In the 2021 – 2022 academic year, students created “Tourify” Tourism Center. Students created an MVP version of the online platform of the project. It was presented in the semi-finals of the Astana Hub Battle – Digital Bridge 2021 startup competition. 

The following tours were held:  

  •  3 Tours to Borovoe 
  •  2 tours to Zerenda 
  •  Tour to Botai Burabay 
  •  Visit to an art gallery 
  •  Pottery master class 
  •  Master class on painting 
  •  Tour of MNU University 

In the 2022-2023 academic year, a number of tours and excursions to various sites were held. Below is a list of excursions, as well as historical, cultural and entertainment tours, quests organized by students of the Tourism and Hospitality Educational Program: 

  •  “Akmola: an era one century long” excursion 
  •  Historical excursion “Botai-Burabay” 
  •  Tour to the largest mosque in Central Asia; 
  •  One day tour to Zerenda 
  •  Tour to the Ulgudinsky Falls 
  •  Tour to Burabay 
  •  Tour to Botai-Burabay; 
  •  Tour to the Blue Lagoon; 
  •  Agro tour to the Akmaral farm; 
  •  Horseback riding tour in  the Balqaragai recreation area in traditional style; 
  •  Cultural tour to the “Astana Opera” theater; 
  •  “City quest tour” in Astana; 
  •  Historical tour to  Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland (ALZHIR) 
  •  Historical tour to Karlag 

In 2023-2024, the tourism center “Tourify”  began the academic year with a traditional tour for all MNU students 

1) Tour to Burabay  with climbing the Okzhetpes rock 

The tour was accompanied by professional climbers with the provision of safety equipment and climbing gear. 50 people took part in this tour. 

On average from 30 -50 people including MNU students and students from other Universities in Astana took part in these tours. All of the mentioned above tours were arranged by small groups of 4 or 5 students, where each student had his\her own role, and responsibility (marketer, sales-person, tour guide, transportation agent, food and beverage specialist, entertainment specialist, security, customer service agent). In total for the last 2 academic years more that 120 students participated in the process of tour organization, which is considered as full coverage of practical assignments on the course of Consumer behaviour and as well as full involvement of “Tourify” tourism center in the educational process. 

During the organization of the tour, students master soft and hard skills such as communication, negotiation, stress management, time-management, project planning, as well as teamwork and collaboration. Students implement in practice their knowledge of marketing, sales and tour organization, coping with difficulties of purchasing various equipment, service delivery, transportation provision, security and need of provision of medical aid if needed.   

After each tour,  self-reflection and peer-review is conducted in each team that organized the tour in order to analyze the results and make improvements for further travel activities. The majority of students evaluated this type of assignment as a creative way to apply theory that contributes to personal and professional development.  

 

All the actual information about tours can be found on the Instagram page:

Instagram

Regarding SLA Translation Centre Activities

A Translation Center is successfully functioning within the framework of the SLA activities. This center unites both professional translators/interpreters (university graduates) as well as novice professionals in this industry. The main aim of this center is to provide language services of different categories for the institution’s needs (both external and internal). This Centre includes translators and interpreters with different working languages (English, Kazakh, Russian, French, and German) and assists in providing written translation as well as conference interpretation (simultaneous and consecutive modes). Simultaneous interpretation equipment is also provided by the center.  

The translation center along with the Career, Internship and Employment Center, the SLA Mentorship Programme has been successfully implemented. This programme is designed to help novice interpreters to gain all the necessary skills as well as decent and valuable knowledge about the Kazakh translation market and its tendencies. In the first stream, 6 mentees were selected.  Students, who successfully accomplished the above mentioned programme started to work within the Translation Centre.  

In addition, this Centre serves as a decent platform for applying the skills acquired during training in practice. 

Key events as well Centre’s scope of work: 

  • Providing Simultaneous interpretation (ENG-RUS-KAZ) of a series of lectures within the “Public Lecture” project at the University; 
  • Written Translation of University documents, media materials, web pages, and so on; 
  • Voice-over services for the University PR office (English voice-overing of promo video materials, etc.); 
  • Simultaneous Interpretation during Conference on International Standards and Measures for Corruption Prevention 
  • Simultaneous Interpretation during a meeting with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights – Volker Türk ; 
  • Consecutive Interpretation (GER-RUS) during the Official Meeting with Her Excellency Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany – Momika Iwersen; 
  • Simultaneous and Consecutive Interpretation during the regular meeting of the Trustesheep Board; 
  • Simultaneous and Consecutive interpretation (ENG-RUS-KAZ) during various conferences organised by the University/departments (Law School. International Economics Schools, etc.); 
  • ProvidSimultaneous Interpretation during a series of Courses for Executive Directors held by MNU Business School; 
  • Consecutive and Simultaneous Interpretation during the International School of Journalism Opening Ceremony; 
  • Simultaneous Interpretation during the FIBAA Accreditation Process; 
  • Simultaneous Interpretation during QAA Interviews.