BRINGING PEOPLE WITH THE RIGHT SKILLS TO THE TOURISM SECTOR

I was invited by the Irish Regions Office in Brussels last year to participate in a European Commission project aimed at assisting the integration in EURES, the European job mobility portal, of dedicated sub-sectors for tourism.
This project is part of the Commissions's rolling plan of tourism actions, following the publication of its political framework for tourism in June 2010.
Ernst & Young, Bologna was the lead partner in the project, which was co-ordinated by DG Enterprise and Industry and DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.
The overall purpose was to develop a skills vocabulary relevant to tourism to facilitate a closer matching of skills/qualifications with jobs. Three emerging sub-sectors for tourism were reviewed, namely;

• Adventure Tourism (aerial, water and land adventure)
• Blue Tourism (cruise, yachting and coastal tourism) and 
• Cultural Tourism (heritage, cultural events and spiritual tourism) 

Following participation at a number of seminars and development of working documents, a final conference was held in Brussels to share the project results with institutional stakeholders including the International Labour Organisation and the OECD.
At this event, the mismatch between workers' competencies and that required by their job was a recurring theme.
As a guest speaker, I outlined the role that education and training can play in tackling skills mismatch.
It is intended that the final deliverables from the project will be included in the further development of the European Skills Passport, an electronic portfolio of an individual's skills and qualifications, which will help to match workers skills to jobs across the EU.