"Europe faces the challenge to fight rising levels of unemployment. Too many young people leave school too early and adults are often only equipped with low skills, which increases the risk for (future) unemployment even further. Current figures, especially from Spain and Italy show that a percentage of 43% young adults are currently unemployed. But also in other European countries the percentage of youth unemployment is frightening. The Europe 2020 strategy foresees to foster a high- employment economy whilst ensuring sustainable growth with a more resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy. To address this issue and at the same time to counteract for fighting a prognosed shortage of skilled staff (especially in the Gastronomic sector, ""Lecture about future perspectives of the labour market, Dr. Helmrich- National Agency Germany 2013"") appropriate actions need to be taken. In addition the recognition and validation of formal, non- formal and informal acquired skills and competences form a center piece on the path of life long lerning and support career development. The project aims, through the development and training of key competences and skills, which are relevant to the labour market, and the usage of European Instruments (ECVET) to close an existing gap, which causes staff shortage and will fight future unemployment of low- skilled adults. The project will therefore develop a new Curricula and train participants accordingly in order to ease the access to the labour market. The new qualification will involve basic skills for the tourism sector as well as future skills, which are required to drive the change within tourism enterprise towards sustainable operations. This will contribute to the European 2020 strategy which aims to create a more resource efficient and greener economy. The creation of a self- analysis tool for previously gained non- formal and informal skills and competences applicable to the tourism sector will lead to recognition, validation and transparency and foster the ability of self- analysis as well as increased knowledge for future employment. Future cooperation between the target group and tourism enterprises in (different) partner countries will be fostered and will also stimulate participants to learn additional languages. The project therefore fosters mobility to enable the target group to react on future labour market changes including the flexibility to meet requirements of seasonal jobs. Equipped with additional skills as well as instruments, with which non-formal and informal gained skills and competences are made transparent will ultimately help to overcome personal barriers and obstacles. The long term benefits will help the tourism sector to fight a shortage of staff on the one hand and low skilled adults on the other hand by offering them a qualification in the tourism sector, which meets future requirements through the incorporation of sustainable elements. Through the application of the European Qualification Framework (EQF)during this process the VET system will improve its quality and the participating training institutions will benefit from and increased internationalisation, through the transnational cooperation within the project consortium. A peer group consisting of trainers, job counsellors etc. will offer feedback throughout analysis and definition of the key competences and the creation of the new curricula. The consortium is composed of five partner. The educational institution the Turkish Vocational College of Tourism provides the necessary expertise in the field of Tourism and applied analysis in the field. BEST will contribute to the project with its extensive experiences related to the recognition and validation of skills as well as the creation of new Curricula and the translation into online based tools. The Latvian Country Tourism Association and ARIS promote (sustainable) tourism among their members and have extensive networking experiences. KOAN consulting is deeply involved in the training of tourism enterprises, specialized in sustainable operations. Through these partners, which offer a wide range of networking activities, the usage, dissemination and exploitation of the results will be guaranteed:- the promotion of the new Curricula in the tourism sector, covering basic key skills as well as future skills to meet the demand of the target group, but also the demand of the target sector due to a shortage of staff- Transparency on the basis of ECVET valorises the qualification on local, regional, national and European level- Transparency of non- formal and informal gained competences and skills applicable to the tourism sector on the basis of ECVET- Obstacles through the new qualification and the acknowledgement of previous non- formal and informal gained competences and skills are removed, access to the labour market increases and the shortage of skilled staff within the sector declines"

Tendecy to rural tourism as an alternative tourism is increasing in Turkey as well as in Europe. According to the estimates, the share of rural tourism in total tourism revenues in Europe is around 15% and shows a continuous increase. Important rural tourism activities are carried out Europe-wide. Small and medium sized hotels, restaurants, village houses etc. are active in the rural tourism sector especially in the form of family-run businesses. In addition to structural deficiencies, there is a significant lack of trained human resources in this sector. In the direction of the principles of Erasmus+ Program, it is necessary to provide training opportunities for the people working in rural tourism sector in order to gain new skills, to strengthen their personal development and to increase employment opportunities.The main goal of the RURALTOUR project is to contribute to the sustainable rural tourism targets at the European level by developing the skills of business owners, managers, employees, VET students and potential entrepreneurs in the rural tourism sector through an innovative and easily accessible training method. In order to contribute to this goal, preparation of rural tourism sector report, training material, e-learning program, set of good practices, e-learning program mobile applications and various training activities will be carried out for the stakeholders in the rural tourism sector.8 organizations with different backgrounds from 6 European countries will set up a strong partnership to achieve the objectives of the RURALTOUR Project. With the qualified partnership structure to be established, a training environment will be developed that provides distance education opportunities with innovative methods for the training of the business owners, managers and employees who work in the rural tourism sector and the people who plan to invest in this field and the students who receive vocational training on tourism. In this context, the following activities are planned.• Project management activities: These activities include administrative, legal and contractual responsibilities, budget management, website management, communication among partners, effective quality control of project activities, dissemination activities, transnational project meetings.• Activities for the development of intellectual outputs: The project is planned to produce 5 intellectual outputs with the active participation of all partners.• Learning/Teaching/Training Activities: A 5-day activity will be organized on the rural tourism in Spain for training and exchange of experince of the related staff of the partner institutions.• Multiplying activities: Following the development of all intellectual outputs, 8 muptiplier 2-day training activities for target groups in different level will be held in Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Spain and Turkey (2 events). In addition, an informative one-day conference with the participation of 100 tourism industry stakeholders from different provinces will be held in Turkey.Within the scope of the e-learning activities to be carried out in the project, a total of 24 staff will be provided a 5-day training in rural tourism in Almeria / Spain. Also within the scope of 7 multiplying training activities conducted in partner countries, 175 people from the target groups will get trained. In addition, 100 people from various tourism industry staholders will be informed.

