Tourism and foreign languages – Sapientia University in Europe

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Tourism and foreign languages – Sapientia University in Europe

            In all respects our region is trying to catch up with western European countries. In regional development, one of the primary issues is to develop local tourism businesses. Szekelyland offers several programmes and organizes events where foreigners, and people who speak foreign languages, are warmly welcome. In order to welcome our guests properly, we must, as hosts, not only provide them with good accommodation and catering, but we also have to provide those who turn to us with full and reliable information. In order to do that, we need to be able to speak foreign languages, or at least, have the right sources which might help us in communicating with foreigners.

              As research shows, which has been conducted by the Department of Humanities of Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania, the staff of local hotels, guest-houses and restaurants– with some exceptions – do not have the necessary foreign-language skills to be able to communicate effectively with their guests. An EU project, in which the Humanities Department of Sapientia University plays an active part, serves to improve this situation, to develop the language skills of those working in the tourism and catering sectors.

            In the project, Romania is represented by a group of teachers from the Department, while other participant partners are from Croatia, the co-ordinator of the project, Latvia, Slovenia, Italy and England. The partners’ primary aim is to develop the general and specialized language skills of those employed in tourism and of tourism managers. This is to be done with the help of a web-based learning platform available in 12 languages, where tourism students and workers can find specialized learning material, vocabulary and sets of useful expressions necessary for their work. A further aim of the project is to prepare interactive maps showing three different scenes, typically visited by tourists (a village, a seaside town and a mountain resort) with all the important points of interest and the most important information related to them. These maps will be available in the languages of the six partner countries, as well as six other languages, i.e. in Croatian, Latvian, Slovenian, Italian, English, Hungarian, Romanian, German, French, Greek, Spanish and Russian. If a foreign guest makes enquiries about any of these points of interest, the user (e.g. the receptionist) can click on the relevant spot, and give them the necessary information, in any of the languages. Maybe they would like to know when the local shop is open, the time of Sunday mass, or how much a ski pass costs.

              In these three tourist locations, as well as in a restaurant, several hundred typical questions and answers can be found. These will also be available, in all the 12 languages, in the form of computer software and smartphone apps, so that they can be instantly accessed by users when having a conversation with guests from abroad.

            The computer software and the smartphone apps were presented by participants of the project to an audience made up of mainly foreign-language teachers, at the campus of Sapientia University in Miercurea Ciuc (Romania). These teachers were personally interested in the project, while many of them also teach secondary school pupils, who will be future employees in the tourism and catering sectors. Several teachers were present from Kájoni János Technological Vocational School, which offers specialized courses for tourism students. Others came from Márton Áron Secondary School, from Venczel József Vocational School, and from Soros Educational Center. Colleagues from Odorhei were also interested in our project.

 At the beginning of the meeting, Dr. Zsuzsanna Ajtony, lecturer, the co-ordinator of the Sapientia team, greeted the participants and introduced the representatives of the partner countries. This was followed by a presentation of the project by Hilarija Lozančić Benić, the representative from Croatia. Dr. Ineta Luka, professor at Turiba University from Latvia, presented the results of a needs analysis carried out prior to the start of the project, which was prepared on the basis of the partners’ surveys. After this the Slovenian partners, Erna Vöröš and Dejan Petje, presented the learning material using the Moodle software. It will be open to anyone interested, as a teaching and learning aid both for language teachers and language learners. Finally, the English partner, David Sephton from Primrose Publishing, showed the participants the computer software, the interactive maps and the smartphone apps under construction. The invited teachers put questions to the presenters and were encouraged to try and later use the various materials. The meeting ended with an open discussion.

            The piloting of the electronic materials will take place in June, during which we will contact students and different professional institutions, as we would like to know their opinion of the software and the apps. If you would like to test the computer programmes, the interactive maps and the apps, please write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Further results of the project will be reported later.

Dr. Zsuzsanna Ajtony,

lecturer at Department of Humanities,

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania

Piloting byTuriba

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Piloting of apps and the Front Desk programme at Turiba University

The piloting of the application programmes and the Front Desk programme was carried out at the premises of Turiba University on 8^th and 9^th July 2015 within the framework of the Erasmus + project “Key Skills for European Union Hotel Staff”. Both members of Turiba staff as well as students were involved in the piloting of the application programmes and the Front Desk programme. The aim of this piloting activity was to see how the two smartphone apps and the FrontDesk-2 computer program perform in practice and to suggest any improvements or additions to the content that may be considered useful or necessary. On the whole the application programmes and desktop programme were well received and participants suggested adding more creative features to the programmes in the future to make the learning process more interesting.

