PANTOUR and Pact for Skills Tourism event – 17 February 2023

PANTOUR and Pact for Skills event – 17 February 2023

During this panel, we seek to discuss with a solution focused approach the emergence of initiatives to attract and retain staff in tourism and hospitality across Europe. In a joint event organised by the Pantour Consortium and the Pact for Skills for Tourism (PfST), which also promotes joint action through the establishments and implementation of large-scale skills partnerships at national, regional and local levels.

Some of the questions that arise are, how could we potentialise the industry by promoting solutions to address staff shortages? And what initiatives are happening on the groudn? This panel seeks to prpvide an overview of initiatives and case studies to address the shortage of staff in the sector.

The session is free to join online, click here to join the meeting.

First PANTOUR webinar – 9 February 2023

We are delighted to invite you to our first PANTOUR webinar – Pact for Next Tourism Generation Skills on 9 February, 2023. Want to learn everything about our research on current and future skills needs in tourism, conducted in the last months? Make sure you join this webinar and get more information on how to be ahead of the developments while participating in PANTOURs project activities that are planned for the upcoming years.

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NEXT TOURISM GENERATION continued in the new PANTOUR project

In June 2022, the Tourism Blueprint Strategy was delivered to the European Commission by the Next Tourism Generation Alliance (NTG). It was the result of more than four years of work and research about skills and training in the tourism sector in Europe. This strategy stated how to promote skills development in order to achieve better tasks development in any job position. As it was discovered, the same skills are used for different tasks and allow professionals to develop different job positions. This way, professionals must be trained on skills while they will be taught in operational tasks in their positions. From this point, a new project was submitted to an ERASMUS+ call, “Pact for Next Tourism Generation Skills – PANTOUR.

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NTG Blueprint Strategy and Action Plan for addressing digital, social and green skills needs in the European tourism

Building on previous work by the European Commission and sectoral partners to address skills gaps in tourism, the NTG Alliance is one of the Sector Skills Alliances set up as part of the Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills. Each Sector Skills Alliance is funded by the European Commission Erasmus + KA2 programme and was tasked with setting up a Blueprint to help direct the way forward for skills development across a wide range of stakeholders. Thus, the NTG Alliance has developed the first Pan-European Skills Blueprint for the Tourism Industry, presented in this document. The Blueprint provides a roadmap for addressing digital, social and green skill needs in the tourism sector in Europe through transformational collaboration between industry, education, social partners and government.

This Blueprint sets out a comprehensive methodology to respond to the need for a sectoral skills strategy that is innovative, relevant, and responsive to the current and future skills scenario for the tourism sector. Importantly, it also builds on previous research such as the European Commission’s Tourism Skills Mapping exercises and Panorama Skills in Tourism and work by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training.

Download the full press release here: NTG Press Release Blueprint Strategy Skills Development in Tourism

Download the blueprint here: Final Next Tourism Generation Blueprint Report

Final NTG Blueprint Document

The Blueprint document is an output of the Next Tourism Generation (NTG) Alliance, a strategic and multi-layered collaborative partnership formed in 2018. Building on previous work by the European Commission and sectoral partners to address skills gaps in tourism, the NTG Alliance is one of the Sector Skills Alliances set up as part of the Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills. Each Sector Skills Alliance is funded by the Commission and was tasked with setting up a Blueprint.

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Presentations and video’s of the NTG Final Conference

In view of the project’s closure at the end of June, a Final online Conference was organised and held on June 9th, attended by approximately more than 150 participants from the tourism sector across Europe.

Among the invited experts were Dr. Dan Tromans – Qualification Wales, Georges el Hajal – NHL Stenden,  Marie-Hélène Pradines – European Commission, Martha Machado – HOTREC, Stefan van Tulder – Talent Data Labs and Josie and Theodor Grassos – EVBB to talk about the need for skills development in tourism. They shared best practices and their perspective on the future of tourism when it comes to skills.

Divided into four modules, the online conference brought together tourism stakeholders from government and policymakers, to industry and education and training institutions on European, national, and local/regional levels. The program was filled around four major topics, discussing current and future needs and the transition of green, digital and social skills development in tourism. Every module focuses on topics such as ‘Collaborative framework on skills development and the NTG Blueprint’, ‘Innovation in Education, Skills Training, and curriculum development’, ‘Assessing skills gaps and future skills needs in tourism’, ‘The road ahead on skills in tourism – Pact for Skills and PANTOUR’. 

