Context: The “ComPass 2016” action is an ERASMUS+ VET KA 2 Strategic “Partnerships for adult education/ Exchanges of Practices” with the relevant topics “Health and wellbeing”, ”Intercultural/intergenerational education and lifelong learning” and “Migrants' issues”.The design of an "accessible tourism for everyone" (Accessible Tourism for All) is the primary base for the future growth of tourism. The EU topic "Accessible Tourism for All" very clearly reflects this trend. An insufficient awareness by tourism providers both on policy and public as well as on the level of micro and small tourism enterprises towards the personnel skills, qualification and competence requests of the promising “Accessible Tourism for All” is to note. New requirements of professional qualification and first of personal competencies arise that the management and the staff have to face qualitatively and quantitatively to meet new customer target groups and their very specific needs.Tailor-made training and continuing education for managers and employees in the tourism industry is important to enable them to cater effectively for guests with special needs and to provide high-quality tourism offers.Objectives: The action’s main objective is to respond to the needs of the tourism labour market, especially to the needs of smallest and SMEs as well as to anticipate qualification and training needs in the “Accessible Tourism for All” sector. This will done by the exchange of specific good practices and experiences in qualification and training gained in the participating countries in this area.Specific Objectives are the exchange of practices about:- Job qualification in high-priced quality tourism regions and tourism cluster development, - Accessible tourism, especially for people from ethnic minorities including migrants and in opening up entrepreneurship opportunities for people in those groups, - What the managers should know about accessible tourism?, and- Tourism programmes for 3rd age.Participants: Six partners from Germany, Federal Land Brandenburg, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Spain, Latvia and Greece are involved in this action. They represent different stakeholders like Regional Development Agencies, a National University, and Foundations.The project foresees the involvement of round about 30 direct (with a specific grant) and 120 indirect (without a specific grant) persons and some 600 other interested local persons/stakeholders reached by measures of the media and non-media activities either as direct or indirect beneficiaries. Target groups are: - Managers and staff of regional smallest tourism and SMEs,- People working in the field of education policy- Local and tourism departments of regional administrations,- Key regional and national thematic networks and clusters,- Regional representatives of VET and training institutions,- Persons disadvantaged at the labour market, especially women, elderly, migrants, etc.Activities: The action foresees:- 6 “Transnational Meetings”, - 6 “Exchanges of Practices” in the format of Blended Mobility (5 days each), meant to share/confront ideas, practices and methods by the directly involved partner’s beneficiaries. In addition, they should develop and reinforce networks and increase their capacity to operate at transnational level.Methodology: The action use the following methodologies:- Lead Partner principle, - “Transfer of contents” of proven procedures, methods and approaches, - “Capacity building” and “Common learning and training” during the “Transnational Meetings” and “Blended Mobility”.Results/impact: The action will have not-tangible results. They are materialised in capacity building in how in general “Accessible Tourism for All” is organised in accordance to the needs and behaviours of different target groups, i.e. persons with special handicaps, elderly persons, families with children, ethnic minorities, migrants etc. and which complex approaches are used in the participating countries. That capacity building includes a better know-ledge about existing good practices and strengthened interpersonal, intercultural, social and civic competences. This expected impact, i.e. enhanced expertise and skills in “Accessible Tourism All” would manifest itself in a mid- and long-term range on personal, competence, know-ledge and organisational levels.Longer-term benefits/European added value: The shared good practices on wide aspects in “Accessible Tourism for All” will remain after the end of the EU funding and will be integrated into the regional educational systems and in the daily entrepreneurial practise. The upgraded expertise of the direct and indirect action beneficiaries on the “Accessible Tourism for All” concept and the raised European competencies and behaviours of action participants remain for long periods. The enhanced European and Transnational networking of partners created because of this action will continue after EU funding.
Context: The “ComPass 2016” action was an exchanges of practices “Strategic Partnerships for adult education” with the EU focus “Accessible Tourism for All”. The action has deled with the topics “Health and wellbeing” and ”Intercultural/intergenerational education and lifelong learning”, and “Mi-grants' issues”. Actual accepted is that the design and implementation of “Accessible Tourism for AlL” concepts is the primary base for the future growth of the tourism industry everywhere. An insuffi-cient awareness by tourism promoters as well as on the level of micro and small tourism enterprises is to note towards the personnel skills, qualification and competence requested by the promising “Accessible Tourism for All”. Tailor-made training and continuing education for managers and em-ployees in the tourism industry is important to enable them to cater effectively for guests with special needs and to provide high-quality tourism offers. Objectives: The action’s main objective was to ex-change specific good practices and experiences in qualification and training gained in the action mat-ter respective to the needs of micro and SMEs in the participating countries. The exchange should run on such issues like Job qualification in high-priced quality tourism regions development; Acces-sible tourism, especially for people from ethnic minorities, migrants and in opening up entrepreneur-ship opportunities, and Tourism for 3rd age. Participating organisations: Six partners from Germa-ny, Federal Land Brandenburg, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Spain, Latvia and Greece were in-volved in this action. They represented Regional Development Agencies, an NGO, a National Universi-ty, and Foundations. Activities: The project partners realised six Bench Mobility (five days each) in Burg (Spreewald/DE), Ostrava (CZ), Santander (ES), London (UK), Riga (LV) and Athens (GR). These Mobility are characterised by visits to representative regional good practices. So, the participants got see by itself on-site solutions how and which way problems were solved. The exchange of opinions, know-ledge and expertise took place most of all in direct personal contacts with these regional stakeholders. At the end, the participants could take at home in practice gained experiences to use in their own activities. All project activities were organised barrier free. Results/impact: The main project impact is summarised in the following statement: “It makes business sense as well as being a moral imperative to think about what can be done to provide a better service for people with a disability. From that perspective it was heartening to know that people are thinking about these issues and the project was an opportunity I think to raise awareness about those initiatives and provide the basis for future discussion.” (Jeremy Barker (UK). Project participant who sees things through the prism of his own direct experience with disability). In total 119 direct beneficiaries and 142 indirect beneficiaries have actively participated in the six Bench Mobility. The project has reached by communication activi-ties like newsletters (subscribers), web sites (visitors), press statements, social median (Facebook, Twitter followers) etc. approximately 6.000 interested persons. The evaluation shows that the main lessons learned are, that in every partner country micro and tourism SMEs have the same difficulties to acquire skilled personnel; the migration workforce in this sector is essential; the micro and SME´s need to be trained to accept and professionally integrate migrant’s workforce and that this workforce needs to be proper trained; that the sector must be open to capitalise from other Human Resources as people with disabilities and be flexible and cooperative in the training process. All results are downloaded in the ERASMUS+ Results Platform. There are different impact levels to note. The direct involved stakeholders got most of all a better and enlarged expertise how the same problems are solved in different European countries especially about how to develop person-oriented service competences and make tourism facilities and services more accessible, by one hand, and practical intercultural, social and civic competences and behaviours by the other. “Mobility within the project were very beneficial for my work in the regional destination company, mainly in terms of practical demonstrations of accessible tourism in Spain and in Latvia.” (Lucie for CZ). The participating organi-sations got a deeper inside and raised expertise in the matter of “Accessible Tourism for All”. Longer-term benefits: The shared good practices on wide aspects in “Accessible Tourism for All” will be in-tegrated into the regional educational systems and in the daily entrepreneurial practise. The enhanced European and Transnational networking of partners created will continue after EU funding and proba-bly lead to other common European projects in this or other issues of common interest.