Intercultural Professional Development in Hospitality

Based on the views from the target groups and our results of the pre-application needs analysis there is a necessity for staff to be more competitive on the market by being better trained (and the...

We met all our objectives of our project: 1.Broaden the intercultural awareness of hospitality staff; 2.Establish a more creative and collaborative working environment in hospitality; 3.Increase the competitiveness of the hospitality sector in Europe; 4.Foster an inclusive and equitable workplace culture; 5.Introduce an educational model which aligns with the realities of the hospitality sector; and where possible, include VET tutors and students; 6.Offer localised and contextualised educational content; 7.Prepare hotel staff’s intercultural and linguistic capacity of the upcoming tourist markets of Russia and China; 8.Improve the cultural experience of guests; 9.Help build interpersonal connections and facilitate the interpersonal processes in a multicultural workforce. Please note: all relevant evaluation of our material (online modules and app) have been uploaded onto the shared drive by the NA.

The partnership worked on all four PRs and implemented all the activities. Other implemented activities: Participation in three F2F TPM and the third online TPM plus regular online meetings. Ongoing admin tasks every six months (timesheets/progress reports were provided by each partner led by the coordinator.) QM online surveys and reports and dissemination activities. Implemantation of LTTA activity online and MEs by each partner. All relevant files have been uploaded onto the shared drive by the NA.

- Identification of the intercultural challenges in hospitality - see needs analysis summary. - Development of prototypes for three critical incidents in the four most important hotel departments: front desk, food and beverage, housekeeping and management. - Localisation and contextualisation of all critical incidents to fit into the partner countries’ realities. - Development of a mobile devices application which give access to the educational content created for these critical incidents in the form of audio-enabled scenarios/virtual tours. - Language teaching materials in Chinese and Russian comprising of basic key words and phrases as well as cultural information about the visitors from these two countries to be utilised by hotel staff members (including owners, managers and employees) to provide more personalised services. - Dissemination of all project's results - please see dissemination reports by each partner. - 10 local multiplier events attended by members of the target groups. - please see ME's reports by each partner, including evaluation of the events - Enhancement of intercultural competences of hospitality staff (owners, managers and employees) - please see our piloting results. - Increased tourists’ satisfaction and competitiveness of European tourism - please see our online modules and app material. - Professional development of the staff of the partner organisations in project management and implementation of EU projects. During the two years long shared path of the partnership every partner learned some more skills in project management. - Improved working conditions and foreign employee integration in the hospitality sector when using our training material. - Making employment opportunities in hospitality sector more attractive by using our training material. - Interaction between research, practice and policy, to foster economic and social development - please see the summary results of our research (PR1) as part of the needs analysis. - Potential adoption of the innovative educational practices by non-formal institutions in vocational education - partners were in contact with various stakeholders, including VET providers. - Development of partnerships and bonds between VETs and the hospitality sector; and where possible, include VET tutors and students. - Added value to the Open Educational Resources (OER) platform. - Benefit for the hospitality and the EU economy as a whole. Please see our evaluation surveys. Furthermore, some project management results were produced during the project: - Signed partner agreement by each partner, - Document Management System to manage partner contributions (Admin project platform), - Various evaluation, taking stock records and financial progress reports, - revised Gantt chart, - Quality Assurance and Risk Plan, - Sustainability Plan, - Dissemination Plan, project flyers and newsletters in all target languages, individual dissemination reports, - Press Releases, - Project website creation and support for 3 years after the project completion.