Creative thinking as a soft skill of an event industry specialist

Aim. The presented study aims to comprehensively analyze the problem of including creative thinking as a separate competence – an essential element of soft skills – into the results of mastering academic disciplines to increase the development resource of a service enterprise through the example of the event industry as part of the creative industry.

Tasks. The authors investigate the correlation between the event industry and creative industries; substantiate the importance of creative thinking for an event industry specialist and the need to introduce creative thinking training into academic programs in the field of congress and exhibition activities.

Methods. The theoretical and methodological basis of this study includes the works of Russian and foreign scientists and experts in the field of creativity and its role as a resource for the development of enterprises. The study uses the following types of analysis: comparative (comparison of approaches, ideas, experience of different countries in investigating the composition of creative industries), hermeneutic (interpretation of various aspects related to the analysis of the needs of educational practices in the development of creative thinking), and systems analysis.

Results. The main problem of the study is a result of the current trends in the development of the creative economy and the event industry as its element. Today, there is no formalized market for creative industries with clear forms, rules, and subjects in Russia. There is no legislative framework or structured legal and financial mechanisms to support and develop creative industries. This is due to the fact that there is a background problem: creative industries are counter-intuitively distributed across the sectors of the Russian economy. The study also addresses the problem related to the concept of "creative industry", its content and limits, insufficient elaboration of questions about the justification of the place of the event industry and its affiliation with creative industries, lack of theoretical and practical developments in the field of creative thinking in the training of event industry specialists. This study serves as a prerequisite for reconsidering the role and importance of developing creative thinking skills as a mandatory element of the training of personnel for the event industry. The results of the study include opportunities for preparing applied solutions to the problem of developing creativity skills at the present stage of the event industry being promoted in Russia as a dynamically developing industry and the need to increase its contribution to the national economy. In particular, the main signs of the event industry's affiliation with creative industries in the modern interpretation of the content of this concept are identified, and the need to consider creative thinking as a separate competence for training in the field of the event industry is assessed.

Conclusion. The special role of creative thinking is revealed, substantiating the need to distinguish a separate creative thinking competence and to consider it as an integral component of the results of mastering most of the disciplines of the professional cycle in the training of specialists for the event industry. From the authors' perspective, this will help to minimize the gap between the needs of the market and the essence of current educational programs, and to facilitate the comprehensive formation of the desired "advanced professional competencies" and "skills of the future".

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