At the end of November, students of the Regional Tourism BA and the Management of Regional Tourism MA study programmes had the opportunity to participate in an online course of developing their skills as future entrepreneurs in tourism. The course was organised thanks to the cooperation of the Department of Tourism at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra and the office of the Slovak Business Agency located in Nitra, which is dedicated to the support of small and medium-size businesses in Slovakia.

The course ran daily from 23 till 27 November 2020 from 8: 30 a.m. till 12: 30 a.m. . The lecturers provided us with a lot of useful information based on their professional and personal experience. During the first two days, the event was led by Pavol Duchoň, MSc., a start-up consultant with experience from Slovakia and abroad. He introduced us the Canvas Business Model, which we applied to evaluate our business ideas, created business plans and analysed the market. The next day he explained the strategy of financial analysis or the importance of the thorough preparation of documents.

We spent the third day with Mgr. Tomáš Kovalinka, Phd., who is a successful graphic designer and marketing strategist and an expert of marketing skills. We learned how to create a website appropriately or how to make our product or service visible. The fourth day was held by Mgr. Norbert Gyürüsi, who currently works as a lawyer, entrepreneur and lecturer. We learned about important information on the specific legal forms of businesses, about which legal form is the most suitable for the particular type of business, about the advantages and disadvantages of each type, as well as about the important things we have to pay attention to when establishing and running a company.

The last day, led by an experienced project manager and lecturer, Ing. Lucia Richterová, Ph.D., we had the opportunity to get advice on how to properly present your idea, how to communicate in a team assertively, how to argue and convince others in an assertive way. We played many interesting games, through which we practiced our communication skills.

On behalf of all the participants I can state that we had a very productive and great week with young and friendly lecturers. We have acquired many useful skills related to our future potential entrepreneurship and we will certainly use the experience we have gained in our personal lives, as well. We met great and successful lecturers, made new contacts, which can be useful in the future. Right from the very first day and during the whole course the lecturers created a very pleasant atmosphere, due to which we managed to overcame our fear of talking and expressing our ideas.

On behalf of the students of the Department of Tourism, i.e., the course participants: Miriam Magulicová, 1st-year student of the Regional Tourism Management MA study programme