Events
FINAL MULTIPLIER EVENT – CUS PADOVA, ITALY
On 2nd December 2021, CUS Padova hosted the Final International Conference of the EN ROUTE project, finally gathering together all the European project teams (24 people) to present the results achieved to an audience of almost 30 local stakeholders (representatives of sports federations; and sports tourism associations) and university students.
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The Conference focused particularly on the impact of the project both on the students’ competences and on the diffusion of innovative approaches to promote the territory and its tourist dimension. All intellectual outputs developed during the project have been presented by the international project team, emphasising particularly the main results of the different learning phases (life skills development, technical training, project works definition and the work-based learning experience).
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We wanted to celebrate the 31 European students that obtained the qualification of "Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager", thus also some representatives of the students from each partner Countries participated in the event sharing their training experiences and presenting their business models on sports tourism. International students had the chance to exchange their opinions on each other’s creative productions, stressing the strong points of each proposal as well as similarities and opportunity of replication.
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Local stakeholders were impressed by the huge work done in these two years of work by the EN ROUTE project team and offered their collaboration to spread the news on the project outcomes, particularly by diffusing the project productions and working to further implement the cross-sectoral training course.
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Congratulations to our European students for their great work and thanks to all the team members for their active contribution to the success of the event and of the project as a whole!
"SPORTS TOURISM - KEY ASPECTS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT" CONFERENCE - YES FOUNDATION, NORTH MACEDONIA
The Macedonian multiplier event has been organised by Yes Foundation in the form of a local conference "Sports Tourism - Key Aspects and Opportunities for Development" hosted at the Popova Sapka residence (Skopje). Despite the location on the top of the mountain was hard to reach, more than 30 representatives from the field of sport and outdoor tourism joined the conference.
The conference aimed to develop new partnerships able to influence the creation and adaptation of practices and policies in sports tourism, with the institutions responsible for planning and developing new ideas through the application and implementation of new business models (O4).
In addition, the conference aimed to motivate the establishment of a practice of "innovation laboratory" in sports tourism, to exchange good practices and promote activities and learning outcomes to various stakeholders in the Country. The idea was to encourage future sports tourism entrepreneurs to promote lifelong learning programs for teachers, trainers and sports coaches, by advancing their entrepreneurial skills to develop innovative business models for sustainable sports tourism.
MULTIPLIER EVENTS – PREDICT CONSULTING, ROMANIA
The dissemination of project results and achievements in Romania has been organised by Predict Consulting in the form of several smaller events, in order to comply with Covid-19 national restrictions.
The events took place from 9th November to 2nd December 2021 in different locations: the partner’ training room; universities halls; schools; and tourism centres. This itinerant strategy resulted in a huge success as 118 people were finally reached, among them: people from sport system; volunteers in sport; sport professionals; sport managers; tourism operators; coaches; representatives of local schools; local public authorities; NGOs active in the field of sport and tourism.
The events focused on the presentation of the intellectual outputs of the project to inform local stakeholders about the results achieved. Particularly, the innovative training course for “Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager” was presented and participants were given the opportunity to explore themselves the main elements of the e-learning course on the platform. Finally, the new proposals of business models developed in the project were presented to open a dialogue about sport and tourism opportunities in Arad region.
The products presented were well welcomed by the participants, especially due to the innovative approach, matching sport and tourism together, and the high quality of the materials produced in the EN ROUTE project.
SECOND MULTIPLIER EVENT – HANZE UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES, THE NETHERLANDS
On Tuesday 23rd November 2021, the Netherlands EN ROUTE Multiplier Event took place. The event was hosted on board of the Quo Vadis passenger ship in the centre of Groningen and was attended by approximately 50 guests, comprising an international audience. The diversity was further demonstrated through the range of attendees from academia as well as practitioners from the field of sport and outdoor tourism. Unfortunately, partners of the EN ROUTE project were unable to join the event, however, those who were in attendance, showed a great deal of passion, awareness and enthusiasm for the professionalisation of the sector.
