On 22 September 2015 the kick-off meeting of the TTRAIN – Tourism Training the Trainers project took place in Reykjavik (Iceland). The project, which is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, is implemented by a consortium of five partner organizations (two Universities, one private company, one non-governmental organization and one industrial sector association) from Iceland, Finland, Austria and Italy.
Tourism is a growing and profitable industrial sector in Europe, but in spite of its importance and great expectations of continuing growth there is a lack of skilled personnel in the tourism sector. Most basic services provided by tourist companies are managed by young people who do not have an appropriate education. This is the reason why TTRAIN aims to create, test and implement a comprehensive learning model for vocational instructors in the tourist sector.
The TTRAIN project foresees the following activities in its 24 months implementation phase. Partners will initially carry out a gap analysis in their countries to find out more on existing training opportunities. Trainers and stakeholders working in the tourism sector will be interviewed in order to learn more about their needs and preferences regarding content of training. Based on the results of this analysis and building on a proven learning model for training of vocational instructors, partners will develop the new training curriculum. The curriculum will then be tested in pilot trainings in the four partner countries and its final version will be presented on a learning portal, so that vocational educators across Europe and elsewhere can make use of it.
CESIE will be responsible for the project’s implementation in Sicily and will lead the quality assurance, as well as the development of the learning portal and all of the dissemination activities.
Project partners are:
- Bifröst University (Iceland) – Project Coordinators
- BEST Institut GmbH (Austria)
- CESIE (Italy)
- SAF – Icelandic Travel Industry Association (Iceland)
- Kajaanin University of Applied Sciences (Finland)
For further information about the project, please contact Dorothea Urban at her email address: dorothea.urban@cesie.org