Sundars Vaidesvarans

Project team member of Turiba University, Latvia

Piloting for restaurant staff at Mea Culpa d.d. restaurant Mezzanave in Dubrovnik

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Piloting for restaurant staff at Mea Culpa d.d. restaurant Mezzanave in Dubrovnik

On 20 August 2015, I prepared dissemination and piloting the project KeySkills4EUHotelStaff at Mea Culpa d.d. restaurant Mezzanave Dubrovnik. Restaurant staff was very friendly and ready to listen despite the fact they were very busy with a lot of work. It is very important to say that is very busy and well-known recently new open restaurant in a very attractive business part of city Dubrovnik. Hope this will help and encourage them to use it in the near future in their work. I mainly focused on the FrontDesk programs and the mobile apps as the presentation was mainly for waiters working there.  Therefore, I showed them how the FrontDesk programs work and how to use them on the tablet. I presented the smartphone app with the help of David’s PowerPoint presentation but also on my and Hilarija’s smartphone.  All participants of the presentation had been sent the apps and FrontDesk programs to install them on their tablets and mobile devices so that they could start using them.

The evaluation sheet asked for general information and more specific information regarding the presentation. Six participants who worked in the morning shift filled in the evaluation sheet. All of them gained useful information on the project. One found the presentation of the project very useful, whereas four thought it was useful and one quite useful.

Regarding the smartphone app all of them answered they gained useful information. Four of them use Android OS and two of them IoS. Four of them evaluated design of the app very good, one of them excellent and one of them good. Five of them said it was very easy to find the information in the apps they were looking for and one of them easy.  If the apps were available on their device two of them would use it very likely and two of them likely and two of them quite likely.

Regarding the usefulness of the apps for their companies, two answered that the apps would be very useful, two answered useful and two quite useful. Five of them would very likely recommend the apps to others and one of them likely. One of them answered the question about knowing any hospitality-based multilingual apps that this was the only one, two said not many and three said very few.

Regarding the FrontDesk programs all of them answered that they gained useful information, four of them use Windows OS and two use Apple.

One of them evaluated the layout and design of the Front Desk programs excellent, four of the very good and one of them good.

If the FrontDesk programs were available on their computers, three of them would use it likely and three of them quite likely.   

Regarding the usefulness of the FrontDesk programs for their companies, five answered that they would be very useful and one answered useful. Three of them would very likely recommend the FrontDesk programs to others and three of them likely. Three of them answered they did not know any hospitality-based multilingual software programs and three answered they knew a few.

All waiters were advised to feel free to contact project coordinator Hilarija Lozančić Benić if they have any further questions regarding the apps.

Gordana Vučurović

Project team member of TUSDU, Croatia

Piloting at Valamar Riviera d.d Sales Department, Dubrovnik-Babin Kuk

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Piloting for sales managers at Valamar Riviera d.d. Dubrovnik-Babin Kuk

On 20 August 2015, I prepared piloting the project KeySkills4EUHotelStaff at Valamar Riviera d.d. Dubrovnik-Babin Kuk. I mainly focused on the FrontDesk programs and the mobile apps as the presentation was for sales managers for people who will mainly use it in the hotel sector.  Therefore, I showed them how the FrontDesk programs work and how to use them on the tablet. I presented the smartphone app with the help of David’s PowerPoint presentation but also on my smartphone. All participants of the presentation had been sent the apps and FrontDesk programs to install them on their tablets and mobile devices so that they could start using them.

The evaluation sheet asked for general information and more specific information regarding the presentation. Nine participants of the presentation filled in the evaluation sheet. All of them gained useful information on the project. One found the presentation of the project very useful, whereas seven thought it was useful and 1 quite useful.

Regarding the smartphone app all of them answered they gained useful information. Eight of them use Android OS and one of them IoS, none of them use Windows nor Others OS. Six of them evaluated design of the app very good, one of them excellent and two of them good. Two of them said it was very easy to find the information in the apps they were looking for, five of them easy and two of them quite easy.  If the apps were available on their device two of them would use it very likely and two of them likely, three of them quite likely and two of them not very likely.

Regarding the usefulness of the apps for their companies, two answered that the apps would be very useful, one answered useful and six quite useful. Three of them would very likely recommend the apps to others, four of them likely and two of them quite likely. Three of them answered the question about knowing any hospitality-based multilingual apps that this was the only one, two said not many and four said very few.

Regarding the FrontDesk programs all of them answered that they gained useful information, eight of them use Windows OS, one uses Apple.

Two of them evaluated the layout and design of the Front Desk programs excellent, four of the very good and three of them good.

If the FrontDesk programs were available on their computers, four of them would use it likely, three of them quite likely, 1 not very likely and 1 not at all likely.   

Regarding the usefulness of the FrontDesk programs for their companies, one answered that they would be very useful, four answered useful and four quite useful. Four of them would very likely recommend the FrontDesk programs to others, three of them likely and two of them quite likely. Three of them answered they did not know any hospitality-based multilingual software programs, five answered they knew a few and one said many.

All sales managers were advised to feel free to contact project coordinator Hilarija Lozančić Benić if they have any further questions regarding the apps.

 Gordana Vučurović

 Project team member of TUSDU, Croatia