Accessibility training for tourism professionals
Funka is participating in an interesting research project that recently got funding from the European Commission. The aim of the project is to develop accessibility curricula for managers and frontline staff in the tourism industry.
With an ageing population, accessibility is increasingly becoming a requirement that many tourist destinations and attractions need to handle. There are big differences between how this demand is being met, but generally, a lot still has to be improved for everyone to be able to enjoy inclusive experiences.
One of the reasons for this is that many, if not most, of the professionals working in the tourism industry are not trained in accessibility. That is what the project InTour wants to change by developing curricula, testing implementations and evaluating the results of qualitative training. The target audiences are both managers and frontline staff and the piloting is made at university level in Germany, Greece and Italy.
Training staff in the tourism sector is key to make sure that smart destinations are ready to receive and equally treat people with disabilities, says Anett Ruszanov, EU Project Manager at Funka in Brussels. InTour is an exemplary initiative. We would need many of these to be able to better support leisure for everyone.
Working closely with the tourism industry, the project is going to define the occupational profiles for the two target groups and specify the skills gaps. Based on the results from this and analysing good examples already in place, European Curricula in the accessible tourism sector are going to be defined. After that, modular training will be developed and tested in three countries. When the project ends after three years, the goal is for the model to be implemented throughout EU.
Funding: Erasmus+
Period: January 2020 - December 2022
Consortium: Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla Onlus (AISM), SI4life, University of Genoa, Fondazione per la Ricerca e l'Innovazione, Hellenic Open University, Epimelitirio Ilias (Chamber of Ilea), Akademie für berufliche Bildung, Fachhochschule Dresden, Chamber of Commerce of Valladolid, CRITERIA 05, EASPD, IAAPA EMEA, European Network for Accessible Tourism (ENAT) and Funka.
Budget: 1M EURO