South Hungary Great Plain Region, with special emphasis to Bekes, Csongrad, Jasz-Nagykun-Szolnok and Hajdu-Bihar counties.

Target area for Spa Tourism, Hungary: Great Plain Thermal Springs, South-East Hungary (Bekes, Hajdu-Bihar and Jasz-Nagykun-Szolnok counties).

1.5 Objectives of Provisional Learning Area

Having noted the three step process stated in the toolkit, stakeholder have arrived, through discussions during the partnership-building process, at the following objectives:

To establish a list of interested stakeholders and gradually form a Consortium for maintaining the PLA To establish a working group, also acting as a steering committee To develop a preliminary website (bi-lingual: Hungarian and English) To prepare a funding application
To set up a Tourism Learning Area for the region

1.6 Provisional Learning Area SPA Tourism

Hungary was selected as one of the PLAs, and subsequently Spa Tourism was choosen as one of the most relevant subject matter, representing a unic new-old tourism profile of the country. Tourism sector specialists, enterpreneurs and spa tourism clients are all agree, that Hungary is a treasure of thermal springs, discovered during Roman times, more than 2000 years ago. These thermal and medical waters have been gradually developed by Hungarians and foreign people (e.g. spa development during Turkish occupation). Hungary 's thermal water stock is significant even at global level, and it is unique in Europe . Most mineral and thermal waters contain dissolved minerals too, and therefore these waters have medicinal effect, i.e. they are suitable for bathing and drinking cures. At the moment, Hungary has more than 1,000 wells producing thermal water over 30 °C, of which most of the wells produce water with medicinal effect. Thermal waters in Hungary are present in almost every regions. Budapest is famous for the healing power of its thermal springs. It is the only metropolis in the world with more than 100 thermal springs across its territory which feed about 50 baths. Another rich area is the Great Plain in East Hungary , where thermal springs may be found almost everywhere Despite of good knowledge of stakeholders about the importance of spa tourism in Hungary , their approach is still rather polarized. Beside large spa hotels and major spa complexes, most of the nation's SMEs launched their spa services after the completion of the privatisation process, i.e. from 1992 onwards, followed by a successful spa facility development programme under the Szechenyi terv period from 1998. While we should agree that such an important sub-sector needs well trained personnel both at enterprenerial, managerial and employee level, it was extremely difficult to sensitize Spa sector stakeholders with PLA idea. Probably lack of foreign language knowledge, and specifically English language skill is among the major bottlenecks for rapid acceptance of Life Long Learning concept and other similar learning ideas and practices. This is a rather alarming lesson learned during the preparatory phase of Spa PLA, which further justifies the establishment and full introduction of Spa Tourism PLA. There is a clearle defined need to set up a website, coupled with active promotion of PLA activities. Useful methods would be to organize regional familiarization workshops all along the selected geographical area, and produce bilingual printed materials to facilitate better understanding of PLA. Spa tourism stakeholders should coordinate their efforts in order to service tourists at their satisfaction, hence, another valid reason for setting up a Learning Area in the Spa Tourism. We hope Spa tourism stakeholders, SME representatives, employees and new enterpreneurs will find this initiative interesting and useful, which will contribute to sustainable spa tourism development. The Hungarian Spa Tourism Learning Area will provide adequate guidance and information to not only Hungarian, but other spa tourism providers in Europe.

1.7 Historical Background to this initiative

Over the past few years the European Commission has gathered a lot of valuable information from all over Europe on how to improve the performance of the tourism and education sectors. Within the Commission, DG Enterprise's Tourism Unit is implementing a project that will bring together the broad processes of education and tourism using a systematic concept called a Learning Area. The idea is being applied to the tourism sector, so that the quantitative and qualitative development of stakeholder performance can be achieved by well-informed and motivated people, working together within coherent and effective educational and sectoral governance processes.

To achieve this, seven provisional learning areas are being established in different countries to see how the system will work in reality. The Spa Tourism PLA, Hungary is one of these areas.

The move to implement the concept of Learning Areas for the Tourism Sector stems from the Human Potential debate, in which the p rocess of learning is seen as the key to improving our individual and collective performance, especially at work, but also with regard to social and environmental issues. DG Education and Culture developed the idea through CEDEFOP as Learning Regions or Learning Communities , which are now being disseminated through the R3L (Regional Life Long Learning) Initiative. In 2001, the Commission Communication Working together for the future of European tourism focused part of its attention on how t o improve training in order to upgrade skills in the tourism industry, where issues of attracting, retaining and developing skilled labour to the sector, and supporting micro-enterprises at regional and local level to improve competitiveness were both seen as causing difficulties for tourism sector stability and growth throughout Europe.