Virtual journey around Ukraine

The young visitors once again excited the DOUNB library's silence. A regular training session for younger schoolchildren took place at “Window on America” Center. The “Grass-Hoppers” Club meeting had the topic "Ukraine’s Tourist Attractions". It was prepared and held by the WOA’s volunteer, the 10th grade school № 9 student Anna Motorina.
She told the club members in English about the capital of Ukraine - Kyiv, Cossacks’ Khortytsya, Kamyanets-Podilskyi castle, musical fountains of Vinnitsa, the landscape park "Sofiyivka".
The best responses were graded in American style – with A, B, C.
Number of participants – 6 (children and parents).

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New Year Surprise for WOA’s Volunteers

New Year Surprise for WOA’s Volunteers.
A tour to a unique place in Dnipro was organized for WOA’s volunteers as a New Year surprise.
The WOA’s activist  Sergiy, a future metallurgy engineer, helped to organize a visit to the local steel works. “Dniprostal” is a modern industrial plant that  gives an insight into the process of electric metallurgy.

 

Tourism and Sustainable Energy

Today’s session of the Gabfest Club (Window on America center Dnipropetrovsk) started with a surprise visit of our Peace Corp friend Patrick. He greeted all the new comers and told them about his projects in Ukraine.

The official topic of the session was World Tourism Day. World Tourism Day (WTD) 2012 is being held under the theme Tourism & Sustainable Energy: Powering Sustainable Development. Official celebrations took place in Maspalomas, Spain on September 27.

This year’s theme aims to highlight tourism’s role in a brighter energy future; a future in which the world’s entire population has access to modern, efficient and affordable energy services.

Tourism today is at the forefront of some of the world’s most ambitious and innovative clean energy solutions:

the aviation industry is implementing cutting-edge technologies to make aircraft lighter than ever before;

commercial flights are beginning to use bio fuels in their fuel mix;

 key card systems and energy saving light bulbs are increasingly being implemented in hotel rooms worldwide;

 tour operators are asking for energy efficiency throughout their supply chains.

We have watched and discussed several videos about hotels using green technologies. The most impressive was a row of videos about the USA hotel chain MARRIOTT and its efforts to run sustainable hotels. The details of eco technologies in all the hotel departments revealed new amazing facts to the club members who do not travel much.

During the second part of the session the club members combined their introductions with the brief stories about their summer travels. The most surprising fact was that the new club member Eugene during his Work & Travel trip to the USA was employed at a Marriott hotel as a pool lifeguard. He shared some of his impressions with the club.

Once again the session attracted so many people that the room could hardly accommodate the audience.

Number of participants – 35 persons.
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“Tourism Management in the USA”

The WOA Dnipropetrovsk continues to implement the project “Cross Cultural Encounters: Ukraine - USA”.

Today the aim of the project was to introduce the WOA and its resources to the students majoring in “Tourism Management”.  It was the lecture “Tourism Management in the USA”.

At the initial stage of the project students of the Kyiv University for Arts and Culture (Dnipropetrovsk branch) have been invited to the WOA center.

Svitlana Usenko, the head of Window on America center, presented the resources of the Center (Books, Movie Club, Rosetta Stone etc.)

The group of students with major in “Tourism Management” watched the numerous videos introducing the top transportation companies of the USA – airlines, cruise companies, railroad company Amtrack, bus company Greyhound, etc.

Moreover, American travel professionals’ associations were introduced to the students by Tamara Gavrilyuk:

ASTA – the American Society of Travel Agents, is the world's largest association of travel professionals                                       http://www.asta.org

NACTA - the National Association of Career Travel Agents, was established in 1986 as the original association with a mission to represent the interests of independent and home based travel entrepreneurs.                             http://www.nacta.com

Virtuoso® –  a network of the world’s finest travel agencies with knowledgeable advisors who draw upon first-hand experience to craft the perfect vacation  .The company positions itself as “Specialists in the art of travel “                        www.virtuoso.com

The students were impressed by the scale of tourist business in the USA and the technical level of the transportation companies.

The book display “USA Landmarks”   received a lot of attention from the students. The samples of tourist reference literature from the center’s resources were presented:  Fodor’s guides, The Smithsonian guides, Zhultz guide, National Geographic guide, etc.

Number of the visitors – 17

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