Approach of vocational tourism education within European Union education politics and applicability to Turkish tourism education

ABSTRACTDoctoral ThesisApproach of Vocational Tourism Education within European Union EducationPolitics and Applicability to Turkish Tourism EducationMelek Ece ÖNCÜERDokuz Eylül UniversityInstitute of Social SciencesDepartment of Tourism ManagementTourism is a typical labor intensive sector which human is the basicproduction component. With its dynamic structure, it might help to undosocial and cultural disparities between countries, regions and communities.Especially the value addition to economy and provision of cultural toleranceenhances its importance not only for developing countries such as Turkey butalso for European Union and for the rest of the world. Despite the globalrecession periods, tourism sector is constantly growing and developing.The positive acceleration of tourism sector in Turkey created aquantitative and qualitative improvement in tourism enterprises with agrowing need for education. One of the quality criterias of tourism services isthe education of human resources.At the stage of membership negotiations, Turkey is working onadaptation to EU norms. Among the educational systems, vocational tourismeducation is continuously changing in Europe. For this reason vocationaltourism education structure in European Union is studied.The study consists of three parts. In the first part EU, EU-Turkeyrelations, in the second part theoretical information about education, tourismeducation and EU?s educational and vocational education programs are given.The third and the last section, vocational tourism education in union countriesstructures are analyzed and a proposal concerning how Turkish vocationaltourism education with EU coordination can be restructured is presented.Key Words: 1)Tourism, 2)Education, 3)Vocational Education, 4)TourismEducation, 5)Tourism Education in European UnionIIIII