On Monday July 8, EfVET attended the Tour-X “Digitalization in Tourism: Empowering SMEs in Tourism digital Evolution” event organized by EVBB, EVTA and CEA-PMA European Entrepreneurs. Tour-X is a Center of Vocational Excellence (COVE) Project for the Tourism Industry in which it aims at adapting the skills to the changing situation of the sector through a bottom-up approach. It counts with the collaboration of 23 partners from 7 different countries (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany and China) including EfVET members AKMI SA (leading partner of the project), Confindustria (member of EfVET in its Formative Systems), ENAIP and Mundus.

The event included some speeches on the wider situation of the sector, some presentations on the Project and its deliverables and one panel discussion on the Regional Governance Approach for the Development of Digital Skills in the Tourism Industry.

The introductory speech by, member of the European Economic and Social Committee and Head of EU Affairs and Delegate to the EU at the CEOE, Ysabel Iglesias focused on the example of the Spain and the importance of the tourism sector in the country and presented the own-initiative opinion which in turn followed the Palma Declaration as fundamental action for propelling sustainable tourism. In addition to this, she stressed the nature of digitalization as the main transformative motor on the sector and the need to strive for quality jobs in tourism also to counter the protests that exist currently in many recipient communities.

Felix Rohn, Policy Officer at the European Commission’s DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion, followed up with a speech countering the view of digitalization as a risk for the tourism sector. Drawing parallels with the early visions of the Internet, he explained how in the beginning digitalization could be as a risk to the tourism sector in, at least, what comes to the travel agencies or travel guides. However, time has told that it was not the end for these but a complement that can strengthen the whole sector. The basis of his point can be summed up in these two sentences of his:

• “Personalize and personal service [which digitalization facilitates] is at the core of tourism;”
• “If you can make the customer happy, digitalization is not a concern but an enhancement of your business”.

Having set the panorama in what comes to digitalization of the tourism sector he then stressed the need of upskilling and reskilling of the workforce (which is an issue not specific to this sector) to appropriately address the development towards digitalization and sustainability, and pointed to the Barcelona tripartite statement as key in this transition pathway for tourism.

Secretary General of European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME Stefan Moritz adopted a different but complementary approach by focusing not as much on the shortage of kills than on the shortage of labour. To him, the main recipe to address it should be in-house developing, emphasizing work-based learning both to be more attractive as employers as well as developing excellence directly related to the jobs needed and soft-skills involved in them. In any case, he stressed that first of all is competitiveness and digitalisation should be a mean to achieve it and not an end in itself. Same relation applies to skills and jobs: skills to give an appropriate response to the jobs needed.

The panel discussion gave floor to different approaches to the issue of Regional Governance Approach for the Development of Digital Skills in the Tourism Industry.

Misa Labarile, Policy Officer at the European Commission’s DG GROW, explained the Commission’s efforts to the tourism sector. This, in her own words, constitutes a ‘soft approach’ not based on lawmaking (as it is not a prerogative of the EU) but is successful nonetheless. Her main focus in this regard were the different funds and their indirect application as well as the Commission’s activity when it comes to policy coordination and exchange of best practices.

Related to this exchange of knowledge, she also commented on the need to provide the EU a system to make available data from different regions, something which would require specific skills of data-analysis. Lastly she mentioned a few local initiatives to enhance sustainable consumption as well as local public participation and feedback (in San Sebastian, The Netherlands or Ireland).

Valeria Tudisco, Head of Brussels Office of the Umbria Region Economic Development Agency, explained the actions tacking place in the Italian region. Umbria is an interior and mainly agricultural region north of Rome that is out of the main tourism circuit and stop and go consumption. In this context, the agency, besides a general support of the economy has aimed (mainly through a portal) at promoting cultural activities and valorising the regional cultural landscape: heritage, architecture, gastronomy, agricultural practices, etc.

This support is directed to more than 2,000 operators most of whom are small-sized and have basically no experience on digital skills (also related to the fact that many are older people’s family business in a rural context). That’s why the support centres many times around helping with flow-management, data-collection and providing tailor-made seminars for issues such as use of artificial intelligence. In the end, the focus is on the economic growth of SMEs.

Sytske Valk, Project Manager at Katapult, focused on the need of integrating digital skills in all VET schools. She drew on the example of healthcare to explain the potentiality of digitalization when aiming at the sustainability of different sectors. Beyond it being key to manage the services demands – workforce balance as well as further developing the sectors themselves, the integration of digitalization and VET schools in itself can make the sector more attractive for people with high technological skills that can in turn foster this first action for sustainability and development.

So, in their case digitalisation is something included in the whole curriculum of all their VET schools as well as something introduced in other activities such as hackathons.

Clara Agostini Campista, EU Development & Project Officer at EVTA, presented different reasons that ground the centrality of green and digital skills in relation to SMEs. Based on the research carried out within the framework of the Touring project, she explained the relevance of identifying green and digital skills to address the specificities that different areas, places and job positions present in the tourism sector.

Digital skills in areas such as data analytics, digital marketing or social media management are important also to exploit all the opportunities to give SMEs visibility. So, overall, there is a need to introduce skills development for SMEs but the current funding for it is not enough and SMEs find it difficult to mobilise enough resources to invest on it. Green transition and overall adaptation is nonetheless a must.

Besides these speeches and panel, Antonio Gennarelli (EU Project Manager at EVBB) and Giorgia Morossi(Project Manager at CEA-PME) explained the Tour-X project in itself and some of its initiatives and deliverables.

The first, in two interventions, made a general overview of the Tour-X project and dived then into Transnational Platform for Vocational Excellence in Tourism. Synthesizing his comments, TourX focuses on excellence both in the tourism component and on the training component. Its action also clearly attempts at bringing schools out of their usual activity and engage with policy-members and stakeholders in order to provide an ecosystemic approach. When it came to the transnational platform, he explained the approach that includes developing knowledge triangles in different regions as well as regional and transnational partnerships that can bring together regions to address shortages of labour and skills.

The second focused specifically on one of the tools produced by the project as a deliberable: the TourX EU Funding Box. “The Tour-X Funding Box is a specialised tool tailored to enhance the knowledge of small businesses and VET providers operating in the tourism sector about funding opportunities and how to apply for them successfully”. Programmes, both at the regional and European level, are explained in the national language for different regions. Documentation for methodology and project planning is also included.

This makes the overview of the event that gave as a wide presentation of the TourX project, an explanation of its results, some analysis of the situation of the tourism sector (in what comes to its digitalisation and SMEs more prominently) and plural approaches on ways to move forward.