·on the one hand, a European supplementary qualification in tourism management is to be developed in transnational co-operation and
·on the other hand, the distribution of this product is to be encouraged by the promotion of the respective national social dialogue within the educational systems of the countries/partners who are involved but also beyond.


For the duration of the three years of the Leonardo Da Vinci pilot project of EU-EQT the Deutsche Angestellten-Akademie (Mittelhessen and Braunschweig) in co-operation with seven other European partners will develop a supplementary qualification according to the requirements of the European tourism and leisure sector.
A study about "training and education trends in European tourism" (University of Gießen/spring 2003), which has been carried out as part of the project, has established, among others, the following requirements regarding vocational and further training in tourism:


·Lifelong learning
·Strengthening of the practical relevance
·Tourist marketing
·Sustainability of all forms of touristic products that are on offer
·Intercultural learning, foreign languages, customer orientation etc.
·Special qualifications in tourism


After analysing the results of the study, after a great number of discussions between experts and in concert with the national advisory councils of the project, the following training fields for vocational and further training in tourism will be developed.


Content of the core qualification


·Key qualifications
·Marketing
·Customer Care
·Language and culture
·Personnel management


Content of the special qualification


·Business tourism
·Health/Wellness tourism
·Culture tourism
·Event tourism
·Sport tourism


This conceptualising of a European supplementary qualification will be complemented by a guide for trainers and instructors.


Target groups:


Employees of tour operators, travel agencies, hotels, small firms in the hospitality industry and tourist information bureaux.


The European supplementary qualifications in tourism management modules that have been developed and tested in transnational partnership constitute the background for the second aim of the project: promotion of social dialogue within the systems of vocational training in the partner countries involved. For this purpose the project partners form national advisory councils  (for Germany these are: die Vereinigte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, ver.di (The United Services Union) and the Bundesverband der Deutschen Tourismuswirtschaft, BTW (The Federal Association of the German Tourism Industry). Or they use suitable (trans)national networks to optimise the distribution of project results.