In line with European and international objectives and policies on VET and Work (Youth on the Move; New Skills Agenda for Europe; UN Strategy 2030), Tailor-MOB aimed to offer young participants the opportunity to verify and deepen their own curricular skills: professionalism in their specific curricular area of belonging (TOURISM and CATERING), transversal skills, cultural knowledge and linguistic preparation. These general objectives were reached through an experience of international mobility of 1 MONTH for 180 STUDENTS of CLASSES FOUR of the TOURISM and CATERING School pathways (of whom 30 with SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS) of the Sicilian Tourism & Catering sending VET Schools of the Consortium. The Project also promoted the comparison and transfer of good training practices by relating our VET system to the training and work system of other European Countries and contributed to the consolidation of the ECVET system.
In Sicily, between 2018 and the second quarter of 2019, employment in the tourism sector recorded an average increase, compared to the two-year period 2016-17, of 3.9%, while 64% of sector hires affected the professional figure of tourism receptionist (EXCELSIOR-Tourism, 2019). The data of the EXCELSIOR Report also indicated that for the next 5 years tourism should maintain a positive and expansive trend in Sicily, but with a much higher and development-oriented demand for skills from sector companies related to MARKETING TOOLS AND INNOVATIVE COMMUNICATION MODELS, EVEN IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. The data and projections therefore highlighted, on the one hand, the expansion of the sector and the tourist attractiveness of the Region and, on the other hand, underlined the need to provide trained, highly qualified staff who are able to respond positively to requests for new and high skills from the local job market.