Extracurricular activities as a significant factor in professional training of active tourism specialists (evidence from "Wings of Travel" tourist club in flight academy of NAU)

The article reveals the most efficacious aspects of tourist extracurricular activities with regard to high-quality professional training of active tourism organizers and managers. The analyses of prior studies states that extracurricular activities attach great importance in training tourism students for future profession, and in the authors opinion, a significant role in its organization is played by a facilitator and their choice of forms of extracurricular activities. However, the analyses of the previous scientific works shows that little research has been undertaken to study the problem of the facilitator role and choice of forms of extracurricular activities for organization of future tourism specialists training. It has proven the relevance of the problem and determined the purpose of the research defining the role and choice of the most efficacious forms of tourist extracurricular activities with regard to high-quality professional training of active tourism organizers and managers. Well-planned and organized extracurricular activities in students training for future tourism profession have significant importance for their professional growth. The facilitator plays the leading role in organization of such activities and chooses the most impactful forms. The activity of tourist club of higher education institution is defined as the major and most effective form of extracurricular activities for training active tourism managers, which provides acquiring practical tourist skills, improvement of tourist and sport proficiency, and obtaining organizing and technological tourist skills. A tourist club is the highest form of initial student association in the educational institution, which deals in depth with tourist and sport activities and unites different tourist sections. The club can comprise 60 and more students. The club system of tourism activities gives the possibility for students to reveal and realize their ambitions and abilities. A notable example of such activity is "Wings of Travel" tourist club of Flight Academy of the National Aviation University (Kropyvnytskyi). Key words: active tourism, sports tourism, professional training, tourist club, Flight Academy of the National Aviation University.