Educational internet-resources: challenges to application in the hospitality industry

The article deals with the issues connected with the application of educational internet-technologies to additional professional hospitality-specific training programmes. A critical analysis of the internet- based or internet-located educational resources has revealed a gap between classical education and online courses (MOOC - massive open online course). The authors propose the use of the Freemium model, which has been repeatedly tested by top universities all over the world. The article also provides the results of an analysis of federal educational resources - an aggregation of different federal educational agencies, federal educational institutions, federal projects and programs official websites, as well as federal educational portals. In the article, the authors also describe the results of their research into the sufficiency and adequateness of the competences currently held by the hospitality- industry personnel and viewed from the top management's standpoint. The purpose of the research is to identify the personnel's educational/training needs. The analysis of internet-resources as carried out by the authors of the article demonstrates a lack of free-of-charge online training courses or Freemium- based courses.