Development of the Digital Marketing Competence of Adult Learners for Small and Medium-sized Tourism Enterprises (SMTEs) in Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Development of the Digital Marketing Competence of Adult Learners for Small and Medium-sized Tourism Enterprises (SMTEs) in Europe

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

Emerging information and communication technologies (ITC) and digitalization have been substantially changing the way the tourism industries operate and tourism businesses need to be well equipped to remain competitive and sustainable, provide quality service and engage travelers and fully capture opportunities in the digital marketplace. The use of ITC and digitalization in the tourism sector require new, specific knowledge from both tourism entrepreneurs and employees. Yet, according to European Commission, 90% of businesses in the tourism sector are made up of primarily family run, small and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs) and they are often unable to attract and retain skilled employees and lack the capacity to develop specific education and training programmes for digital skills. Besides, formal education and training institutions are generally late to adopt fast-changing new skills into their curriculum. The end result is that SMTEs cannot fully exploit the opportunities offered by online market places and distribution channels, as well as new forms of marketing, namely digital marketing. For this reason, European SMTEs need to keep up to date with the ITC developments and enhance the overall digital marketing and e-management skills through new educational and training programmes, new methods of learning/teaching and new occupations.

Innovation, digital skills and capacity building for the small and medium-sized enterprises are already prioritized in The Europe 2020 strategy and European Commission are developing policies to facilitate the uptake and effectiveness of digital tourism and online marketing by strengthening the digital skills base of tourism SMTEs and their inclusion in the global digital value chain.

This project is another step forward to contribute to skill development for digital transformation in the tourism sector and to enhance the digital marketing capabilities of SMTEs. The specific aim of the project is to enhance the digital marketing competence of adults for SMTEs by revealing digital marketing skill gaps and training needs, providing practical learning/teaching and training modules for tourism sector-specific digital marketing competences, and developing a qualification framework that includes knowledge, skills, responsibility/autonomy along with an assessment tool for a new occupation (digital tourism marketer) and creating an open source online/mobile adult learning/teaching platform for sector-specific (tourism) digital marketing competences.

There are five partners of the Project. Istanbul Medeniyet University (Turkey) will be taking part in this project as the coordinator (Faculty of Tourism). Association of Professional Hotel Managers (Turkey) is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation of hotel managers in Turkey. International Association of Cultural And Digital Tourism (Greece) is a non-profit international association aimed at the improvement of global hospitality and tourism research on cultural, and digital issues. Phoenixkm bvba (Belgium) is a SME, focused on the integration of socially disadvantaged people in every aspect of daily life as well as employment and has some expertise in online ICT training and e-learning and e-support platforms. Inertia Digital (Spain) is a social enterprise focused on training, innovation and traineeship in digital skills. and has considerable expertise in ICT, development training and innovation in digital competences applied to promote education and employment.

In the course of the project, the following specific intellectual outputs will be developed:

IO1- A study of Digital Marketing Skill Gaps and Training Needs in SMTEs
IO2: Learning/Teaching Modules for Digital Marketing Competences for SMTEs
IO3: A Qualification Framework for ‘Digital Tourism Marketer’
IO4: Open Source Online/Mobile Learning/Teaching Platform

At the end of the project, there will be a final national conference on digital marketing competences for SMTEs with 80 attendees. It will be organized in Istanbul, Turkey. It will attract a maximum number of participants from the target group and especially small and medium-sized tourism businesses and graduated and current tourism and hospitality management and vocational school students to ensure full exposure of all intellectual outputs.

Upon the completion of the project, an open source online/mobile learning/teaching platform will continue to exist and it may be extended and updated if required. Also, It is expected that all the training modules and e-learning platform will be used by adult learners, teachers and students and digital tourism marketing will be a course in the curriculum of tourism and hospitality management schools, vocational schools and training centers. Finally, the qualification framework created for a new occupational title ‘digital tourism marketer’ may be used as a base for describing occupational standards and accreditation of the qualification in Europe.

Project Website

http://www.digitourism.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 147853 Eur

Project Coordinator

ISTANBUL MEDENIYET UNIVERSITY & Country: TR

Project Partners

• International Association of Cultural and Digital Tourism (IACUDIT)
• PHOENIXKM BVBA
• INERCIA DIGITAL SL
• Profesyonel Otel Yoneticileri Dernegi