Vacations, whatever form they take, are a chance to unwind, regroup and take a step back to examine your life from a different angle, a new perspective. Traveling, especially abroad or to a place we have never been before, allows us to temporarily leave our old life behind and adopt new customs, new ways of thinking and looking at the world, ways that can crossover into our everyday lives. On the other hand, musculoskeletal conditions are a leading cause of burden and disease across the EU Member States. Europe’s ageing population and changes in lifestyle suggest that without action the burden of these conditions will increase. Health and fitness professionals are now noticing a decrease in the physical functionality of their participant and are beginning to address it. The continual decrease in everyday activity has contributed too many of the postural deficiencies seen in people. Therefore, today’s training programs cannot stay the same as programs of the past. In other words, the programs must consider each person, their environment, their eating habits, their psychological mood and the specific exercise design that will be performed in order to prevent them from diseases and to improve their musculoskeletal functionality. Objectives of the project: The GO Functional Improvement & Tourism (GO FIT) project addresses the gap in learning programs between HEI’s exercise and health experts with both educational and clinical expertise, in collaboration with tourism specialists. So, the GO FIT project is designed to develop a new learning program, a web platform and a multimedia application with transdisciplinary approach for exercise, health and tourism experts, to achieve relevant and high quality skills and competences in designing the appropriate program for tourists and helping them to adopt a new healthy lifestyle. Specifically during the activities of the project: A total of 6 exercise and health specialists (6 exercise experts -2 physical therapists between them) 2 physicians (across GER, GR, NOR and CY) with significant impact on each individual learner will collaborate with another HEI and one non-profit organization with impact on hotel industry (TEIA, ALBA) and policy makers (ALBA) through Joint Staff Training Event. The project contributes to co-operation within and between a variety of professionals (physicians, exercise experts, counseling) connecting practices from different thematic areas to impact diffusion at hotel industry (hotel managers and tourists). The joint curriculum program that will be developed and piloted will be incorporated to the existent curriculum of three HEIs in three different countries, with calculated ECTS as a grading scale. The 30 learners-participants in the Pilot of the curriculum (ISP and long-term distance teaching) (10 students for each partner organization) will impact on others via a cascade effect of spreading knowledge and learning gained through the program. In this way there will be significant impact on exercise specialists employment in the participating hotels and thus employment across the EU. Similarly, 100 tourists who will use the multimedia application will impact on their colleagues (indirect target group) spreading education and well-being gained through their short participation in the program. Managers, HR members and Corporate Social Responsibility of 100 hotel industry and enterprises from the public sector will acknowledge that the healthier option is the easier option through the Information Day (Dissemination). A well informed public opinion in combination with the provision of condensed and easily accessible information for all kinds of audiences would lower health costs and foster productivity and work satisfaction of office employees. Easy public access will also bring a wide collection of ‘popularized’ functional exercise information closer to information seekers (tourist, public), while the wide dissemination of GO FIT results will contribute towards a better understanding of GO FIT program potential. The potential longer term benefits: GO FIT project is expected to have a long lasting impact on the wide dissemination of GO FIT protocol and its integration to tourists and eventually to any participant everyday lives. Rising awareness hotel industry managers and CSR and HR members on the serious social impact of musculoskeletal disorders and their socioeconomic consequences, the project expects believe there will be an increase in kinetic system functionality and a healthy lifestyle adoption. By educating tourists and all participants in following the GO FIT protocol in their lives, the project aims to instill them that the healthier option is the easier option and at the same time to address the most frequent problems related to kinetic system decreased functionality.
The GO Functional Improvement & Tourism (GO FIT) project addressed the gap in learning programs between HEI’s exercise and health experts, with both educational and clinical expertise, in collaboration with tourism manager’s specialists. So, the GO FIT project was designed to develop a new learning program, a web platform and a multimedia application with transdisciplinary approach for exercise, health and tourism, in order for the experts/educators/trainers to achieve relevant and high quality skills and competences in designing the appropriate program for tourists and helping them to adopt a new healthy lifestyle. In particular, the GO FIT project was designed to address tourists’ needs to adopt a healthy lifestyle, involving functional exercise. At first, analysis of needs for the tourist population was held. Then, based on this analysis of needs, a new learning program, the Joint Staff Training Event (JSTE), with a transdisciplinary approach for functional exercise, health and tourism experts (target group teachers) developed. Subsequently, the new blended teaching and learning materials was used by academics and clinicians to train the exercise science students to enhance the quality and relevance of their knowledge and skills on: how they will be able to apply functional exercise programs for tourists during their holidays, to prevent musculoskeletal conditions and improve their functional ability of their kinetic system while triggering them to adopt a new healthy lifestyle (target groups: students & tourists). Also, the final GO FIT academic course, which was offered in the HEI partner’s Exercise Science curriculum, will continually enhance the quality and relevance of exercise science students' knowledge and skills, also providing sustainability of the project (target group students). The main goal of the partnership addressed the need to develop a new intensive learning program (focused on transforming ‘ideas into action’ in line with Europe 2020 recommendations) for exercise, health & tourism specialists, which acts as a catalyst for their own professional development. Partners from different countries with transdisciplinary approach were selected and contributed to the present project: Clinical experts with dual role (physiotherapists and orthopedic medicals in Germany, ORTH) on current methods of clinical treatment for common muscular skeletal conditions (i.e. knee pain, shoulder pain, low back pain) and possible preventive strategies, UOS’s (UK) academic staff with knowledge in counseling on current methods how an individual can follow a healthy lifestyle (i.e. Exercise and eating habits), HEI’s staff (DUTH’s, EUC’s & KUC’s) with knowledge and skills in kinetic system’ discomforts, in chronic diseases and in body weight control management through exercise programs and Experts in tourism (TEIA & ALBA). Therefore, the partners teached how all these health promotion programs can be designed and applied in tourists in hotel facilities (gym, pool, gardens, beaches, sea etc) and eventually for general public. This collaboration demanded transnational and transdisciplinary teaching and learning materials to educate exercise leaders and tourists in how a healthy lifestyle can be adopted by them, enhancing and strengthening the role of higher education in EU countries.