Good practices

TAD - The Ability advisor: improving the tourism for all market by VET

TAD is a project funded by the European Union Erasmus+ programme under Key Action 2: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices, (KA202 Strategic Partnerships for Vocational Education and Training), addressing accessible tourism.

It aimed to contribute to making Europe a truly accessible destination for all visitors by training professionals in the tourism and hospitality sector through a work-based learning approach, looking at the issue from a new point of view.

TAD prepared, tested and introduced the professional profile of an “Ability Advisor” whose mission and acquired knowledge and skills will help Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism field to develop their business and improve their services to the accessible tourism market. To enhance access to training and qualifications for all, the project output released as an Open Educational Resource and it was widely disseminated among VET providers and other stakeholders, both at local, national and European levels. In this way, the development of this project expected the involvement and improvement of the quality of tourism and hospitality sector in terms of integration and inclusion of people with disabilities.

Year(s): 2017 – 2019

Target group(s): VET learners or graduates aged 20 to 35, currently unemployed or underemployed graduates from specific University courses or High School graduates with specialized diplomas (including post-school diplomas) People having previous experiences in tourism ser

Website or other online channels: https://abilityadvisor.eu/accessible-tourism/

Methodology

The TAD project developed two major "Intellectual Outputs":

IO1 - the implementation of a SMEs' tourism services database at local and regional levels; a mapping of 30 SMEs operating in the sector aimed to evaluate how accessibility can be integrated in their existing businesses and how the Ability Advisor can effectively operate within this category of companies; a detailed report on VET offer at local and regional level

IO2 - development of a training course providing skills to VET learners or graduates aged 20 to 35 to start a self-employed activity as external consultants or be employed as internal service provider or consultant able to carry out accessibility assessments, inspections, consultations and audits to analyse and inform SMEs managers and owners how accessibility can be integrated in their businesses. With this, it was predicted that people with disabilities could provide their perception in terms of improvement of the quality of activities related with tourism.

Type of product

Paper-based material Course / Training

Brief description of the outcomes

This project brought the development of 2 main outcomes: a database mapping 30 SMEs focused on tourism and on the availability of promotion of accessibility in tourism buildings/activities; a training course to make them aware about the importance of providing options in the tourism sector accessible to everyone, including people with psysical disabilities.

Impact on target groups / Transferability potential

This project developed a PDF document that it is still available on its website. It is based on a research carried out for this project, where partners have examined the topic from different points of view, collecting information about VET providers and experiences and practices regarding SMEs, exploiting and enhancing, in all this, the complementarity of the partner’s organizations. This tool serves as an operational tool for the construction of a course to train an “Ability Advisor”.

The second part of the project consisted in the development of a training course for VET learners or graduates aged 20 to 35, designed to give them the knowledge and skills to start a self-employed activity as external consultants or to be employed as an internal service advisors in a company or as advisor, able give advice on how to carry out accessibility assessments, inspections, consultations and access audits. The training course is divided in 6 modules: Module 1: Introduction to accessible tourism; Module 2: The access requirements of tourists with disabilities and others; Module 3: Customer Service; Module 4: How to measure accessibility of tourist environments and services; Module 5: Accessibility of information in the tourism sector; Module 6 is about the Ability Advisor role: entrepreneurial skills and job opportunities for the TAD advisor.

In this way, learners were able to enjoy discovering “Accessibility in Tourism” and developing new skills that can improve their employment prospects; business owners, were encouraged to read materials that were developed under the TAD project and test their knowledge on how to improve customer services and win a larger share of the growing accessible tourism market.

People with disabilities were the indirect beneficiaries of the project, as they will have services in the tourism sector with improved activities and professionals in terms of inclusion of everybody.

This project was considered a Good Practice and received a European Innovative Teaching Award.

Promoter of the initiative: Panevezio darbo rinkos mokymo centras

Country: Lithuania

Languages available: English Italian Lithuanian Portuguese