Destinations: Wellbeing Tourism Opportunities for Regions Erasmus Project

Project Title

Destinations: Wellbeing Tourism Opportunities for Regions

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Cooperation between educational institutions and business; Rural development and urbanisation

Project Summary

DETOUR empowers tourism destinations to develop and embed wellbeing philosophy and capitalise on the tourism and economic benefits which follow such as increased consumer spending, additional employment opportunities and contributions to GDP. It will upskill VET educators and Tourism SME’s about the potential of wellbeing tourism as a emerging European Tourism Megatrend which can increase their competitiveness, inspire new wellbeing tourism products/services and develop even stronger unique value propositions. (VisitBritain, 2014, World Travel and Tourism Council, 2014, Deloitte, 2013). The goal of the DETOUR project is clear: provide VET, tourism development stakeholders and tourism SME’s with the knowledge and skills to capitalize on current and future wellbeing and slow tourism opportunities, so as to increase innovation, market diversification and the sustainable growth in regional tourism economies.

It is clear that wellbeing tourism is an expanding niche market globally, providing specific business opportunities through products that promote or maintain health (Kelly, 2010, Rodrigues et al., 2010). In 2017, tourism centred on health and wellbeing grew by more than 9%, almost 50% faster than overall global tourism. Today, a return to nature, renewed awareness of the environment, the rediscovery of local identity, and the search for both physical and psychological wellbeing have resulted in new wellbeing and slow tourism opportunities for tourism destinations and providers, and importantly for the destinations they are embedded in. DETOUR emerges in the context of consumer trends changing the tourism landscape. DETOUR recognises that European Tourism SME’s are ideally placed to capitalise on the opportunities that wellbeing and slow tourism pose.

Our specific OBJECTIVES are to:
a) Increase the understanding of Wellbeing TourIsm – a Future Tourism Megatrend for Europe and develop a resource pack for VET tourism educators, policy makers, tourism bodies and stakeholders to learn the necessary components and tactics required to create regional wellbeing destinations (IO1)
b) Increase awareness of wellbeing tourism opportunities and provision of a framework for sustainable collaboration between VET, HE and tourism business (DETOUR Communities of Practice – IO2). Wellbeing tourism destination placemaking cannot be limited to single tourism properties, instead it must developing and promoted as a whole, from town, regional or even national. Crucially, by testing this resource to setting up 5 Wellbeing Tourism Destination Communities of Practice, our project will identify the potential growth opportunities for the tourism sector in each partner region through a focused on analysis audit approach and crafting of opportunities into
Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practice education and training actions.
c) Develop the first Wellbeing Opportunities for Regions/Destinations training programme for Tourism SME’s (IO3) and make such training available in two formats – 1) which can be delivered by tourism education providers and 2) direct online training modalities via our DETOUR MOOC (IO4)

The DETOUR project addresses the needs of the following groups:
a) VET and HE ORGANISATIONS
b) TOURISM DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY STAKEHOLDERS – local governments and tourism and economic development stakeholders
c) TOURISM SMES
d) COMMUNITIES WITH TOURISM POTENTIAL – community groups, marketing organisations, development groups, special interest networks
e) STUDENTS OF TOURISM

Digital technologies are at the very core of the DETOUR project and are key to the delivery of our innovative pedagogies and methods for wellbeing tourism teaching, learning and assessment. Not only will digital tools (IO4 MOOC), ebook resources (IO1, IO2) and OER’s (IO3) be developed, a new digital angle will be given to destination tourism training topics (such as Digital Placemaking and Digital Destination Mapping) to make them more relevant to the digital era we now live, work, learn and travel in. Marrying this priority with the aforementioned one, DETOUR will pay particular attention to the European Framework for Digitally Competent Educators (DIG COMP EDU) and utilise the framework to increase trainers’ confidence of using digital teaching in their daily work. Meeting this priority is crucial to the success of DETOUR, hence the inclusion of EUEI as technical/digital partner. Based in Copenhagen (the number 1 innovation capital in Europe) EUEI are embedded in the digital learning eco-system and have a significant network of collaborators working not just in e-learning but in the ICT sector generally. They will bring the latest innovation thinking, open education trends and digital tools to DETOUR and will advise on how the relevant digital frameworks such as DIG COMP EDU can be integrated into project work/design from the onset.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 293257 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS & Country: UK

Project Partners

• European E-learning Institute
• Visja strokovna sola za gostinstvo in turizem Maribor
• Fundo de Maneio – Consultoria, Recursos Humanos e Investimentos, Lda.
• MOMENTUM MARKETING SERVICES LIMITED
• Framhaldsskólinn í Austur-Skaftafellssýslu