The night itself started with a presentation from Gerco van Dalfsen who introduced the project’s aims, partners and contributors and intended intellectual outputs. Special focus was given to IO3 where Gerco explained the purpose of the e-learning content and how it was formed. Attendees were then given the opportunity to browse the site and were also informed of how to access it so that they could gain further insight into the output at their own convenience.
As the event was also about celebrating the culmination of the project, a question-and-answer session with integrated quiz was then hosted by Ben Hattink in which all attendees actively participated. This provided the opportunity to enhance knowledge of the project overall whilst simultaneously emphasizing the importance and growth of the sector.
Throughout the event, attendees were able to network with the other guests and exchanged key information regarding the innovative projects being undertaken by the students. This was a crucial element of the event as it allowed all stakeholders to understand how the EN ROUTE project was being implemented in practice.
Overall, the night was a great success and greatly contributed to increasing awareness not only of the growing sector of sport and outdoor tourism, but also provided examples of the many ways in which endeavours within the sector can be applied.
FIRST MULTIPLIER EVENT – POLIBIENESTAR, SPAIN
The first Multiplier Event of the EN ROUTE project took place at the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences of the University of Valencia on 25th October 2021. For the development of this project, the University of Valencia has promoted teamwork between the Social Welfare Policy Research Institute, Polibienestar, and the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences.
The event, which has had a large number of attendees, about 40 students from the University of Valencia and 30 from other entities (universities; sports federations; sports and tourism associations), has revealed the results that this project has generated during its course.
During the event, the Spanish Colleagues presented the main objectives of the project: promoting entrepreneurial skills of sports graduates for the development of new intersectoral professional profiles; defining efficient approaches for the promotion of territorial potential as well as sustainable and accessible tourism; creating new strategic networks, implementing permanent research activities for the renovation of tourist services.
They explained the development of the project and its three stages: the research stage; the methodology stage; and the training stage. Thus, they presented to the audience the corresponding project results.
The outcome of the event was promoting the elaboration of the Mapping and Guidelines among academic experts to diffuse the knowledge about skills of sport profiles, to encourage the collaboration for their validation, in order to make it evident the necessity to apply common framework and to update professionals lists and catalogues.
Students were invited in order to spread the knowledge on the opportunity to join the innovative “Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager” course through the EN ROUTE e-learning platform, further to the possibility to receive a final open badge of certification of their competences. Two business model proposals were presented to the audience as an example of the project outcome, which has allowed students to delve into an outdoor sports organization to define efficient approaches for the promotion of territorial potential through sports tourism.
PROPOSAL FOR INNOVATIVE MODELS FOR TOURISM PROMOTION
The final result of the EN ROUTE project is ready to be diffused as a tool to define a new model of territorial development through a sport and tourism scheme.
The “Proposal of Innovative models for designing territorial tourism offer through outdoor sport” is a result of the training experience of the innovative professional profile created in the EN ROUTE project framework. In this output, all the project works designed by our new “Sport and Tourism outdoor Manager” from different EU countries (Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Romania, and North Macedonia) are introduced with their territorial peculiarities.
These models are presented with an additional level of definition, thanks to the network that support the first project idea (the learners, the trainers, the territorial stakeholders). To meet the need for feasibility, this networks as a new “Innovation Lab” answered the following questions:
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How can a Project become a Business Model?
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What are the elements for its innovation, scalability and replicability?
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What role should the sport manager play in any specific proposal?
Every network, as a new Lab of innovation, has worked both to understand how to meet the new needs of different target of tourists, and with a view to renovate depressed territories or offer a new tourist declination to traditional destinations, through new sport and tourism services and products.
Each project sheet is presented following these descriptive fields:
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Project works summary
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Business Model and Scalability
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The role of the new “Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager”
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Territorial Network to support innovation
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The innovation factors
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Keywords to facilitate thematic research in a specific field
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Choose your area of interest and share our proposals within your network!
