Programme: ERASMUS+
Key Action: KA2
Action Type: KA220-HED – Cooperation partnerships in higher education
Project Start Date (yyyy-mm-dd): 2021-11-01
Project End Date (yyyy-mm-dd): 2024-11-01
Project Duration: 36 month
 

Main Objective: Cooperation in order to establish and run “training hotels” as training environments to develop tourism undergraduates ́ hospitality skills

Specific Objectives:

1.  To create a “training hotel” based on the principles of a real hotel.
2.  To design and build the infrastructure and facilities of the “training hotel” focusing mainly on three areas, as follows:
a.  hotel information systems,
b.  intercultural digital marketing,
c.  sustainable development.
3.  To create curricula and electronic educational materials based on the Design Thinking method.
4.  To create an international network of the “training hotels” involved in the project with the intention ofextensive cooperation.
 

Project Description: The project responds to the dynamically changing and extensive expectations of the labor market towards the graduates of tourism study programmes. The rapid development of digital technologies, the process of globalisation and the increasing need to act in an “eco-friendly” way in post-covid era get tourism undergraduates into educational situations in which they have to address challenges in the best possible way to be prepared both professionally and personally to be a great asset to the society. The idea of the presented project-plan has emerged from the need to create a kind of business training environment for implementing professional activities similar to the real conditions and circumstances of practice in the field of hospitality and tourism. The training environment will have the form of a fictional hotel fulfilling a dual function of professional and educational nature. The main aim of the creation of a training workplace for students of relevant study programmes in the field of tourism is to deepen important and necessary professional skills – hard skills and competencies. Besides, thanks to the collaboration of many students and educators, the “training” hotel will also represent an environment for developing personal skills – soft skills and transversal competencies.

The main intention of practice hospitality skills within the “training hotels” is to find adequate answers to the following questions, to which we will refer as the “Six How To… ́s”:

1a. How to integrate information technologies in hotel management systems?

1b. How to use property management systems in given environment?

2a. How to build intercultural digital marketing?

2b. How to communicate with employees and with customers from different cultures?

3a. How to develop a sustainable hotel?

3b. How to reduce the ecological footprint of the hotel?