The first scientific-practical conference on “Innovative methods of teaching in Tourism” was held in Tbilisi Teaching University Gorgasali in Tbilisi city of Georgia on 18th December, 2014.
The conference was organized by Tbilisi Teaching University Gorgasali with support of “Georgia for Friends” International Association, support of Tourism Geoinformation Centre and the European New University of the Netherlands.
The main target of the conference is to create public platform with the purpose of encouragement of innovative educational methods and gradual development in the tourism field. During the conference presentations, discussions and trainings were held on tourism studies, promotion and educational problems, the principles of preparation of tourism bachelor program, web, GIS and mobile technologies in tourism education, aspects of innovative education in tourism, the role of “Georgia for Friends” International Association in the development of cultural heritage tourism, as well as tour-guide trainings in inclusive tourism and other topics.
Professor of Technical University of Azerbaijan, director of history chair, Professor Shikar Gasimov and chairman of MIRAS Social Organization in Support of Studying of Cultural Heritage, Ph.D. Fariz Khalilli participated at the conference. Fariz Khalilli speaking on the theme “Archaeological Tourism: Researches, Promotion and Education Problems” noted archaeological tourism is new field of tourism. He said that target group of archaeological tourism are intellectuals and different people having interest in archaeology. Any politician, bank employee, doctor, artist and others can spend their vacation in archaeological excavation site of which they dreamed. The development of this tourism presents product to tourism economy and increases innovation of archaeology.
Being the partner and expert of three large projects in Azerbaijan in the field of archaelogical tourism till now, F. Khalilli they gave wide information on "Medieval Agsu Town Archaeological Tourism Complex", "the development and promotion of archaeological tourism in Azerbaijan" and "Cities of Common Cultural Heritage”. Local and international projects showed that this tourism field help governmental-private-NGO relations to be more attractive in the future. Noting the necessity for education of archaeological tourism in educational institutions of tourism bias, Fariz Khalilli underscored that while teaching archaeological tourism not only aspect of archaeology and tourism must be taken as a basis but also educated with surroundings and social climate. The classes also must be defined on the basis of the monuments being archaeological tourism potential. He did mention neither international nor European values formed over the archaeological tourism. There was noted that as Caucasus region country, they can help with formation of archaeological tourism values along with development of this field. In the end PhD Fariz Khalilli was granted Honorary Diploma of “Georgia for Friends” International Association.
After the conference, the Azerbaijani delegation familiarized with education center of “Georgia for Friends” International Association.