Next Tourism Generation (NTG) Alliance

Summary

Project Title:
Next Tourism Generation (NTG) Alliance

Project Scope:
To improve a collaborative and productive relationship between education and industry, with a particular focus on digital, green and social skills, establishing the first European BluePrint for Tourism Skills.

Timeline:
1st Jan 2018 - Dec 2021 (4 years)

Budget:
4 million Euro

Programme:
Erasmus+ (European Commission – EACEA)

Website:
https://nexttourismgeneration.eu/

Background: Reasons for This Project

Rapidly changing digital technology and destination impacts of tourism are leading to influences which are causing significant pressures on the destination society, its local economy, culture and natural environment. The NTG project aims to provide a European and National Blueprint Strategy to respond to the fast changing and increasing skills gaps in digital, green and social skill sets.

What will the implications of such impacts be for tourism in 2030? How will Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Big Data, shifting demographics and customer preferences, impact tourism employment and training? These are important questions which the NTG project will concentrate upon to bridge the gap and progress the skills needed and enhance tourism career prospects.

The NTG blueprint strategy will respond to skills gaps in tourism and hospitality (including soft skills needs, specific skills and emerging skill needs in digital and sustainability applications). In addition, the project aims to achieve the following, using innovation in tourism skills development:

• To create transformative cooperation in five key tourism sub-sectors: accommodation providers, food and beverage operations,travel agencies /tour operators, visitor attractions and destination management organizations.
• To define a scalable mechanism and model for sustainable and digital curricula between the industry and education providers at regional, national and European level.
• To develop, deliver and test Next Tourism Generation (NTG) Skills Products for professionals, trainers, students, university tourism departments, local authorities, companies to respond to the fast changing and increasing skills gaps in digital, green and social skill sets.

Blueprint Strategy for Sectoral Skills Development in Tourism

Tourism is a diverse, transnational and multi-sectoral field, with key challenges such as:

• Skills shortages, gaps and mismatches
• Lack of systematic approach to respond to and address skills gaps.
• Lack of systematic approach to evaluating and recognizing relevant skills.
• Negative perceptions of the quality of job opportunities in tourism.

To help close skills gaps, and to promote awareness of the various career paths available in the tourism industry, the project implements activities specifically targeted at the following skill areas:

• Digital/Technological: online marketing, data analytics, use of technology via artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual and augmented reality applications
• Sustainability Skills:
  • Green: Resource management to recycle and manage waste, water and energy services including principles of circular economy in the design and management of tourism value chains, sustainable design and management techniques of hotels and sustainable tour packages.  
  • Social: Behavioural and practical attitudinal competencies (soft skills) in interpersonal communication, accessible tourism knowledge, gender equality, cross-cultural understanding and delivering optimal customer service

Expected Results (Short-Term: 2018-2020)

• Skills Assessment – Responses methodology
• 8 Skills Industry led group
• NTG Skills Matrix
• Next Generation Tourism Skills toolkit
• Human Resources Framework
• Quality Framework for NTG products
• Ten Case Studies of Best Practices
• 3 Pan European NTG Modules reflecting the 3 Core Skills Sets

Expected Results (Long-Term: 2020-2021 and beyond)

• BluePrint Strategy and Action Plan
• The NTG Established Partnership
• NTG Regional Hubs
• Multiplier effects through regional funds in the eight countries and behind