Background

According to the draft of Estonian National Strategic plan of Tourism 2007-2013 the concept of tourism in Estonia has to go through changes. To be competitive in Europe and globally there is a need to find and develop new products and new services for customers. The research in tourism sector refers to the need for more activity oriented tourism, more attention to families and children; to satisfy equally both to the local and foreign customer. This new curricula is one possibility to fill this gap by providing market-targeted vocational training to prepare skilled labour with such kind of skills and knowledge.

There is also another angle – the popularity of general tourism training is decreasing and young people are not attracted to study just "tourism", the national VET politicians and VET institutions have to find new ways for increasing the quality of training, match better to the needs of labour market and also be more attractive. Provision of specialized curriculum offers new possibility to attract young people to choose VET school after gymnasium. Lately there is also lack of workplaces, especially for gymnasium graduates, this path will allow find job in tourism sector all over Europe.