the_project – H4Growth

# the project

background

The tourism industry, its content, its organisation and design, its regulation and protection, are all undergoing great changes very much accelerated with the advent of the COVID-10 pandemic. Tourism creates employment for people of different ages and skill levels with around half of the tourism workforce in OECD member countries working in small and medium enterprises or SME’s (OECD, 2018). According to Eurostat (2020) 11.7 million Europeans, 9% of the labor market were employed in tourism.

Still, COVID-19 impacted negatively the tourism industry as any other sector: the shutdown of the economy in an attempt to contain transmission led to the layoff of 5.7 million EU workers in the first six months of 2020 (EUROFOUND:2021, “Living and Working in Europe”). As employment steadily returns and digital connectivity increases significantly, the need for digital skills is imperative.

The Partnership has closely watched the impacts COVID-19 brought to the tourism industry isolating the following needs:

EMERGENCE OF NEW SKILLS TO MEET TOURISM INDUSTRY DEMANDS POST COVID-19

The need to virtualize work has accelerated digital transformation, as well as deepened differences of digital skills gaps across people and companies. The “Rethink Global Travel Survey” indicates that a significant number of tourism employees will require new digital skills to meet every-day operations (AMADEUS:2020). Digitalization of tourism services will further revolutionized the industry by altering barriers to entry, facilitating price comparison, revolutionizing distribution channels, optimizing costs and improving production efficiency with an internet penetration rate in Europe more than 80%. With international tourism growing more quickly over the past 5 years than the world goods trade, digital tourism services will stay at the forefront of innovation (UNWTO, 2019).

EMERGENGE OF SKILLED CONSUMERS

The new demand pattern shaped by the rise of skilled clients, is a challenging opportunity for the industry’s future. Sophistication, social status and connoisseurship are not any more the privilege of an elite, but are associated with tourism, experience seeking and edutainment. Skills in creating experiences, both in the real world and with the use technologies like virtual and augmented reality, multivision, gamification and mobile apps will be important for the future of tourism. The 2018 CEDEFOP report “European skills and jobs survey” shows that in the digitalized economy about 85% of all EU jobs need at least a basic digital skills level. However, to survive in the digital economy, not only good digital skills are required but also “a healthy mix of cognitive skills like problem-solving, creativity, learning to learn and socio-emotional skills such as collaboration and co-creation.

EMERGENCE OF MIXED TOURISM EXPERIENCES

The constant use of e-devices in daily life impacts the common sense through the interpretation of visual codes. Digital Publishing 4.0 is marked by fused technologies that promise an unprecedented level of consumer interaction with content through smartphones, e–readers, and tablets, as well as an equally engaging experience through computers. However, travelers are no longer satisfied with superficial tourist activities – instead, they’re searching for an in-depth understanding of their destinations. In other words, they want to experience authentic local lifestyles, customs and culture. Accordingly, millennials from all over the world prioritize authenticity in their travel experience (ITB Travel Report, 2018). The tourism industry needs to learn to develop immersive and pervasive solutions for cultural experience and thus bring the quality of cultural content to unprecedented new levels. Heritage4Growth trains VET teachers to exploit the powers of the digital culture towards the delivery of quality tourism experiences connected to, as it is the only process that can support added value and destination loyalty.

objectives

The mobilisation against COVID-19 in 2020 has disabled the European labor market to perform. Some 40 million European workers were estimated to be in receipt of some state support in May 2020 (EUROFOUND Report, 2021). Tourism and the hospitality industry are one of the most affected sectors and will require a thorough re-organization in the post COVID era. In this vein 3 major challenges have been identified:

1. TACKLING TECHNOLOGICAL SHIFTS TO MEET TOURISM INDUSTRY NEEDS: Since the introduction of the internet and later on mobile telephony then tourism demand is shaped by constantly evolving technologies: robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI)and service automation are disrupting the way travel, tourism and hospitality companies operate and raise specific skills requirements for employees. Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Virtual reality (VR), Augmented reality (AR), Multivision Technologies (MVT), Mobile Applications (Apps), Gamification (GMF), multimedia, and digital publishing are not restricted to business operation, but are affecting the cultural landscape at destination level. VR is providing alternatives for tourist experiences in areas where the environment is too vulnerable or culturally sensitive to allow visitation; MVT is reconstructing the past in the most artistic way delivering exceptional experiences at heritage places; digital publishing via multimedia i/eBooks are mediating onsite and offsite cultural experiences guiding visitors to mastery an autonomy. Recent tourism market trends point to a rise in popularity for trips that deliver unforgettable experiences, authenticity, sustainability and a sense of achievement for the traveler. It is evident that the use of constantly evolving ICT technologies requires highly skilled human resources to use and manage competitive tourism products and services. Heritage4Growth is ensuring a strategic training in the use ICT to deliver the expected transformation of the tourism experience providing VET teachers with relevance and competitiveness in the digital landscape.

2. ADDRESSING DIGITAL PERFORMANCE IN TOURISM EDUCATION: With a constantly evolving demand side (tourists) preparing and booking their travel experiences digitally via electronic devices, smartphones and other portable devices, the emphasis on skills would be to timely respond to these trends with adequate training. These more digitally savvy tourists enter the travel market require companies to stay permanently connected with their customers, track their preferences over time and build close relationships and loyalty and expect fast and effective responses from the service providers. The effective and efficient use of technology to serve customers and implement the various business processes requires that tourism and hospitality employees have digital skills respective to their job position. Heritage4Growth intends to bridging this tech skills gap and enable VET teachers already in the workforce to become digitally-empowered and support digital innovation in tourism education.

3. BALANCING THE DIGITAL SKIILLS SUPPLY IN TOURISM EDUCATION: Heritage4Growth investigates the level of their digital skills among VET teachers: if is lower than the level necessary for the respective job role, the lack of sufficient digital skills could be a hurdle to the development of a competitive workforce. It is thus imperative to put emphasis on digital skills to support job roles and functions that can cut across different job positions as the wide variety of job roles in tourism need to work with more sophisticated devices and software packages. Therefore, it is important to identify the digital skills gaps of tourism and VET teachers according to their role in education and identify those digital skills that tourism and hospitality companies would need to invest in. By providing for novel digital skills Heritage4Growth aims to deliver resilient competencies to VET teachers and promote a holistic tourism education

# the project

background

objectives

partners