The Aim of the Project

The project HERITAG aims to develop an interdisciplinary reform in higher education programmes at master level and continuing education integrating Geo-information Technologies (GIT) applied to cultural heritage documentation, tourism management and entrepreneurship.

The project promotes the synergy of three main groups of stakeholders: Universities, industry and Administration. The curricular reform integrates the development of capacities in 3 main national and regional priorities in Georgia and Armenia: Geo-information technologies, cultural heritage preservation and documentation, and fostering tourism business and entrepreneurship.

Specific goals:

· To create interdisciplinary master specialities in GIT for cultural heritage and tourism, integrating marketing and entrepreneurship skills oriented to consolidate local industry, following the guidelines of the Bologna process.

· To establish Geoinformation and Tourism Technology centres (GTTC) in partner countries devoted to train professionals in GIT applied to cultural heritage and tourism, documentation of architectural and historical monuments and to disseminate the history, culture and landscapes using modern geovisualization techniques.

· To create three new GIS laboratories in Tourism Economics Departments and to update existing equipment in partner country universities.

· To foster the continuous education in Higher Education institutions of current professionals by creating interdisciplinary training modules.

· To re-train academic staff in GIT, tourism management and entrepreneurship.

· To introduce and improve good practices for quality assurance in partner countries universities.

· To establish organized links between universities, administration and society to train professionals, creating labor market days, introducing GIT in tourism industry, promoting local entrepreneurship and establishing the basis to protect, document and disseminate cultural heritage and history.

Efficient and sustainable implementation of the project will allow Georgia and Armenia to build tourism opportunities based on the rich cultural heritage of the region, and impulse the technical field of GIT, that will be a key for innovation in the near future of these countries, with an important growing potential. This will preserve the history, foster the tourism, and build innovation in the region.