Introducing digitalisation for boosting SMEs in Tourism and Hospitality Erasmus Project

Project Title

Introducing digitalisation for boosting SMEs in Tourism and Hospitality

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Recognition, transparency, certification

Project Summary

There is a wide belief that when it comes to hospitality industry there are not a lot of ways to be innovative. However European citizens life is become more focused on digital technologies and according to the research of Ristova & Maglovski (2018) the transformation is affecting all industries, including the hospitality. Europe is (the worldwide leader in international Tourism, that is a key driving sector of the European Union. Today >95% of travelers use digital resources in the course of their travel. Digitalisation is one of the key megatrends determining the future of the tourism sector and competitiveness not only for big hospitality companies but also of the individual businesses/SME’s vis-à-vis the constantly evolving playing field and customer behavior of the “smart tourists” (tourists that intensively use applications of technology for their travels).
According to the World Economic Forum’s Digital Transformation Initiative (DTI), from 2016 to 2025, digitalisation in tourism and hospitality is expected to create up to hundreds of billions euros of value for the industry through increased profitability, transformation from traditional players to new competitors, and to generate huge benefits for customers and the wider society.

Problem addressed:
Digitalisation in the sector has taken place in various tasks, activities and operations, from interoperability of the technological infrastructure, through education and training of tourism professionals, to delivery of personalized services. This kind of development may be an everyday routine for big companies in the sector, however this is not the case for SME’s, which are unarguably the core of success that led Europe on the top of the world as Tourism destination. EASME’s report on Digitalisation in Tourism (2018) showed that SMEs face great challenges when it comes to digitalization, especially due to individual business circumstances. The SME’s usually do not have the capacity to adapt as quick and as effectively needed, on their own, and sometimes are “trapped” to the traditional ways of doing things without realising all the potentials that arise through digitalisation and the new opportunities that may take advantage off in order to boos their business performance. Thus, in order for Tourism SMEs to grow there should be an individualized plan for them, and this is where dTour comes in the picture.

Project aims and objectives:
The project is seeking to train and certify agents that will promote digitalisation to boost SMEs, in Tourism and Hospitality, performance, namely dTour agents. The agents, could be people that have been already working in the Tourism and Hospitality sector, and would like to enhance their skills and employment opportunities. They could also be owners and operators of SME’s, that understand the need for digitalisation and would like to bring their own hospitality business to the new digital era, business consultants that are already working or are interested to cooperate with SMEs in the sector etc.
The project aims in training dTour agents that can help on both digitalization levels of a tourism and hospitality SME, as presented in the paper of Ristova&Dimitrov (2019):
1) At the managerial and operational level and
2) For the services for the guests,

Such project will lead to following innovative elements:
– An occupational Profile for dTour Agents, in accordance to EQF
– A training programme based on the developed Occupational Profile that will be validated by the final users during the course of the project.
– A blended Learning Course for training d Tour Agents in consulting Tourism SME’s to develop plans and proceed with the digitalisation in order to use their new acquired knowledge to facilitate boosting the performance of Tourism and Hospitality SMEs
– A certification scheme that will give the agents the chance to get certified for their competences
– A navigation guide, e-book, that will promote dTour training to SME’s & will aim to enable all SMEs related to Tourism and Hospitality sector to get to know various digital technologies and tools that are used in the sector.

Partnership:
The project brings together 8 partners from 5 European countries, forming a transnational cooperation partnership with a balanced regional geographical representation of the Erasmus+ Area and with qualitative representation of countries that depend heavily on the tourism industry .

Impact and long term benefits:
– Promotion of European Cooperation among various countries
– Create new employment paths for agents in Tourism and Hospitality Digitalisation
– Provide complementary and sustainable development options for professionals.
– Boost the performance of SME’s in Tourism and Hospitality.
– Offer new approaches to identified issues and needs.
– Developed training tools and materials that will be open for the public to use
– New certification scheme to remain after the end of the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 250105 Eur

Project Coordinator

DIMITRA EDUCATION & CONSULTING SA & Country: EL

Project Partners

• ARISTOTELEIES KATARTISEIS AKSIOLOGISEIS PISTOPOIHSEIS ANONIMI ETAIRIA
• STIFTELSEN KURSVERKSAMHETEN VID U-AUNIVERSITET
• Turisme Comunitat Valenciana
• EPIMELITIRIO MAGNISIAS
• M.M.C MANAGEMENT CENTER LIMITED
• Larnaka Tourism Board
• RINOVA LIMITED