Students of the Department of Tourism Management of FEMA have just completed a four-day study trip to Brussels. This included two and a half days of intensive meetings with senior officials of various EC Directorates General as well as with MEPs Josianne Cutajar and Alex Agius Saliba.
The highlight of the visit was a meeting with Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament. She was delighted to meet the group from her own Alma Mater whilst also sharing her student experiences as an Erasmus exchange student. Dr Metsola was presented with four books authored or edited by academics of the Department. After the meeting, students were thrilled to take selfies with the President of the European Parliament!
During the study trip, the group also had presentations from HOTREC - Voice of European Hospitality; VisitBrussels; Glenaki Tourism Consultancy and Malta Permanent Representation to the EU. A heartfelt THANK YOU to all the people who took time off from their busy schedules to meet the students.
The group also visited Ghent and Bruges.
An overseas study trip is an optional study-unit for first and second year students of the BA (Hons) in Tourism offered by the Department of Tourism Management of the Faculty of Economics, Management & Accountancy.
Inevitably such a study trip involves a lot of preparation including programme, logistics, coordination and student assessments. These various tasks were handled by Prof. Marie Avellino (Head of Department), Dr Karl Agius, Dr John Ebejer, Dr Noel Buttigieg and Prof. George Cassar.
A special word of thanks goes to Dr Karl Agius, who is a visiting lecturer at the Department. He had the challenging task of setting up and coordinating the meetings with the various officials including the EP President.
The Department of Tourism Management received very positive feedback from the students and this encourages it to organise more study trips in the coming years.