CULTOUR, overcoming skills gap and fostering mobility in Tourism sector trough the recognition, validation and up-skilling of intercultural competences for tourism jobs Erasmus Project

Project Title

CULTOUR, overcoming skills gap and fostering mobility in Tourism sector trough the recognition, validation and up-skilling of intercultural competences for tourism jobs

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Recognition, transparency, certification

Project Summary

Tourism is very important for the European economy. It has one of the highest labour mobility rates, permitting discussion of the emergence of a truly European economic sector and a labour market with a truly European dimension. Nevertheless, skills shortage in tourism jobs is putting at real risk the employment in the sector. Thus, the identification of skill needs for the sector in Europe has a particular significance.

The partners of CULTOUR project have identified that one main area of skills gap in tourism sector is related with the growing requirement of intercultural competencies necessary to deal with customers, co-workers and employees. This skills gap is transversal to the tourism sector and affects a wide range of professional roles, including employees, instructors and employers.

A key factor to be taken also into account is that formal qualifications are not always required in tourism and there is a widely available opportunity to obtain qualifications by an alternative to formal education. Taking into account the very high proportion of personnel without formal qualifications, validation of informal and non-formal learning is crucial. The EQF is meant to address this problem and the ECVET tools and methodology should greatly assist with workers mobility.

CULTOUR project aimed to overcome the skills gap and foster mobility in Tourism sector trough the recognition, validation and up-skilling of intercultural competences for tourism jobs. CULTOUR has integrated the intercultural competencies dimension in new VET training products, specifically addressed for tourism sector jobs and used innovative tools for the recognition and validation of these competencies.

Six partner organizations (VET providers, companies and social partners) from six countries (France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Turkey and Bulgaria) defined innovative common strategies and products to reduce the skills gap of intercultural competencies in tourism sector trough VET.

During the last two years, CULTOUR partners worked in tight collaboration to:
– identify the specific intercultural knowledge, skills and competences required for tourism sector jobs (IO1 State of the art report);
– increase transparency and mobility of tourism professional by means of recognition and validation of intercultural competencies for tourism sector jobs, based on the previous successful curriculum CULTOOL (IO2 ECVET Curriculum);
– design new pedagogies and innovative methodologies to train intercultural competencies in tourism jobs (IO3 CULTOUR Handbook)
– Upskill teachers and instructors of the tourism sector, both working on VET centers and/or in the industry, on new pedagogies and innovative methodologies to train intercultural competencies in tourism jobs. (IO4 CULTOUR Toolbox)
-Empower tourism workers in their capacity to understand and cope with cultural differences (IO4 CULTOUR Toolbox)
– Increase labour market relevance of learning provision and qualifications in the tourism sector, reinforcing links between VET and the world of work (IO5 CULTOUR Open Online Center)

The main target users of the CULTOUR project products and outputs are teachers, trainers and instructors of the tourism sector, both working on VET centers and/or in the industry. Also VET providers, companies and public and private entities active in the field of Tourism. Final beneficiaries are employees, apprentices, VET teachers and instructors, employers, students and other professionals working, or with previous experience, on the tourism sector.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 291047,88 Eur

Project Coordinator

SUD CONCEPT & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Instituto para el fomento del desarrollo y la formación S.L
• E.RI.FO.-ENTE DI RICERCA E FORMAZIONE
• Business Foundation for Education
• INSTITUTO DE SOLDADURA E QUALIDADE
• ISTANBUL VALILIGI