Professional relevance of and demand for space-and-ecology literate tourism specialists

The article is devoted to the issues of developing spatial and ecological competence of students majoring in tourism at secondary vocational education institutions, and the relevance of introducing the geo-ecological aspect into the learning process with a view to improving the quality of training. The authors present a block-structure model demonstrating the process of developing the spatial and ecological / earth-and- environment competencies, analyse relevant empirical research, and provide the rationale for introducing new educational standards of the third generation (discipline: ''Geo-ecology and tourism'') into the 100401 «Tourism» curriculum.