e-Training of Inactive Women for Flexible Employability in the Hotel Industry & Gastronomy Erasmus Project

Project Title

e-Training of Inactive Women for Flexible Employability in the Hotel Industry & Gastronomy

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: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

The project FlexTour focused on tourism, which is undoubtedly one of the most promising and fastest growing sectors in Europe. The gastronomy, tourism and hotel business sector offers a unique opportunity for flexible forms of employment for the target group of economically inactive but experienced women, who at the same time offer the opportunity to reconcile their family and work life effectively. Family background as well as job satisfaction is important in every woman’s life. Therefore, the reconciliation of these two activities is an integral part of creating the right conditions for returning to the labor market and carrying out its own implementation in the working environment. According to Eurostat statistics, the inactivity rate of women in Slovakia was around 37% in Spain, around 31%, in Romania around 43% and in Turkey 66%. In addition, according to statistics, there are many women who want to work if conditions change: 56,300 women in Slovakia, 983,000 women in Spain, 309,000 women in Romania and 1,295,000 women in Turkey. Knowing all these facts, the project FlexTour has been realized with main idea and aim to offer an effective e-learning service training package aimed at increasing the employment of inactive women and bringing them back into working life to become attractive again to potential employers in the labor market. Project target groups were inactive experienced (in business/working life) women to be able to enter/re-enter labor market especially in flexible form of employment in the field of Hotel Industry and Gastronomy as ‘mentors’, so that, they can do ‘mentoring’ to other inactive women (‘mentees’) including youth, migrants and Roma people, who should start part-time (flexible) working in tourism field, Thus, FlexTour will opened doors in flexible working (employment) opportunities for both future potential mentors (first target group) and future potential mentees (second target group). Third target group, Hotel Industry and Gastronomy enterprises also benefits from the project by gaining mentors in the sector supporting their employees and helping to increase their quality and productivity. FlexTour e-learning training program was created for this target group, consisting of modules for mentors, mentees and women entrepreneurs. Self-evaluation questionnaires were created to obtain feedback and to evaluate graduates of this education system. The questions in the self-assessment questionnaires for each module (mentors, mentees, women entrepreneurs) have different scores depending on their importance. In addition, an interactive educational web portal www.flex-tour.eu has been created with an electronic handbook/user manual, which serves as a guide for navigating the web portal. Users should study Users´ Manual first, then create an user account for joining to FlexTour e-Training Programme. The web portal is complemented by short tutorials and appropriate animations with avatar elements for a better representation and understanding of the subject matter. Training modules, self-evaluation questionnaires, web portal, e-manual have been translated into the national languages of all project partners in addition to the English language. After the finalization of the e-learning modules, movies and the complete platform, online pilot testing has been realized for the aim of making the e-training course accepted by potential users. This was, et the first hand, to improve our e-learning content. The participants understood the purpose of the FlexTour project and considered that the outcomes of the project are suitable for inactive women who want to start a flexible form of employment, either as mentors or mentees, and have been tested with this positive e-learning program. At the end of the project, a closing event was held, attended by more than 104 participants, indicating the interest in and output from the project. We can therefore conclude that the impact of the project’s outputs on the target groups is positive and the benefits from it are long-term.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 168185 Eur

Project Coordinator

SLOVENSKA OBCHODNA A PRIEMYSELNA KOMORA & Country: SK

Project Partners

• KASTIEL MOJMIROVCE, s.r.o.
• Zdruzenie aktivnych a talentovanych zien realizujucich fungujucu karieru – ZARIF
• TUM AVRUPA KADINLARI KULTUREL ISBIRLIGI VE DAYANISMA DERNEGI
• Asociatia de Promovare a Turismului “Turist In Bistrita-Nasaud”
• FONDO FORMACION EUSKADI SLL
• EBL Elektronik Bilgi Bilisim ve Mesleki Egitim Hizmetleri Ltd. Sti.