Demographic change and the shortage of skilled workers are having an increasing impact on the development and expansion of sustainable tourism projects in rural regions. At the same time, sustainable nature tourism requires special knowledge, such as about regional products, which is rarely the subject of training. The aim of the project "Rural regions and green future jobs" is to establish a transnational cooperation structure between the participating educational institutions as well as the associated rural tourism regions of the Black Forest and the region of Castellón, Valencia, exemplarily through the exchange of good practices. Besides the future exchange of professionals, the project tries to show a concept for the challenges and adaptation of the professional training on the topic of sustainable nature tourism.
The project "Rural regions and green future jobs" combines the development of rural areas and their development through sustainable nature tourism with the question of the training of tourism professionals and the importance of "green skills" for employment prospects using the example of the Black Forest in Germany and the region of Castellón, Valencia in Spain. The AEF-Spanische Weiterbildungsakademie e.V. has been carrying out projects to integrate migrants into the labor market and support SMEs in its branch office in Hornberg in the Black Forest since 2013. The idea for the project arose from the requests of the hotel and restaurant industry for qualified personnel, especially since the project partner in Spain, the vocational school COSDA, was interested in an exchange of skilled workers and at the same time wanted to deepen the aspect of nature tourism in their training.