Burgas State University "Prof. Dr. Asen Zlatarov" opened a hotel-style tourism teaching room called "SYNERGY" today, the university said.
It is the first such room at a university in Bulgaria. The university built it with five companies from the tourism industry.
The room is part of the Tourism department in the Faculty of Business and Entrepreneurship. It aims to give future tourism workers practical training. As well as a hotel setting, it has separate workstations with specialist software of the kind tourism firms use.
Students will act out situations from real work. They will learn to deal with people, manage and work in a team in conditions close to the real thing.
The idea came from Pavel Nonchev, a representative of DIT Hotels and Quendoo, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Elena Ilieva, head of the Tourism department. Ilieva presented the concept of the room at the opening. She said education must meet the real needs of the industry and keep pace with new technology.
"This room is an example of how the academic community and business can join forces for the future of young people," said rector Prof. Dr. Sotir Sotirov. He said he is sure the room will give students knowledge, confidence, practical skills and real job prospects in tourism.
Prof. Dr. Dobromir Yordanov, dean of the Faculty of Business and Entrepreneurship, stressed the value of practical training in producing competitive professionals. He said the room opens the way to closer cooperation between the university and the tourism business.
The university said the name "SYNERGY" stands for combined academic knowledge and professional experience. It also reflects the shared effort of the university and business to give students better chances to train and find work.
On 19 October the university opened a branch in Dobrich for nurses — the first time in its 63-year history that it has had a unit outside Burgas.
Teachers and scientists from the university and its business partners attended the opening. They included Mihail Popov, chief executive of DIT Hotels, Goryan Varbanov, co-owner of Quendoo, and Kristiyan Kirov, owner of Hotel Utopia Forest. Also there were Sashka Peeva, senior assistant to the director of Fraport Twin Star Management, and Aleksandar Dimitrov, owner of Green Box.