VisitKarelia press release
This year, VisitKarelia begins a new tradition by awarding scholarships to students of the Master’s Degree Programme in Tourism Marketing and Management at the University of Eastern Finland. Since 2017, the two-year programme offered in English on the Joensuu Campus has been educating students for the fields of tourism marketing and management. Students graduating from the programme are awarded a Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration degree. As its specific focus areas, the international programme addresses issues relating to nature tourism, wellness tourism, sustainable development in tourism, and tourism-related information and communication technologies.
VisitKarelia’s CEO Jaakko Löppönen points out that skilled experts are vital for the development and competitiveness of the business industry.
“Collaboration with the university makes academic research, expertise and experts available to support the growth of tourism at the local and national levels. Through case studies, the programme’s research group and students have also provided concrete assistance to tourism sector players operating in our region. Now that tourism, too, is facing a new normal, we need conceptual and development related expertise to actively and aptly be present on the markets,” Löppönen says.
“We want to engage in increasingly close collaboration with UEF’s tourism programme, and this is why decided to establish the VisitKarelia Scholarships. They serve as a concrete reminder of how important this degree programme is for our region, and they also commit experts to us and to the industry,” Löppönen says.
According to Research Manager Juho Pesonen from the University of Eastern Finland, the scholarships have considerable significance for the degree programme.
“The VisitKarelia Scholarships speak volumes of how much our stakeholder appreciate the work we do. For us, the scholarships are also an important pull factor that helps us to attract skilled and motivated students,” Pesonen says.
The VisitKarelia Scholarships were announced in a Tourism Marketing and Management webinar organised by the University of Eastern Finland on Wednesday, 9 September 2020. All in all, the scholarships amount to 9,000 euros. Individual scholarships of 1,500 euros each are awarded to three first-year students and to three second-year students in recognition of the academic achievement.
The second-year students’ scholarships for their Master’s thesis project were awarded to Ella Väänänen, Tuulia Pelkonen and Sanelma Mäkelä. The first-year students’ scholarships for their studies were awarded to Tiia Nordström, Emmiina Lindfors and Rosa Repo.
For further information, please contact:
Jaakko Löppönen, CEO, VisitKarelia, tel. +358 400 175 569, jaakko.lopponen (a) visitkarelia.fi
Juho Pesonen, Research Manager, University of Eastern Finland, tel. +358 40 184 2698, juho.pesonen (a) uef.fi
