The Objective of the Report
The objectives of the Field and Desk Research are to identify the skills and competence gaps in the tourism sector. Specifically, the primary goals are:
Firstly, to identify opportunities and challenges in local tourism development and analyze tourism professionals’ existing competence profiles. Secondly, to identify gaps and learning needs with the support of design and collection of interviews and surveys. Finally, to set the basis for creating a tailored training on tourism promotion that will be developed in the next project phase.
Methodology Used
To develop the Field and Desk Research, partners have used surveys extensively. The initial plan for the Field Research was to collect the data from the organization of focus groups. However, the implementation of the project coincided with regional lockdowns and social distancing. Therefore, the surveys were the only safe and viable option left for the partners.
In particular, the consortium received 118 surveys, 57 answers from professionals, and 61 responses from tourists. The objective of those surveys was to identify gaps and learning needs of tourism professionals for the development of the future FlexiTour course.
Concerning the Desk Research, each partner organization researched the tourism industry in their respective countries. Their research aim was to:
- Make a brief overview of tourism in their countries and mention any challenges and opportunities.
- Create the profiles of the professionals working in the field of tourism
- To develop an official competence profile for each partner country.
A Few Words About Flexi-Tour Project
Flexi-Tour is a pioneering Key Action 2 in adult education, co-funded by the Erasmus+ program. The partnership is led by the Slovak organization Klaster Regionálneho Rozvoja (Cluster of Regional Development) and four partner organizations: Centro Superior de Formación Europa Sur (Spain), Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (iED) (Greece), Cittá Metropolitana di Catania (Italy) and parkPark (Slovakia).
Conclusions
The Flexi-Tour project’s whole purpose is to address the multifaceted needs of stakeholders in the tourism industry through training. Tourist professionals need to adapt to tourists’ needs and upskill themselves to remain employable in this transforming sector, especially when it comes to digital promotion. Finally, the partners want to promote lifelong learning to tourism professionals through VET training specialized to their specific needs or through open educational resources.
To read more about the reports for the Field Research and Desk Research, click here.
Learn more about the project’s objectives and activities on the official webpage.
