Using Digital Technologies in Developing Tourism Students’ Foreign Language Communicative Competence

Abstract

The article analyzes the role of digital technologies in the formation of future tourism specialists’ foreign language communicative competence. The relevance of the study is determined by the growing demand for developing future tourism specialists’ foreign language communicative competence as they need to communicate in multicultural context. The purpose of the study is to explore and analyze the use of digital technologies in teaching foreign languages to tourism students and their impact on the development of foreign language communicative competence. The methodology of the research combines a comprehensive literature review and a survey of foreign language teachers working with students of tourism and hospitality. The survey involved 61 teachers and focused on their use of digital technologies, the types of digital tools used, their effectiveness, and challenges associated with their implementation. The findings demonstrate that digital technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, gamification platforms, mobile-assisted language learning applications, artificial intelligence tools, multimedia resources, and social media positively influence the development of tourism students’ professional vocabulary, speaking confidence, intercultural communication skills, learner motivation, and personalized learning. The survey results indicate that teachers most frequently use gamification platforms, multimedia resources, and AI tools in foreign language instruction. At the same time, the study identified several barriers related to insufficient technical resources, lack of methodological support, limited teacher digital competence, and infrastructural constraints.The study concludes that the effective integration of digital technologies into foreign language education contributes significantly to the formation of future tourism specialists’ communicative competence. However, successful implementation requires methodological preparation, institutional support, and development of teachers’ digital and pedagogical competences.

Keywords: foreign language education, professional language learning, tourism industry, communicative competence, digital tools, virtual reality, AI chatbots, mobile learning, multimedia resources.