Final of the fifth session of the BRIDGE international project

On April 29, within the framework of the development of the flagship university of PetrSU and the international project ENI KO1013 “BRIDGE – The Barents Region Initiative for the Development of Economic Growth and Employment Promotion”, the final videoconference of the 5th session of the BRIDGE project was held, organized by the Arctic University of Norway (Alta), where the participants were presented results of solving 5 business cases for Norwegian tourism companies.
The final presentations of the 5th online session of the international educational project BRIDGE , which is part of the CBC Kolarctic 2014-2020 cross-border cooperation program, took place . The videoconference was attended by representatives of 5 partner universities: the Arctic University of Norway (lead partner), Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Finland), Murmansk Arctic State University, ITMO University (St. Petersburg) and Petrozavodsk State University.

The online presentations were attended by 43 people (including 22 foreign ones), including representatives of small businesses in Alta. PetrSU was represented by 3 students: Andrey Chuvak (1st year undergraduate student in Economics and Finance of the Institute of Economics and Law), Ekaterina Moseeva (3rd year bachelor in Tourism direction) and Elizaveta Krasnovskaya (1st year undergraduate student in direction “Tourism”) from the Institute of Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism. The head of the group is Oksana Prokhorova, Associate Professor of the Department of Economic Theory and Management.

In total, 5 cases of Norwegian companies from the tourism industry were presented in the project: Sorrisniva , Hasvik, Spor Guiding, Flatmoen Nature and Sami Aurora . In the final presentations of student teams, practical solutions were presented for such tasks as: providing electricity and heating to yurts, growing sales of eco-fishing services, promotion tours, developing a mobile application interface, differentiating services for VIP clients, searching for potential business partners , social media marketing strategy, website improvement, booking system improvement, etc.

The winner of the 5th session of the BRIDGE project was the Flatmoen Nature team consisting of: PetrSU students Elizaveta Krasovskaya, 2 students from Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Finland, Tornio) and 2 Finnish coaches Teresa Chen and Esa Jauhola from Lapland UAS … When asked what the participation in the Alta session of the BRIDGE project gave , Elizaveta Krasovskaya answered:

This is a full-fledged project, over the past two weeks we have been working every day – conducting research, negotiating with partner companies.

We solved the case for a family company. At first, my son was present at the meetings, he liked some ideas. Then the father joined, and he approved the others. Therefore, taking into account all the interests of the customer and not offending anyone was a separate difficult task.

We got a lot of skills. But for me, perhaps the most useful thing is contacts. In addition, I am writing my master’s thesis on Arctic tourism, and a case study on this company would be great as part of my research.

The team was also lucky. We agreed to meet after the restrictions were lifted. Our coaches were very supportive and always ready to help. Thanks for this opportunity!

Two other students of PetrSU, Andrey Chuvak and Yekaterina Moseeva, also performed very well, taking 2nd place out of 9 teams. Andrey Chuvak, a master’s student at the Institute of Economics and Law, shared:

I had a task in this project – to strengthen my English skills. I succeeded because this is my first project in English. There is motivation to continue learning English!

The last 6th session of the BRIDGE project will be organized and conducted by ITMO University ( St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics ) in St. Petersburg in October 2021. It is planned that Russian participants will participate offline, partners from Finland and Norway will join online.