<< Objectives >>The main aim of the Project is to take a new step towards increased sustainability by creating joint methodology for training tourism stakeholders operating in the most sensitive, demanding and challenging spots in the European part of our planet – Protected Nature Areas; with a focus on Nordic-Baltic region.<< Implementation >>The main activity of the Project is creation of joint methodology for training tourism stakeholders in and around Protected Areas. This will be achieved by putting together previous knowledge and experience of Project partners, as well as national and international test trainings and events with direct involvement of learners - tourism stakeholders - to ensure maximum adjustment to learners' needs as well as applicability and durability of the results.<< Results >>The main outcome of the Project will be the joint methodology for training tourism stakeholders in and around Protected Areas. Freely available for anyone online it will comprise ready-to-use training programmes for main groups of tourism stakeholders in Protected areas - accommodation and cafe owners, activity providers, guides, destination managers etc. The programmes will include sample agendas, topics, presentations, links, materials, etc.

"Europe's population is getting older. The share of people aged 65 years and over is increasing in every EU Member State, EFTA and candidate country (Eurostat '17). Turkey, e.g., is one of the world's youngest countries, but it is among the top 10 in the world's fastest ageing. The situation of demographic change is similar in the other partnering country in this project: Austria, Latvia, Spain, Italy. Correspondingly, the growth rates for travellers over 65 years have been increasing over the years - and are even higher than those of other age groups (Analyse Lifestyle 2017). In Spain, e.g. the national institute of statistics censed 3,593,857 travellers, on average 43 years old (2017) and they have seen an increase of 5% in terms of travellers who decide to consume a rural getaway more than once a year. - To this, the tourism sector needs improvement based on new educational approaches and instruments that the ""Silver Travellers"" project wants to provide in order to upgrade respective customer services offered.TANGIBLE RESULTS of the project: The SILVER TRAVELLERS project aims, through the development of mobile learning and professionals' key skills learning material relevant to the labour market and considering the usage of European Instruments (ECVET/ECTS) to close an existing gap in the provision of modern technology learning in the rural tourism sector facing new market challenges. The SILVER TRAVELLERS (IO1) aims at providing access to formal contents that can be used as mobile learning. Hence, this project will provide formal and sequenced learning objects using prompts in different formats, namely audio, text, videos e.g. Being open to public for free download; a Creative Common Licence will be agreed in the partner contracts. (Horizontal priority of Open education and innovative practices in a digital era).Our project also develops SILVER TRAVELLERS - professionals' key skills: skills cards for improved learning pathways and learning material that answer initial and continuous vocational training aspects.The project wants to: provide VET/ HE for working in tourism education with systematic approaches to and opportunities for the initial and continuous professional development of their staff in both school and work-based settings, support educators in this field with new technology solutions for their training.Rural tourism enterprises shall receive results and have a clear competitive advantage by employing Silver Travellers' trained staff and thereby better attract new customer segments to their benefits. Main participants: - Tourism SMEs (mainly in rural areas of the partner countries) and their staff, receiving new skills and benefits- Educators applying the SILVER TRAVELLERS instruments and working with target groups from the tourism sector focused on opening new niche markets Actively participating in the project: 100 partner staff members, 200 learners, 100 VET/tourism provider organisation reps, 80 policy makers/stakeholders Through the application of the European Qualification Framework (EQF) during this process, the VET system will improve its quality and the participating training institutions will benefit from increased internationalisation, through the transnational cooperation within the project consortium. A Peer Group consisting of trainers, job counsellors, tourism representatives will offer feedback throughout analysis and definition of the key competences and the creation of the new skills cards and mobile learning contents. The project consortium is composed of six partners: The educational institution Turkish Vocational College of Tourism, the Sera Lake Hotel, BEST Institut (a private training institute), KOAN a tourism consultancy, the Latvian Country Tourism Association and CONFAPI (a social partner in Italy) provide the necessary expertise and network in the field of Tourism and also the important link to the business sector. The College will provide academic input to research analysis and the OER infrastructure; BEST will contribute to the project with its extensive experiences related to the recognition and validation of skills as well as the creation of new learning material. KOAN will provide tourism sector related contents and know-how of new market trends. The other bring in the tourism businesses with all their members in this sector.Via new learning forms and instruments, the SILVER TRAVELLERS project will strongly and concretely support educational provision for micro to small sized tourism business and improve related standards in the involved partner countries: By making use of intensive network activities throughout all project activities, it also lays the ground for further internationalisation of the project, its results and innovative results."