Boosting tourism business growth through higher vocational education

The Central Baltic Area is a common tourism destination and a common tourism market. The aim of the project BOOSTED was to provide an aligned and relevant skillset for the CB region tourism industry and support it to grow as a coherent tourism destination. For this purpose, joint skills needs and gaps were identified, compared and aligned in three countries. The project’s main result is a joint curriculum and a study programme of 33 ECTS in advanced tourism business development.

The content of the curriculum and the study programme is based on the research results identifying the joint skillset and competencies. To identify the needed skills in tourism business, 32 tourism professionals were interviewed in Finland, 30 in Estonia and 52 in Latvia. In addition, national and regional tourism strategies and existing tourism curricula were reviewed. The data and research findings were considered as an eye-opener for participating educational institutions and the existing curricula was revised based on them. Also, the research data can be used when delivering the courses as case examples.

For implementing the training programme, joint teaching material, teacher's guide and coaching events for future tourism lecturers about the curriculum and the programme were produced. During the project implementation, the skills of the lecturers were highly improved.

The programme is implemented online in English by distance learning. The curriculum consists of eight different courses:

• Tourism Product and Experience Design,
• Digital Marketing Communication and Content Management,
• Increasing Competitiveness by Cooperation,
• Boosting Sales in Tourism,
• Cultural Competence in Customer Service,
• Forecasting Tourism in the Age of Uncertainty,
• Proactivity and Creative Performance,
• Innovation Camp in Product Development.

The curriculum was piloted online during autumn 2018-spring 2019. In total, 131 students participated in the course and were issued a certificate, including 33 exchange students and 4 professionals.
The curriculum was fully integrated in two partner universities existing curricula and is delivered each year. Two other partners have integrated the curriculum partly in their existing study offering. The curriculum is targeted to higher vocational/professional education students but is also suitable for persons already working in tourism sector.

The project and its outputs have raised a lot of interest in the target group. Project outcomes – research results and the developed curriculum have been presented in various international tourism events and publications.  

Project website: https://www.projectboosted.eu/