The ProTourism project aimed to improve the quality of English language teaching in vocational schools in the tourism sector. It aims to provide VET teachers with pedagogical materials that are in line with the skills demand of employers in this sector. The professional skill areas we focus on are customer service and communication. Our project brings together five organizations from four countries where tourism is important, such as Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia, in their efforts to support vocational schools in providing quality training in specific areas. In our project, we had set ourselves consistent and logical goals that will lead to the qualitative achievement of the set final result - the creation of digital pedagogical materials for specific professions in the tourism sector with a focus on customer service and communication. The overall completion of the project was structured into three overarching areas of activity: Activity I – Project Management, Activity II – Development/Implementation of Project Results and Activity III – Promotion and Sharing of Project Results. Each activity includes sub-activities distributed among the partners with a specific scope, time and a specific result.
The ProTourism project is set in the context of the demand for skills in the tourism sector in Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia and the capacity of the VET sectors, especially VET schools in tourism, to respond effectively to this demand. According to the CEDEFOP study (2020) on the key skills employers demand from VET graduates, three key skills stand out: - customer service - communication - English. The main needs and motives for the candidacy and the subsequent implementation of the ProTourism project are directly related to the demand for skills among employers, the need of professional foreign language teachers in tourism schools for up-to-date and relevant pedagogical materials on the topics of customer service, communication and English language, the lack of this type of material presented in each partner country, as well as, last but not least, the need of the students themselves in the tourism vocational schools for attractive and practically oriented content, which would be a tool for building stable communication skills and customer service in English in any tourism profession.