Representatives of YSU and the Georgian Technical University (GTU) paid a study visit to the project's European partner universities, the Silesian University of Technology (SUT, Poland) and the Technical University of Ostrava (TUO, Czech Republic), from June 23 to 28 as part of the international project "Geoheritage Inventory, E-Guide, and Mobile App for Sustainable Tourism (Armenia & Georgia)," funded by the International Visegrad Fund.
YSU was represented by the project's general coordinator, Associate Professor Gor Aleksanyan, and Head of the Chair of Service, Associate Professor Seyran Suvaryan. GTU was represented by Professor Nodar Poporadze and Associate Professor Olga Seskuria. The Armenian and Georgian participants were hosted in Poland by professors Krzysztof Labus and Malgorzata Labus at the partner university, and in the Czech Republic by professors Martin Klempa and Petr Skupien.
The main purpose of the visit was to study the partner universities' experience in geotourism development, as well as tourism products created to promote geotourism in the border areas of Poland and the Czech Republic.
The Polish and Czech partners presented their universities, research conducted in the field of geotourism, as well as its methodology and results. Visits to geotourism sites were also organized, including the former Queen Louise Adit coal mine in the city of Zabrze, which, after the mine's closure, was transformed into a geotourism site and a distinctive, innovative tourism product. In Ostrava, the participants visited the Landek Park recreation area and museum, also a former coal mining site that is now used as a tourist destination and a venue for recreation and leisure activities.
During the meetings, the participants also discussed the next steps in the implementation of the project and outlined the timeframes and content of upcoming visits by project participants from the European partner universities to Armenia and Georgia.