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SPORT AND TOURISM LEARNING METHODOLOGY - TRAINERS TOOLKIT
We are finally ready to share the result of the EN ROUTE training experience, aimed at creating an innovative and interdisciplinary professional profile, the "Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager".
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The Trainers’ Toolkit is meant to be a practical tool addressed to:
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Trainers active in territorial and tourist promotion;
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Trainers working in multidisciplinary teams, also in different fields of studies (Higher education; VET; life skills trainers; sport coaches; ...);
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Mentors and career counsellors to the extent that the training path develops entrepreneurial skills of the participants.
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The Toolkit has also the potential to be applied in similar training experience and in other working contexts, such as in case of multicultural and multidisciplinary working teams. All trainers can test their expertise in the development of cross-sector skills and share the definition of new learning methodologies in a complex community in which different skills need to shape a final interdisciplinary qualification.
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For this reason, the Toolkit encompasses an inventory of training materials, including the definition of the learning methodology as well as all the assessment tools produced during the learning experience.
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The training path illustrated in the Toolkit is indeed an immediate useable format, available for:
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trainers of several fields of study, who can find useful inputs for their own training activities;
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scholars, researchers, career counselling experts;
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It can be replicated in the form of post-university advanced training aimed at graduates in motor science (or equivalent degrees) or professionals from the world of sport who want to translate their professionalism into the tourism sector.
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Our final question is whether the national legislators in the field of tourism would accept and recognise the innovative professionalism of the "Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager".
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DIGITAL BADGE FOR OUR SPORT AND TOURISM OUTDOOR MANAGERS
At the end of the EN ROUTE training course for “Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager”, all the students who successfully completed their path have finally obtained a digital certificate of the key competences acquired.
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What does being Sport and Tourism Outdoor Managers mean?
The Sport and Tourism Outdoor Managers are experts in the design of sport and tourist services for the promotion of the territory. They have several tourist targets, and they are prepared to propose different and tailored experiences with particular focus on eco, sustainable and accessible tourism. They are able to formulate ideas and define strategies to support the achievement of project objectives; they can take effective initiatives to promote and involve stakeholders to achieve territorial development goals.
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What are their skills?
They have strongly developed soft skills: teamworking; leadership; problem solving; critical thinking; creativity; innovation; sense of initiatives; empathy; intercultural awareness; negotiation; and effective communication.
And specific technical competences in: tourism legislation; project management techniques applied to the sport and tourism field; marketing and promotion for territorial development; development of a sport and tourism business strategy with particular focus on their entrepreneurial attitude.
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The digital badge certifies the competences they have acquired among a wide European community, thus supporting the recognition of the learning experience and giving students new opportunities for transnational employability and mobility.
OUR OFFICIAL GUIDELINES HAVE FINALLY BEEN PUBLISHED!
We are proud to announce that, now that the research phase of the EN ROUTE Project has come to its end, the official guidelines of the project have finally been published. All project members (CUS Padova, Italy; Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Holland; S.C. Predict Consulting srl, Romania; Yes Foundation, Republic of Macedonia; Polibienestar - University of Valencia, Spain) have come together to draw up some conclusions concerning the outcomes of the research phase of the project, and we can now provide some more insight into the common method that we have developed in order to build the new and recognised profile of the "Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager".
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We have tried to answer some questions which would allow us to explain to any third parties, step by step, what processes were put into place in order to get to the definition of a shared model for both the figure of the “Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager” and its training. These questions are:
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1. What to do in order to design an effective cross-sector curriculum that can work in all EU territories?
2. How was the training for the "Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager" role designed?
3. What can the impact of a cross-sectorial profile be on the labour market?
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All of these questions have been answered in our guidelines, which also include a comparative analysis of the five countries where the project is being carried out in terms of educational frameworks, sport qualifications and occupational standards. Moreover, we provide a full description of our objectives and methodology and we draw some conclusions as to why we believe that we have designed a promising approach for the development of a new professional role.
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We hope that these guidelines can be a good starting point for anyone who wishes to replicate our model!
