The main objectives of the project are the development of strategic partnership among universities, support of internationalization of the educational process, and the teacher´s mobility. The other goal is to support innovation and modernization of the educational process. Finally, it is an effort to contribute to the sustainable development of society, particularly in the field of nature protection threatened by the fast development of tourism. The project will also support inclusion since it will bring guidelines on how to prepare and implement barrier-free nature heritage interpretation. The project outputs will be a new complex modern didactic material in a digital form: E-book: an overview of theories in the interpretation of nature heritage, examples of good practice, case studies. Guidelines: designed and adjusted to professionals from the industry, they will spread awareness of the topic in the industry, support further live-long professional education, transfer foreign experience to experts. Video + Digital presentations: examples of nature heritage interpretation. Podcasts: timeless ideas from interesting personalities from the topic The need of such a project is based on the survey, which showed a gap in university syllabi and study materials. Despite the growing interest of visitors in nature, the professional literature doesn´t cover this topic, there is no comprehensive modern methodology of nature heritage interpretation, nor interpretation planning. The content of the project also reflects the mission and the new political framework for tourism in Europe. The European Travel Commission aims to develop new ways how to attract visitors to European nature heritage. The upgrade of nature heritage interpretation will increase awareness of nature heritage values, initiate responsible behaviour of visitors and nature heritage protection. The project will be implemented in partnership of 8 universities representing different European regions, capital and regional cities, and countries with diverse nature heritage and its potential. The distribution of tasks is well balanced among all partner universities. Each university will deal with its subtopic as follows: VSE Praha, Czech Republic: small-scale protected areas, interpretation through nature heritage trails, treetop walkways; Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Romania: UNESCO locations, nature watching; University of Applied Sciences-Fachhochschule Burgenland, Austria: large-scale protected areas, interpretation centers in national parks; Universidad Europea, Spain: caves, interpretation in extreme nature areas, guiding; Fachhochschule des Mittelstands, Germany: cultural landscape, palace gardens, ZOOs and botanic gardens, gamification; Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland: geoparks, coastal landscape, inanimate nature, modern interpretation media; Universidade do Porto, Portugal: agricultural landscape, vineyards, wine routes, interpretation through experience; Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania: hydrology, balneological nature resources, printed materials for interpretation. The project has a detailed action plan. The main activities of the project are: Compilations of materials and their didactic elaboration, collection of examples of good practice, elaboration of case studies, cooperation with the industry. Transnational project meetings for coordination of project implementation and evaluation, and as a platform for networking, for sharing the experience, and support of the development of internationalization in university activities. Short-term joint staff training events with training activities supporting the development and improvement of pedagogical skills, especially in the use of new digital materials and tools and their implementation in the teaching process. Dissemination activities: organization of an international conference, web pages, articles, papers, lectures at conferences outside the project, etc. Project management: communication with partners, monitoring, budget monitoring, evaluation. The created materials will help to build awareness of the importance of quality nature heritage interpretation and its significant role in the protection of nature values. The main group benefiting from the project results are students and teachers of 8 partner universities. They will benefit particularly in the field of the educational process - its innovation, internationalization, and digitalization. The outcomes of the project will be available also to other schools. Experts from the industry and other relevant stakeholders will also benefit from the compiled and published materials (Guidelines). The project outputs will be published in full on open webpages all partner universities and will be freely accessible. They will be technically user-friendly. They will be also downloaded into the Platform for Dissemination of Results of Erasmus + Programme. Long-term utilization of project outputs is expected.
The main aim of the project was a contribution to the internationalisation of the academic environment and teaching process at the involved universities and to deepen the international co-operation of academics. Another aim was to prepare materials for innovation in education and training in a selected topic, which was the interpretation of nature heritage in tourism. Finally, the aim also was to produce new, modern didactic materials in the digital form. The related follow-up goals responded to the needs of the current society, the first one was to contribute to the sustainable development of the society particularly in the field of nature protection threatened by fast development of tourism. Another follow-up goal was to support inclusion in the society. Interpretation respects the social dimension of visitors to cultural heritage, which means ensuring accessibility of interpretation for everybody, both from the view of physical barrier, but also from the social, and cultural view.
Our aim was to support the basic profiling and orientation of the Faculty of International Relations of the University of Economics and Business in Prague at internationalisation through this project. Implementation of an international project offers an opportunity to develop deeper cooperation with foreign universities and share and transfer international experience in teaching and other work of academics and students. The importance and benefit of building up international relations by project implementation exceeds the time of project solution and creates a base for further cooperation, development of international mobility of teachers and students, and opportunities for further cooperation in scientific research, etc. The topic of nature heritage interpretation was chosen as an intersection of interest of all partners involved in the project and at the same time a hot topic in the field of tourism, which is still marginalized in the tourism teaching process. It is a prospective topic in the long term, following up the strategy of sustainable tourism development supported in the whole European Union. The European Travel Commission set up a goal to maintain Europe as a prime tourist destination in the global competition and to attract visitors to our European cultural and nature heritage. To achieve the ETC goals, future generations of experts must be well prepared to promote Europe as a “unique and unified tourist destination”. The project supports this goal leading to a higher-quality interpretation of cultural and nature heritage. The Strategy of tourism development in the Czech Republic for 2021-2030 issued by the Ministry for Regional Development of the Czech Republic mentions the unsuitable state of interpretation infrastructure (its obsolescence), or breaching methodology for elaboration of interpretation as barriers to development. Subjects with specialisation in tourism, in which the topic of nature heritage interpretation can be incorporated are taught at all partner universities (e.g., sustainable tourism development, destination management, intercultural communication, guiding, or tourist attractions). The project allowed to produce innovative didactic materials, not only from the view of content covering a complex concept of nature heritage interpretation as a topic but also from the view of a form. The outputs of the project are completely digital. There was a lack of digital didactic materials in 2019-2020. Thanks to the project, an international team, where each country (each partner university) could contribute with their best practice in the interpretation of European nature heritage, produced these didactic materials. Thus, the produced materials will give students the opportunity to acquire knowledge and high-quality skills and competencies in an international environment. We consider this to be an important competitive advantage for our graduates entering the labour market in the current globalized society. With this project, we wanted to contribute also to the sustainable development of society, the protection of the environment, nature, and climate. Tourism performed in nature and the number of visitors is growing fast, which represents an extreme burden for the natural environment caused by tourism. Only a well-mastered interpretation of nature heritage may improve the awareness of natural environment values among visitors. Such improved awareness will then lead to more responsible behaviour of visitors and motivate them to the protection of nature heritage.