Haaga Institute Foundation / Haaga-Perho applied for funding from Leonardo da Vinci Transfer of Innovations -program as the coordinator for Quality Boost for Tourism -project. The project proposal was accepted to be executed and started 1.10.2008.
The two-year project’s aim is transferring innovations between providers of quality trainings and systems in tourism. There is a clear need to improve the current tourism service quality training. With this project the development can take a step further to include European level common parts or tools in the tourism training. Each country already has its own training and material for enterprise training. The additional aim is to find common ground for service quality issues on European level. Project is opening discussion for development of European tourism service quality standards. The transfer of innovation is executed through common benchmarking trips, followed by national workshops, joint meetings and communication in virtual working area. The results will be presented in a seminar in Finland in spring 2010.
The project consortium consists of 9 organisations representing 4 European countries. The coordinator of the project is Haaga-Perho / Haaga Institute Foundation, Finland. The partners in the project are:
- University of Lapland, Finland
- JAKK Adult Education Center, Finland
- JAO Jyväskylä Adult Education Centre, Finland
- Theme Group of Tourism, Finland
- Pärnu College / University of Tartu, Estonia
- Enterprise Estonia, Estonia
- Latvian Tourism Development Acengy (LTDA), Latvia
- Scottish Tourism Forum, Scotland
There are also a lot of other interest groups involved in the project in participating countries.
The main target groups for the results of Quality Boost in Tourism -project are the trainers and trainer networks of quality training and systems in tourism. Through their training, workshops and seminars the improved training and training material will benefit the tourism sector in the participating countries in general.
The comparison on national trainings and training materials provides a good forum for transferring innovations. Through comparison partners receive additional reference material for the trainings. It also enables receiving new ideas for the development of the national materials towards more European level understanding of tourism quality.
Long term impacts include the beginning of discussion of European level tourism service quality issues. Project is also opening the discussion for the possibility of developing European wide quality criteria within tourism.
For further information, please contact:
Project Manager Tia Hoikkala : +358 50 372 5717, tia.hoikkala@haagaperho.fi
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