“SPORT AND TOURISM OUTDOOR MANAGER” TRAINING COURSE IN ITALY
CUS Padova is glad to inform that the training course for Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager has now started in Italy. The training path has begun with activities dedicated to the development of Life Skills through the experiential learning methodology. It has been four days of role-playing, games, presentations, simulations and group works to foster teamwork, leadership, problem solving, creativity and effective communication. The course will continue with technical modules on project management, tourism legislation, marketing and promotion, sport and tourism business strategy. The Italian group is made of 8 motivated and enthusiastic students, who are willing to improve their skills and to hit the road with a new career.
Work has just started…good luck to our future Sport and Tourism Outdoor Managers!
ERASMUS+ VET TRAINING COURSE “SPORT AND TOURISM OUTDOOR MANAGER”
The partners of the EN ROUTE project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme - Action KA2 Strategic Partnerships - VET - Innovation, offer the training course for "Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager" addressed to graduates in sports disciplines oriented to undertake a multidisciplinary professional career in the field of sports tourism.
The course aims to train innovative managerial profiles in order to teach them how to design and propose new sports tourism brands to territorial actors active in different areas (wellness tourism, accessible tourism, ecotourism, cultural heritage, etc.); and also, to develop tourism potential considering both economic development and possible urban and territorial renewal.
The course will foresee 14 days in attendance and 40 days of online training devoted to the production of a project work, and to international networking with the other working groups of project partners (Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Romania, Republic of Macedonia). At the end of the training, a five-month work-based learning period will follow, thanks to the cooperation of local partners interested to launch on the territory the business models on sports tourism developed by the participants.
A minimum number of 6 participants is expected to start the course.
REQUIREMENTS
Sports Degree
Knowledge of English (minimum level B2) and preferably of another European language
Short-term work experience in the tourism sector also constitutes a preferential title (tourist incoming,
hospitality, tourist animation ...)
Candidates are recommended to send the following documents for application by 31 August 2020:
- CV indicating skills and competences according to the EUROPASS model
- All certificates that you wish to attach to your CV
- Motivational letter for the participation in the course
The selection interviews will be done by September and the training course will start in October 2020.
CONTACTS
Course in Italy: europa@cuspadova.it
Course in Spain: ferran.calabuig@uv.es
Course in The Netherlands: g.van.dalfsen@pl.hanze.nl; b.hattink@pl.hanze.nl
Course in Romania: contact@predictconsulting.ro
Course in Republic of Macedonia: sofija.cali@yes.org.mk
KICK-OFF MEETING 31.01.2020
The activities of the EN ROUTE project "Enhancing Sport Profiles Skills Validation for new Tourist Routes" officially started on 31 January 2020 with the Kick-off meeting organised in the premises of the University Sports Centre of Padova (CUS Padova). EN ROUTE is a European project funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union in the frame of Vocational Education and Training. The main objective of the project is spreading the knowledge and the
sharing of skills in the Sport and Tourism sectors, promoting the transparency of qualifications as a condition for their certification at European level.
After a first phase of research about the professional profiles existing in Europe in the sports tourism sector, the project aims to create and test in the various partner countries an advanced training course for "Sport and Tourism Outdoor Manager". The training coursed is designed for graduates and recent graduates in sports disciplines oriented to pursue a multidisciplinary professional career in sports tourism.
The course aims to train innovative managerial profiles in order to teach them how to design and propose new sports tourism brands to territorial actors active in different areas (wellness tourism, accessible tourism, ecotourism, cultural heritage, etc.); and also, to develop tourism potential considering both economic development and possible urban and territorial renewal.
The course will start in June 2020, once the minimum number of 6 participants for each partner has been reached. The training will consist of in-person and online training days. At the end of the training course a five-month internship period will follow, thanks to the cooperation with local partners interested to launch on the territory the business models on sports tourism developed by the participants.
Representatives of the five partner organizations attended the meeting: CUS Padova, Italy (project leader); Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Holland; S.C. Predict Consulting srl, Romania; Yes Foundation, Republic of Macedonia; Polibienestar - University of Valencia, Spain.