Skills for Work Opportunities in Eno-gastronomy and Tourism Erasmus Project

Project Title

Skills for Work Opportunities in Eno-gastronomy and Tourism

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Quality Assurance

Project Summary

The tourism sector accounts for almost 25 million jobs in Europe (around 11% of the total employment). The sector provides employment both to highly qualified, as well as to low-skilled workers.
It offers job opportunities to both workers who enter the job market for the first time and to people re-entering the job market.
It is the largest employer of migrant workers, part-time workers, as well as female workers, and young people.
However skills mismatch is among the fundamental problems hampering the competitiveness of the tourism industry.
The competences acquired by tourism professionals at all levels of the skills spectrum during education and training often do not match the expected performance.
Education providers have a limited understanding of the requirements of employers and expectations of travellers in terms of the service provided.
The project partners highlighted the following NEEDS:
-VET providers need to ameliorate the cooperation between them and companies to provide a market oriented training offer.-VET providers needs to increase the engagement of companies to be fully involved in training activities; – VET providers needs to provide VET students with enhanced Work Based Learning methods and tools based on the full exploitation of ICT and multimedia.
– WBL experiences (internships, apprenticeships and dual paths) are usually related to insufficient number of companies and as a consequence they lack in effectiveness for the trainees.
In order to answer to these needs the project AIMS to:
– Improve the cooperation between VET providers and companies so as to provide a market oriented training offer and business driven learning paths to the VET students of tourism and enogastronomy
– Offer work based learning opportunities (internships, apprenticeships and dual paths) to VET students and improve their effectiveness
– Enhance the participation of company managers and responsible of the human resources in the matching their expectations through their contribution to the planning of VET initiatives overcoming the barriers that obstacle their full commitment in cooperating with the VET providers; – Improve the accessibility and internationalization of the VET training offer and of work based learning approaches through the exploitation of ICT
The project developed 2 Intellectual Outputs:
Intellectual Output 1) On line platform for promoting WBL in the tourism and enogastronomy fields
The online platform is organized in different sections:
– International WBL Database. This area of the platform contain the profiles of VET students that are interested to carry out their placement at local, regional or international level through an in person or an online WBL experience. This area also contain the profiles of the companies that operate in the tourism and eno-gastronomy sectors and that are interested in hosting VET students for WBL experiences.
– Repository of e-learning based video interviews in the fields of tourism and enogastronomy. The e-learning based interviews prepare VET students for local, regional, national or international work placements, acquiring the specific requirements that are necessary to work in the different countries represented within the project partnership (e.g. how to promote a rural house and how to organize activities for it in Italy or Romania). – Repository of video testimonials and interviews delivered by VET students and entrepreneurs that have participate in a WBL experience in the tourism and enogastronomy sector either local or international or in person or On Line highlighting the benefits, the skills acquired, the impact in terms of employability and the benefits for the enterprise.
Intellectual Output 2: Guidelines for the organization of WBL local, regional, national or international initiatives in the fields of tourism and eno-gastronomy.
– The Guidelines for the organisation of quality local, regional, national or international placement were organized as a package of easy to use tools to effectively plan, organize, follow up and evaluate WBL experiences in the field of tourism and eno-gastronomy to be implemented at local, regional, national or international level either on-site or on line.
The quantitative impact of the project on its main target groups is
– 40 VET teachers/VET trainers being involved in the project activities
Each VET trainer tested the two Intellectual outputs with an average of 70 VET students, leading to a total of:
– 2100 VET students involved and therefore benefiting from the project.
At least 10 companies’ managers and VET trainers in each country were involved in the production of the Video didactic interviews and 10 company manages to register the video testimonials.The online platform and guides were sent to all teacher training center in Romania and to highschools where students study tourism and enogastronomy. All teachers and students have access to all videos and materials.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 154440 Eur

Project Coordinator

Casa Corpului Didactic Mures & Country: RO

Project Partners

• PIXEL – ASSOCIAZIONE CULTURALE
• A & A Emphasys Interactive Solutions Ltd
• Zinev Art Technologies
• CIA FIRENZE SERVIZI SRL
• Xano Channel asociación para el desarrollo comunitario
• APPIS- Associação Paredes pela Inclusão Social