UP FTŠ STOUDIO TURISTICA: FROM CLASSROOMS TO PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE
- Encouraging students' to cooperate with the business sector
- Scouts to support local tourism providers
- Working together to achieve major social change
- Support in times of crisis
Encouraging students' to cooperate with the business sector
In 2019, UP Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica, under the mentorship of assoc. prof. dr. Dejan Križaj and with the active participation of assistants and students, has developed the UP FTŠ sTOUdio Turistica program. Its main task is to promote student participation in development projects focused on analytics, consulting, innovation and practical work in the business sector, through which they develop competencies with the help of experts from the field and pedagogical and research associates of UP FTŠ Turistica.
In the three years of its existence, the program has hosted a series of extracurricular activities, called sTOUdio dates, excursions, weekends, projects and startups. More than 50 Slovenian and international students of UP FTŠ Turistica have joined the program with a wish for new practical knowledge, experience, and networking. All program activities are also an excellent complement to the existing study programs and curricula.
The potential of the UP FTŠ sTOUdio Turistica program is supported by a number of successful student stories, including:
- Launch of the TourismFromZero podcast (28 episodes recorded with well-known Slovenian and foreign tourism experts);
- Issue of the newsletter "Touristology On & Off the internet";
- Successful application for the Google-Social Impact Funding project (13 applications were selected from 800 projects), within which he received professional support / mentoring and a financial award;
- Startup LocalsFromZero (platform for local tourism experiences).
''Since I joined UP FTŠ sTOUdio Turistica, I have learned a lot of new information in a very short time, so I can not wait for new experiences that await me, because STOUdio is an organization that encourages young people to think independently and critically for new and better solutions in the tourism sector."
Tjaša, 1st year of the TEM program at UP FTŠ Turistica
Scouts to support local tourism providers
One of the most outstanding projects developed in the last two years within the UP FTŠ sTOUdio Turistica program and with the help of mentors from the international TourismFromZero initiative is the startup LocalsFromZero. It is a project of a team, with most of its students from UP FTŠ Turistica, which launched a prototype platform for selling local tourist experiences of micro-tourism providers. This is not another copy of the platforms that already exist on the market, but the introduction of an innovative model of cooperation that involves the so-called scouts.
Who are the scouts? They are individuals (mostly tourism students) who use their acquired skills and knowledge to help smaller tourism providers enter the tourism market and become "bookable" or commercially available.
Working together to achieve major social change
The startup LocalsFromZero has attracted the attention of the renowned Italian international cooperative Fairbnb. It is an alternative short-term accommodation rental platform whose innovative model strives for fairer, transparent, equal, and socially responsible tourism, and is community-driven. Fairbnb donates half of the commissions collected to socially responsible projects proposed by local ambassadors.
The initial mutual sympathy quickly took the form of a major joint step forward, when the two platforms merged at the end of 2021 to form an even stronger socially responsible tourism movement and story. The merger is a great success for the UP FTŠ sTOUdio Turistica program, the students, and their mentors. With the merger, the LocalsFromZero team gained the opportunity to participate in the implementation of the Fairbnb model in Slovenia, and at the same time a great opportunity to involve UP students in the new study and extracurricular activities.
Fairbnb (together with UP FTŠ sTOUdio Turistice students) is also showing its socially responsible mission and solidarity during the Ukraine crisis, as it is developing an additional platform that NGOs and humanitarian organizations will be able to use to find hosts for refugees. The first version will be available in the coming days. To join, fill out the application form.
How can you join?
As tourism is an extremely interdisciplinary industry, you are also welcome to join the UP FTŠ sTOUdio Turistica program as mentors, professors, assistants, students, representatives of Slovenian tourism, etc.
Students can join the program through this link.
Representatives of Slovenian tourism who would like to cooperate with us, fill in this questionnaire.
For further information, you can contact tadej.rogelja@fts.upr.si.
