dTour
Introducing Digitalisation for Boosting SMEs in Tourism and Hospitality

The dTour project aims to train and certify people who work in the Tourism & Hospitality sector with innovative digital skills in order to provide high-quality digitalized services to small and medium-sized businesses with focus on hotels and accommodation.
The project aspires to develop an educational programme along with a certification scheme that will contribute to the certification of the skills, knowledge and attitudes of advisers in Tourism Digitalisation (dTour advisers) who will get qualified to support SMEs.

About the Project

Europe is the worldwide leader in international Tourism and Hospitality that is a key driving force of the European Union. Today more than 95% of travelers use digital resources in the course of their travel. According to the World Economic Forum’s Digital Transformation Initiative, from 2016 to 2025, digitalisation in aviation, travel, tourism and hospitality is expected to create up to hundreds of billions of euros of value for the industry through increased profitability, transformation from traditional players to new competitors, and to generate huge benefits for customers and the wider society. The above make clear that digital innovation is the key for competitiveness in tourism industry.

In this context, European tourism small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seem to lack the ability to use new technologies, as they are trapped in a ‘traditional’ way of delivering services, according to EASME’s report on Digitalisation in Tourism (2018).

Inspired by the above needs and opportunities, the dTour project aims to train and certify people who work in the Tourism & Hospitality sector with innovative digital skills in order to provide high-quality digitalized services to small and medium-sized businesses with focus on hotels and accommodation.

The dTour advisers may be:

Owners & managers

either current or future staff of SMEs in the Tourism and Hospitality industry that wish to extend their businesses,

Business & social media consultants

that are already working or are interested to cooperate with SMEs in the sector and wish to add the specific competences in their portfolio in order to provide consulting services in Digitalisation in Tourism

Graduates

in tourism that need to enhance their skills.

More specifically, the project aspires to develop an educational programme along with a certification scheme that will contribute to the certification of the skills, knowledge and attitudes of advisers in Tourism Digitalisation (dTour advisers) who will get qualified to support SMEs.

The main purpose of the dTour adviser is not only to be able to use the digital tools for the businesses, but rather develop a plan according to the needs of the company that will help the SMEs exploit the new digital trends and technologies in the sector, in order to be used for operations management and enhanced guest experience.

The project will be developed through the following steps:

Step 1

The specific skills that are required for someone to become a dTour adviser along with the available tools that they will have to utilize in order to do their job as dTour advisers will be defined

Step 1

Step 2

A comprehensive job description for the dTour adviser with a list of required skills, knowledge and attitudes, based on previous findings, will be developed

Step 3

The curriculum of the training programme that will provide the trainees with the skills to become a dTour adviser will be designed

Step 3

Step 4

An e-learning platform will be created in order to provide a dTour blended learning VET course to become a dTour adviser, combining face-to-face and distance learning training

Step 5

A certification scheme will be developed, which will confirm that those who take the VET course can act as digital advisers in tourism and hospitality related SMEs

Step 5

Step 6

A dTour Navigation Guide (ebook) will be developed that can help SMEs related to Tourism and Hospitality to get to know the new digital technologies and tools and how they can get benefited by the use of it
The project brings together 8 partners from 5 European countries, forming a transnational cooperation partnership with a balanced regional geographical representation of the Erasmus+ Area and with qualitative representation of countries that depend heavily on the tourism industry.

Objectives

The project is seeking to train and certify professionals in Tourism & Hospitality with up-to-date digital skills, namely dTour advisers, in order to boost SMEs’ performance in Tourism and Hospitality.

The advisers could be people that have been already working in the Tourism and Hospitality sector, and would like to enhance their skills and employment opportunities.

They could also be owners and operators of SMEs that understand the need for digitalisation and would like to bring their own business to the new digital era, business consultants that are already working or are interested to cooperate with SMEs in the sector etc.

Furthermore, the project gives Tourism & Hospitality SMEs the opportunity to navigate through new digital technologies and tools they could use for their businesses and understand how they can benefit from it.

Intellectual Outputs

IO1 – Initial Approach Towards Benchmarking of current used Digital Tools in Tourism and Hospitality

A desk research will be carried out regarding the existing digital tools that are used in the Tourism & Hospitality sector and a transnational report will be structured, in order to present the current level of competences of potential advisers in Digital Tools
dTour - IO1 Executive Summary

IO4 – Development of the dTour Blended Learning VET Course

The framework and the content of the VET Course will be defined and developed. The e-learning platform will be set up with the material of the blended training course, combining face-to-face and distance learning training
e-Learning platform

IO2 – Development of the Occupational Profile for Adviser in Tourism and Hospitality Digitalisation

A clear description of the role of the effective dTour Adviser will be developed. This will facilitate the usage of Digital tools by SMEs (benefits, opportunities, risks), enabling a flexible yet comprehensive competence set of requirements and providing a reference point for training and development
IO2 – Occupational profile

IO5 – Development of a Certification Scheme for the Digital Adviser Profile

A Certification Scheme for the Digital Adviser profile will be developed through various methodologies, which will contribute to the certification that people who take the VET course can act as digital advisers in tourism and hospitality related SMEs

IO3 – Development & Testing of the dTour Modular Training Curriculum

The modules of the dTour Training Curriculum will be defined, then evaluated, modified and uploaded to the dTour platform

IO6 – Development of the dTour Navigation Guide through Digital Technologies and Tools in Tourism and Hospitality

A dTour Navigation Guide (ebook) will be created that will facilitate potential dTour advisers to navigate on digital tools and technologies in Tourism and Hospitality.
dTour Navigation Guide

Partners

The project brings together 8 partners from 5 European countries, forming a transnational cooperation partnership with a balanced regional geographical representation of the Erasmus+ Area and with qualitative representation of countries that depend heavily on the tourism industry.
DIMITRA Education & Consulting
ACTA SA
M.M.C Management Center Limited
Larnaka Tourism Board
Rinova Limited
Chamber of Magnesia
STIFTELSEN KURSVERKSAMHETEN VID U-AUNIVERSITET
Valencian Institute of Tourism Technologies

Funding

This project has been funded with support by the European Commission. This Website reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission is not responsible for any use of the information included in the site.