In the last years, media interest clearly showed a shortage of labour in tourism sector. Also the shortage of healthcare staff is a global phenomenon. Health and Wellness Tourism was a fast growing branch at a much faster rate than the overall tourism. The actual touristic situation of European tourism in the spring of 2020 cannot be drawn optimistic, but a requirement of special expertise and high quality of human resource, especially in Health and Wellness Tourism services can be foreseen. The HEAL ALL project aims an international cooperation of institutions supporting health tourism education. The project planning was finished before the launch of Coronavirus response of the EU. With the run of time, it became more visible, that after the pandemic, tourism (including health tourism) will be one of the most sensitive economic sectors suffering from the consequences of the outbreak. This fact is why the proposed starting activity of a comparative market Survey in the sector will be not only a preparation for other activities, but will create a new foundation in every country for future development since any earlier surveying will lose its actual manner. This underlines the importance of a new ground zero for all activities built upon. This intellectual investment is necessary for the sustainability of the education in health tourism, and support not only a development but a restructuring of the sector including educational inputs. The project consortium includes two higher educational bodies: University of Debrecen - Faculty of Health (Hungary) and Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania - Faculty of Economics, Socio-human Sciences and Engineering (Romania). Both Faculties offer education in different fields of tourism. The Faculty of Health controls a Health Tourism Specialisation in the framework of the Health Care Management BSc, while Faculty of Economics, Socio-human Sciences and Engineering manages a BSc study programme named Engineering and Management in Catering and Agrotourism. The non-educational partners of the cooperation are the INNOVA Észak-Alföld Nonprofit Ltd. (Hungary), which is a governmental-founded regional development and innovation agency established with the aim of boosting the regional economy and of managing innovative initiative, like the Thermal-Health Industrial Cluster; and the Marco Polo G.E.I.E. (Italy), which was established in 2006 with the main aim of promoting partnerships and European partnerships, especially through mobility projects and training development in HoReCa sector. The main measurable outputs of the programme are: A mentioned situational comparative analysis of tourism sector based on surveying both demand and supply sides, as a situational description, after the hoped end of the coronavirus-pandemic. The programme contains elements of best practice exchanges on international level gaining experience through GEMBA principles, but the most innovative content will be the creation of a Trainee Work Exchange (TWE) Portal, where the students will gain access to International Mobility offers of different companies from different countries. The Higher Education institutions will evaluate the needs of the surveyed companies and customers, and the innovative knowledge resulted by direct enterprise contacts will be built into a newly developed Curriculum of Health Touristic field, including 20 subjects and topics covering themes like growing requirements of Hygiene in Tourism for rebuilding trust of travellers. The Curriculum subjects will be organized into Modules (Lifestyle, Medical basics, Health Tourism and Wellness, Touristic Management, Social basics) commonly covering the complete Health tourism field. Each subject and topic can be reached electronically, study materials, question and examination databases, which is guarantee for OpenAccess through the TWE webpage, where all project activities can be monitored also for the general public. The cooperation will invent a further Distance Learning System too. The Quality of the project materials will be assured by intensive trainings of the producing staff and intensive use of professional review (both theory and practice) and proofreading. The final outcomes of the project will support the final beneficiaries (students - having better education, businesses - more qualified human resource, and customers - having a health touristic offer with enhancing quality) in building a healthier society and the proposal will strengthen the European Higher Educational Area in international competition compared to other economies and will reduce brain drain. The programme will promote internationalisation with the use of innovative digital access practices, resulting in a sustainable investment through enhancing quality and efficiency of education and training of youth.
The general goals to be achieved include the development of European Higher Education in the field of health tourism. The targeted results of the project support the entry into the labor market of more qualified, internationally competitive professionals, which can contribute to building a healthier society. More specific goals should be listed: a) building relationships between partners for the purpose of developing health tourism; b) a survey supporting a situation assessment with the involvement of partner countries; c) curriculum development, related language training and professional proofreading; d) development and internationalization of student internships; e) creating an application portal and portals helping to organize professional practice; f) education related to developments, demonstration multiplication events; g) quality control elements, ensuring sustainability. The submitted original application plan therefore contained educational development and relationship-building elements related to health tourism. Some more specific details from the original plan: 1. Implementation of a questionnaire survey among the partner countries to examine tourism and health tourism decisions and habits. The planned emphasis is on the assessment of needs related to education and training - both from the side of service providers and consumers. 2. The "English for Special Purposes" training included two elements. The first goal is the creation of a health tourism curriculum, the second goal is special language training. 3. Creation of an application website and a portal helping to organize professional internships - setting up the operating environment, training the employers. The goal is to create two portals. Materials related to the Heal All application have been added to the application website. The purpose of creating the internship job exchange portal is to help higher education students and service providers dealing with inclusive tourism that offer internships find each other. 4. Uploading the portal organizing internships with data. The set goals are direct contact with the service providers, information about the essence of the project and the details of the organization of the exercises, and registration. In addition, the goal was to find and register students on the portal. 5. Module development. The goal is the development of modern teaching materials. Development of twenty topics, five of which are smaller, summary material. According to the plans, three subjects will be created in the form of eTwinning - in the joint education of the two universities, with the joint teamwork of the students of the universities, and the solution of project tasks. The teaching materials also include notes, presentation materials and question sets. The module development is planned using the possibilities of the portal (Moodle system) that helps organize professional internships. The plans also included the use of portals and training. In connection with the module development, study trips were planned, which provided for the exchange of international experiences and getting to know the environment of the partners. 6. The original project plan provided for a professional review and language proofreading of the project materials. 7. The project has planned several multiplication events - each consortium member organizes a meeting once, strengthening mutual acquaintance and local dissemination appearances. 8. A natural element of the project is quality control and ensuring sustainability. The project is planned to include a starting and a closing meeting. During the planned implementation, personal management and quality control meetings will be held every six months. In addition, online management meetings are held monthly, or more often if necessary.
At the time of the submission of the tender, the lack of labor in certain sub-areas of the tourism sector was already present as a determining factor, both in Hungary and in other countries of the European Union. Perhaps it can be said that the lack of manpower in the field of healthcare is 'larger in scale and weight'. At the meeting point of the two sectors - in health and wellness tourism - this problem manifests itself in an amplified way. The development trend in the tourism sector is clearly visible, according to which tourism professionals with special health knowledge can serve the needs of the sector. The appearance of the Covid pandemic in the world was a factor of the tender planning that could not be assessed at the time (but today it can be stated that it affects almost all areas of life). The primary goal of the HEAL ALL project was the development of health tourism education and the support of the international cooperation of the actors participating in the training (educational institutions, companies and enterprises). The project proposal intended to initiate a transformation of the existing higher education courses of the partners, which can respond even more flexibly to the challenges of our changing world in the fields of education, health and relationships. The development results to be achieved can generate more competitive and efficient higher education processes in the field of health tourism in the partner countries. As a result of the development process, higher education can produce more qualified professionals. The development takes place at a sectoral or even higher level, in the long term. The planned tender work had to be modified for several reasons. On the one hand, the tender decision recommended the modification, transformation or deletion of several elements - which fundamentally defined the redesign. On the other hand, after the start of the tender, it became more and more visible that after the epidemic, tourism will become one of the main "victims", which will suffer the consequences of the epidemic. In addition to these two factors, a significant time delay in the application also appeared as a third point (details in the Analysis of Risk Factors section). In addition to the above modifying effects, the originally set goals did not change essentially. The three original priorities remain; the activities and goals of the application remained the original ones. The competition aimed to develop new, innovative curricula/educational methods/training courses in the field of Health and Well-Being through the cooperation of educational institutions and businesses.