service” and “Gaming and mountaineering skills trainings for team building”;

– MSPI tourist club activists visit educational establishments across the Republic to make reports and share practical experience in the youth tourism service design and management aspects, with master classes given at the interested schools and other establishments. The activity is reported to bring good benefits as it boosts the youth tourism initiatives in the relevant districts;

– Students and academic activists of the Republic actively use the MSPI tourist base in Shishkeyevo village of Ruzayev district for summer tourist camping and field trainings;

– Tourism contests are held every year in every tourist discipline including trekking tours, mountaineering, ski tourism and rescue services; with special field tourism practices for educators taking advanced training courses. Many tourist routes, contests and standards were implemented at the relevant republican, regional and Russian contests of school and university students, including “Young Rafter-2013”, “Safety School-2011” etc. On the whole, the republican university and school children have competed in 27 republican tourist contests in different disciplines for the period of 2011–2017;

– Progress of the youth tourism development initiatives is annually reported at Russian and international research and practical conferences supported by practical workshops and master classes delivered by the leading republican educators; and special tourism training courses and classes under leadership of the leading tourism specialists of the Republic;

– For the above period, academic tourism activists and researchers have published 32 articles on different issues of the youth tourism development and event management process.

Conclusion. The MSPI tourist club supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Mordovia, trade unions, Ministry of Emergency Situations and advanced education centres of the Republic of Mordovia has been highly successful as verified by the progress of the youth tourism development initiatives in the Republic.

References

1. Zorkin E.N. Detsko-yunosheskiy turizm v sisteme sotsialnogo vospitaniya: sotsialno-istoricheskiy aspekt [Children's and youth tourism in social education system: socio-historical aspect]. Mat. Vseros. nauch.-prakt. konf. – mezhvuz. sb. nauch. tr. MGPI ‘Teoriya i praktika obrazovaniya: istoriya i sovremennost’ [Proc. Rus. res.-pract. conf. – Interuniversity col. works. MSPI ‘Theory and practice of education: history and modernity’]. Saransk: MSPI publ., 2001, pp. 17–20.
2. Kadakin V.V. Mordovskiy gosudarstvenny pedagogicheskiy institut – flagman razvitiya fizicheskoy kultury i sporta v regione [Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute as a Leader of Development of Physical Culture and Sport in the Region]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2014, no. 8, pp. 3 – 5.
3. Lekareva E.E. Nravstvennye tsennosti uchastnikov turistskikh lagerey: opyt empiricheskogo issledovaniya [Moral values ​​of tourist camp participants: empirical research experience]. Mater. nauch.-prakt. konf. ‘XXXVII Evsevevskie chteniya’ [Proc. res.-pract. conf. ‘XXXVII Evsevev’s meeting’]. Saransk: MSPI publ., 2000, pp. 42–47.

Corresponding author: t_i_shukshina@mordgpi.ru

Abstract

The study considers modern youth sports tourism activity models implemented in Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute named after M.E. Evsevyev (MSPI) with support from the government of the Republic of Mordovia, with a special emphasis on the youth sports tourism development and promotion, personnel training and young people’s activity encouragement initiatives and aspects. The MSPI students were found highly interested in tourism services offered by the youth tourism promotion projects as verified by the progress of the amateur tourist club established and increasingly active in the Institute. The MSPI tourist club supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Mordovia, trade unions, Ministry of Emergency Situations and advanced education centres of the Republic of Mordovia has been highly successful as verified by the progress of the youth tourism development initiatives in the Republic.