The conference also showcases the work done under the Next Tourism Generation project and highlights how the Blueprint project will stimulate the Transition Pathway regarding skills and how the project feeds into the Pact for Skills in Tourism.

Watch it now:  NTG Final Conference 9 June 2022 – YouTube 

Finally, after the conference, the final NTG Consortium meeting took place in Madrid, and the efforts of NTG will be continued in a new project: PANTOUR. The project’s legacy will be the reference for bridging skills gaps and future skills needs in tourism, promoting the Next Tourism Generation Blueprint and the Skills Lab Platform, among other relevant skills resources and tools the project delivered.

NTGs second ascientific paper: Environmental Skills Gaps in Tourism and Hospitality Organisations – Evidence from Europe

The research outcomes of NTG have been published in Tourism: An International Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 70 No. 3, 2022.

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Next Tourism Generation Alliance participated in the EU Industry Days

Last week, the Next Tourism Generation Alliance participated in the EU Industry Days. The program had a special focus on tourism and skills. Did you know that the tourism sector generates 10% of the European GDP and jobs? During the event, the European Commission presented the ‘transition pathway for tourism’. The Next Tourism Generation already mobilized to catalyze the green and digital transitions of the tourism sector through practice-based research and provide the current next generation of tourism professionals with skills for the future through training and education.

NTG participated in the spotlight event with the track ”EU accelerating the green, digital and resilient transition”. On February 9, Klaus Ehrlich (photo), General Secretary, Ruraltour-European Federation of Rural Tourism and NTG partner, represented the EU Pact for Skills: towards the up and re-skilling of the European workforce.

• Re-watch the session here
• Download the presentation and click: EUID – Pact for Skills_Tourism 220209
• And sign-up for the Pact for Skills

The NTG Alliance is proud to sign and support the official Pact for Skills partnership

European Commission leads push for new and additional skills for workers in the tourism industry

Today, 31 January 2022,  the Next Tourism Generation Alliance signs and supports the official Pact for Skills partnership for workers in the tourism industry. With the support of the Commission, the tourism industry, European tourism umbrella associations, vocational education and training providers, and trade unions have set up a large-scale skills partnership for the EU tourism ecosystem. Members of the partnership have agreed on specific commitments and indicators to support tourism workers in learning new skills in the coming years. These could include digital, green, and social skills, such as customer service training and language skills, all of which can improve employability in this sector.  One of the objectives of the partnership is to increase upskilling and reskilling activities and participation by 40% for the employed workforce, and by 80% for the unemployed by 2025. As the EU tourism ecosystem has been severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, investing in skills is essential to maintain its competitiveness, to meet the economic and social responsibilities of the sector, and to enable its digital and green transition.

Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market, said:

“As one of the most impacted ecosystems during the pandemic, tourism businesses have lost valuable employees and are hampered by a lack of skilled workforce. For a sustained recovery, we need to give the tourism workforce the necessary skills to address the changing demands of tourists and to become pioneers in the green and digital transition. National and regional skills partnerships will drive the implementation of the Pact for Skills on the ground.” Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, said: “Europe’s tourism ecosystem is facing unprecedented hardship because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This new partnership for skills will respond the needs of our companies and workers. It will provide tools to support them and will help create new quality jobs”.

Following commitments in 6 other industrial ecosystems, this partnership is a concrete implementation of the Pact for Skills, one of the flagship initiatives under the European Skills Agenda for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness, and resilience. The main objective of the Pact is to mobilise resources and incentivise all relevant partners to take concrete action to upskill and reskill the workforce in key industrial ecosystems. Since its launch, over 500 organisations have pledged to reskill over 1.5 million people in Europe. This initiative also contributes to the EU-level headline target that by 2030, at least 60% of all adults should participate in training every year. In addition, the initiative supports the tourism transition pathway, which is being co-created by tourism stakeholders.

Download the Pact for Skills – Skills Partnership for the Tourism Ecosystem: Pact for Skills Tourism 2021 12 17 – final with logos.