The role of project activities in the formation of digital competencies of students in tourism university

the article change in business processes in the field of tourism and hospitality determines the need to improve the quality of professional education in these areas and actualizes the training of specialists who are ready to work in a rapidly changing world full of digital technologies. The digital competence of students of a tourism university is formed in various types of activities, including project activities. Projects of new services and products implemented through a variety of Internet technologies are the basis for the development of the tourism and hotel business. This fact determined the purpose of this work - to study the content of digital competencies, analyze the pos-sibilities of their formation in the process of mastering the disciplines in tourism and hotel business majors for bachelors degree, identify Internet technologies used in the preparation of student projects and develop recommendations for pedagogical support of project activities for future specialists in the field of tourism through the use of digital resources. At the first stage of the research work, the analysis of the curriculum disciplines was carried out, aimed at identifying the possibilities for the formation of digital competencies, and a survey was also conducted among students of the Tourism Department of Petrozavodsk State University. As a result of the survey, the most popular Internet technologies used in project activities among students were identified and it was noted that students most often present the results of project activities in the form of presentations, videos, in combination with the design of technological and technical documentation explaining the nuances of the service provision. At the second research stage the characteristics of Internet technologies were specified and examples of their use in educational university process were highlighted. It led to the conclusion that project-based learning is the key to the development of a whole range of competencies, and the material on Internet technologies studied during the training of individual disciplines is sufficient for training tourism university graduates. At the third research stage recommendations were clarified on the organization of pedagogical support for the project activities of students and the formation of their digital competencies. It was noted that this process is based not only on training digital resources skills in future professional activities, but also on the professional interaction of teachers and students through the digital educational environment of the university, in particular, online training courses, final qualification works of graduates, textbooks, teaching aids and scientific articles of the teaching staff presented on the educational portal of the university and in the electronic portfolio. An important role in improving digital competencies is played by such instruments as Moodle, WebCT, Blackboard, WebTutor platforms, as well as the video conferencing system installed on the university's servers: TrueConf, Zoom, BigBlyBatton, which reflects the general logic of the transition to a digital society. Based on the results obtained, it was concluded that the key forms of student learning should be cooperation between vocational education and business in various fields of activity, including project activities. As a result, it was recommended to organize pedagogical support for the project activities of tourist university students, contributing to the formation of digital competencies.