With an estimate share of 15% in the European tourism[1], the rural tourism sector occupies an important place in the economy and is a key driver of sustainable growth of many regions form the Member States, where rural tourist activities represent a large potential source of employment and contribute to economic health, competitiveness, creativity and innovation. Staff qualifications, the ageing workforce and the inability to attract young workers and entrepreneurs[1] remain one of the crucial problems that need to be addressed in these industries. AURea4RURAL will provide open-access e-learning and tools to trainees with interest in the rural tourism sector, so that they can address the implementation of innovative tools to make the rural tourism offer more attractive. AURea4RURAL aims to create an innovative digital Augmented Reality platform for the rural tourism sector along with a training content according to the competences of the staff working in this sector businesses: managers of public Natural Parks, rural hotels and restaurants, companies providing leisure activities, culture or environment departments from rural towns and villages. From this main objective, several specific objectives are defined: - To identify and understand competences and needs of rural tourism employees and professionals in the use of Augmented Reality as a tool for information and to promotion of the rural tourism sector. - To create a tourism product for the interpretation of a landscape of their choice through AR tools. - To develop an e-learning platform according to the identified needs. - To achieve Capacity Building in the rural tourism sector: a stable and active Strategic Partnership will be established to promote active cooperation among enterprises, professional organisations and local/Regional Bodies to support high quality VET with a strong work-based learning component. AURea4RURAL brings together three business association, two of which, ERTO and EUROGITES represent the rural tourism sector, whereas DLEARN associates entities from the digital learning field. The consortium also includes a VET School of Service and rural Economics (OTMK), and two institutions specialized in Augmented Reality: a VET provider and an ICT developer (CETEM), and a higher education entity (KIT). The countries involved in the project are Estonia, France, Spain, Germany and Italy and represent 56% of the total rural tourism infrastructure in Europe[2]. Partners complement each other and the consortium creates added value due to their international approach while developing all planned activities: -Surveys, comparative analysis and evidence-gathering, real cases studies in order to have a real idea of the needs and competences in the use of ICT in the rural tourism sector. - The development of an Augmented Reality tool and virtual content. - The development of an e-learning platform and training content. - Capacity building and networking activities. This Strategic Partnership will analyze the use of ICT in the Rural Tourism sector (competences and qualifications needs), will develop an Augmented Reality tool, training material and an e-learning platform. The Augmented Reality tool will integrate the implementation of real cases as examples to help learners assimilate their learning. Both the Augmented Reality tool and the content will be freely available through the e-learning platform. This VET-Business partnership will promote work-based learning, aligned to the needs and opportunities offered by the sector. It will provide and assess digital and transversal skills and competences, fostering employability, social-educational and professional development. The open access training content and virtual tool will contribute to a more strategic and integrated use of ICTs. This learning approach will provide a better understanding and recognition of new skills and competences. Target groups (enterprises of rural tourism and VET staff, students and unemployed willing to focus their careers on these sectors) will have the chance of increasing their knowledge on ICT tools that will improve their competences in their working lives and furthermore, will offer more opportunities for professional development. In terms of longer term benefits: - AURea4RURAL will increase the labour market relevance of VET provision and will reduce skill mismatches and shortages among the identified target groups. - The project will empower small tourism businesses to enter the digital and mobile world, and to leverage all its possibilities through an easy-to-use IT tool. - The project will contribute to raise awareness and increase social responsibility towards the natural environment, while still providing an effective way of enjoying it safely [1] Ehrlich, Klaus: Perspectives of rural tourism in Europe; Tourism in rural areas. Matej Bel University Banska Bystirca (SK), 2009 [2] Eurostat: Number of bed-places by degree of urbanisation (from 2012 onwards
With an estimate share of 15% in the European tourism, the rural tourism sector occupies an important place in the economy and is a key driver of sustainable growth of many regions in EU Member States, where rural tourist activities represent a large potential source of employment and contribute to economic health, competitiveness, creativity and innovation. Staff qualifications, the ageing workforce and the inability to attract young workers and entrepreneurs are problems that need to be addressed in these industries. The Project Aurea4Rural tackled these issues by approaching to rural tourism through the use of ICT, namely Augmeted Reality (AR). AR superimposes virtual information on top of the real image, giving the user an augmented reality through a screen. Many European cities offer a tourism experience with AR, but there was nothing alike existing for rural tourism. Besides, AR solutions are very expensive for individual rural tourism SME-s to develop, as the businesses are often micro-businesses and have very limited resources. With the help of Aurea4Rural, a possibility was created for rural tourism providers, educational institutions teaching rural tourism, and any other interested stakeholders, to create AR projects. For this purpose, a special content management system, i.e. the Webtool, and a special App for Android were constructed. In the Webtool, one can create AR projects about its tourism offer, e.g. about the accommodation establishment, or any points of interest in the surroundings. The visitor who visits the particular tourism company, will receive information about this possibility (e.g. a list of its available AR projects) from the host. After downloading the Aurea4Rural App to his/her smartphone/tablet, the visitor can visualize the AR projects of the hosts from the screen of its device (after scanning a QR code or after reaching a certain geographical position, appointed by GPS). The Webtool and the App can also be used by students of educational institutions for learning purposes, to study how to create AR projects for rural tourism. The project also produced a set of learning resources to support the RT staff and students in this. Learning modules with self-test assessment questions are available on the e-learning platform, which was established as one result of the Project. RT providers and students can learn about AR, about creating AR projects and also specifically how to use the Aurea4Rural Webtool and the App. The project directly involved more than 500 participants, including stakeholders and experts participating in research, participants to public dedicated and/or significant events, participants involved in testing activities. More than 3000 micro enterprises from the rural tourism sector were reached with project's dissemination activities. One of the main impacts of the project is empowering the target group of small tourism businesses by providing them a free tool for creating their AR projects, which has the potential of creating a competitive advantage for them. An important impact is also providing tools for VET and other educational institutions to make their teaching offer in rural tourism more contemporary and appealing to students.