ACADEMIC OUTPUT AND PAPERS
Alongside the project output, PANTOUR generated a growing body of peer reviewed academic research output that extended the project’s evidence base into the scholarly literature and strengthened its credibility with research and policy communities. These publications draw directly on data collected within the PANTOUR framework, translating the project’s primary research into contributions that will remain accessible and citable well beyond the project’s formal conclusion.
Research by Ivanova and Ivanov (2025) from Varna University of Management and Zangador Research Institute used the PANTOUR survey and interview data collected in Bulgaria in 2023, alongside comparable data from the preceding NTG project in 2019, to examine the evolution of AI-related skills needs in the Bulgarian tourism and hospitality sector. Presented at the International Scientific Conference on Smart Future in Sofia, the paper found that while Bulgarian tourism managers acknowledge the growing importance of AI-related skills and anticipate significant increases in proficiency requirements by 2030, current skill levels remain low, and organisations are not always ready to accelerate digitalisation. The research illustrates how PANTOUR’s longitudinal research design enables meaningful tracking of skills change over time, and its findings directly reinforce the project’s core argument that coordinated investment across industry, education and policy is essential to prepare the tourism workforce for an AI-driven future.
Rabelo and O’Leary (TU Dublin) presented research at the ATLAS Annual Conference at Breda University of Applied Sciences in June 2024, examining post COVID challenges, remote working, climate change and the development of sustainable skills in Irish tourism and hospitality. Drawing on fourteen industry interviews conducted within the PANTOUR framework across five tourism subsectors, the paper situated Irish workforce challenges within the broader context of European policy frameworks including the Sustainable Development Goals, the European Skills Agenda and the Pact for Skills. The analysis indicated the urgency of developing training and education responses that are simultaneously adaptive to environmental change, responsive to new work models and grounded in the social and human dimensions of service quality, themes that run throughout PANTOUR’s own competence framework.
An earlier paper by Rabelo and colleagues from TU Dublin, presented at the DSOTT23 Conference in Coimbra in 2023, examined the offer of soft skills and cross-cultural skills in Irish tourism and hospitality training curricula. Building on primary research conducted across industry stakeholders and education providers through both NTG and PANTOUR, the study identified persistent gaps in diversity, equality and inclusion content across Irish higher education and VET provision, and highlighted the disconnect between the emphasis industry places on social and interpersonal skills and the degree to which these are explicitly embedded in formal curricula. The findings provide an evidence base directly relevant to PANTOUR’s EDI and social skills agenda and point to the kinds of curricular reforms that the project’s outputs are designed to support.
Fernanda Vergara (TU Dublin) presented a draft paper at the AIEST Conference in August 2025 examining equality, diversity and inclusion through a holistic lens across tourism and hospitality education and training in Europe. The paper, which uses a mixed methods approach to explore how EDI skills development guides both practitioners and educational institutions, addresses a recognised gap in the literature: most existing EDI research relies on reviews, case studies or single aspect analyses, whilst PANTOUR’s work offers an integrated and transnational perspective. The presentation served as a forum for gathering scholarly feedback before final submission for publication.
