"The project focuses on adult education and business development in the field of accessible tourism for all. Name of the project „Elevator"" represents the effort to raise the quality of human resources and services in tourism to a higher, more competitive level. Accessible tourism (Tourism for all) is an integral part of sustainable, high-quality tourism and in terms of expected trends in tourism and society also a necessary condition for maintaining its competitiveness. It is based on three important values: independence, equity and dignity. Travelling is considered as one of the fundamental rights of every individual and should be accessible for each citizen. For that to happen not only do facilities have to be accessible, but also people working in the tourism industry must be well trained and opened to the customers with access needs. It requires managers and stakeholders who are acquainted with the concept of tourism for all and motivated to deal with it. The main objective of the project is to encourage and support adult education and vocational training in accessible tourism and thereby contribute to the improvement of accessibility of tourist services and facilities for all. Project was implemented in the partnership of 4 organisations: - Kazuist (Czech Republic) - Training and consulting company in business development, accessible tourism, soft skills and entrepreneurial competences, SME- ENAT (Belgium) - European Network for Accessible Tourism, Non-profit Association, whose mission is to make European tourism destinations, products and services accessible to all travellers and to promote accessible tourism around the world. - Tandem (Italy) - Social cooperative, operator of contact centres on information and consultancy services for disability, implementer of national and international projects for the promotion of Tourism for all, surveys and accessibility assessments, providers of training on the culture of accessibility- ZAVOD PREMIKI (Slovenia) - social Enterprise, employment centre, travel agency for accessible tourism and classical tourismProject lasted 3 years during which these main activities were undertaken: 1) Project management - continuous coordination and control of project timetable, activities and budget, evaluation of project progress, publicity and dissemination activities. 2) Transnational meetings with thematic workshop on education for accessible tourism (exchange of experience and best/current practices, study visits) - 5 transnational project meetings and 4 workshops were organised. 3) Intellectual output creation and evaluation - 3 intellectual outputs were created. They are available in electronic format in 5 languages (English, Czech, Italian, Slovenian and Greek)4) Multiplier event - one transnational conference was organised. The main results of the project are 3 innovative intellectual outputs:1) Report on Accessible Tourism Training - Comparative analysis of existing tools and conditions for development of competencies for accessible tourism in partners’ countries incl. suggestion of transferable curriculum for accessible tourism training. 2) Inclusive Tourist Guiding - Open Educational Resource for Tourist Guides raising their awareness of tourists with access needs and skills for adaptation of guided tours to make them inclusive for all. 3) Accessible tourism guide - brief and comprehensible material explaining what accessible tourism is, how to support its development and what are its benefits. The potential longer term benefits are: better quality, efficiency and relevance of education for accessible tourism, higher attractiveness and interest in education for accessible tourism among training/education and tourism services providers, better access to education in accessible tourism for individual learners, professional development of tourist guides, more accessible tourist destinations and facilities, extended tourism offer and higher involvement of disabled people and seniors in travelling."

Tourism impacts on a wide range of policy areas - including competitiveness, social policy and inclusion (tourism for all) - while the continued globalisation opens new opportunities and creates increased competition. The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs has focused efforts on encouraging the diversification of the European tourism offer through initiatives in different areas. As declared by the European Commission: evidence shows that making basic adjustments to a facility, providing accurate information, and understanding the needs of disabled people can result in increased visitor numbers. Improving the accessibility of tourism services increases their quality and the enjoyment of all tourists. It also improves the quality of life in local communities. Although important steps have been made in recent years, much remains to do: research and surveys on this field demonstrate that improper attitude of staff towards disability and poor customer service are two of the main problems tourists with disabilities face in carrying on their touristic experiences.According to this background and according to the European Commission definition of Accessible Tourism - the set of services and facilities that can allow people with specific needs the enjoyment of the holiday and leisure without obstacles and difficulties - the project aimed to contribute to make Europe an accessible destination, by training people on a market field that have both a social and an economic value.The main project goals were to: design, implement, promote and test, starting from a transversal focus on the field, the profile of a professional able to match the training offer and the market needs: an Ability Advisor operating in supporting SMEs to face successfully the increasing tourism for all market; to generate new job opportunities for trained people; to tackle the topic by a cross-sectoral approach matching the needs of VET providers, VET learners and SMEs; to develop a cross-sectoral partnership to look at the topic by an European perspective. The project objectives and the needs it intended to fulfill were strictly related to the target group identified and to the key stakeholders needs.The main target audience was made of VET learners or graduates aged 20 to 35, currently unemployed or underemployed, graduates from specific University courses or High School graduates with specialized diplomas (including post-school diplomas) and/or people having previous experiences in tourism services’ fields, while the key stakeholders are VET providers, SMEs operating in the tourism sector, public bodies and associations dealing with disability. To reach its objectives and the selected target groups, the project implemented, as IO1, a comprehensive document of the local framework - a starting point on which the following project steps was built - and a training course model which was tested and released as an OER in in English, Lithuanian, Italian, Portuguese languages. The training course has an average length of 80 hours. It was implemented with the support of people representing associations dealing with disability and trainers with specific skills, was evaluated by a transversal team of 27 persons representing VET providers, SMEs, public entities, associations and was delivered in its pilot version in Lithuania, Italy and Portugal in a blended mode: 40 hours of traditional classroom-based learning, 20 hours of e-learning and 20 hours of work-based learning. The WBL activities enabled learners to get a real WBL experience and the selected SMEs improved their knowledge on how to welcome better people with specific access requirements, improving their business as well. The number of people applying the course, in its testing phase was 43; also 30 SMEs. All the project activities were carried out by five partners - organizations coming from Lithuania, Italy, Portugal and Belgium, belonging to different business and social sectors and dealing with different topics (training, labour market, disability, social communication).The project was designed to become sustainable: the sustainability plan included a direct dissemination activity - a serie of small events at local level targeted to 390 persons and four Multiplier Events involving a total amount of 270 persons - to promote the course among VET providers, SMEs, public bodies, associations and a set of activities to start a collaborative dialogue with public bodies. The project was developed at transnational level, as it offers to participants opportunities to understand better foreign and European contexts, take part and be supported by an European stable network: all key assets in the touristic sector and a positive trigger for work quality and employment opportunities.

Accessible Tourism has been recently brought to the forefront of the agenda for sustainable tourism development, as numerous research reports took notice of the spike in demand for accessibility. This tendency is supported by the statistics related to the growing number of people with disabilities and growing aging population in Europe and among inbound travellers to European destinations. Existing research proves that people with disabilities and other access needs, including elderly people, pregnant women and families with children, tend to travel just as much as people without specific access requirements (ONCE Foundation, 2016). These people show a high demand for nature-based leisure activities, however, even at well-equipped accessible tourist destinations, recreation opportunities and attractions are often inaccessible (Report on economic impact and travel patterns of AT in Europe, 2014). Managers of tourism SMEs tend to lack awareness of the access needs of their customers and have insufficient skills in developing and implementing innovative, sustainable solutions, which could help them increase their market share by seizing the opportunities offered by the growing market of accessible tourism. This is particularly true for natural and rural areas (NRAs), where professional development and training opportunities are limited (Mapping and performance check of the supply side of tourism education and training, EC, 2016).The Access-IT project seeks to address this competence gap by offering a comprehensive training in the cross-field of accessible tourism, innovation and sustainable development of natural and rural areas. The overall objective of the project is to build capacity of EU tourism SMEs operating in NRAs to bridge accessibility gaps through stakeholder co-design of innovative solutions for tourism products for customers with specific access requirements. Specific objectives are:1. Identify the determinants of tourism accessibility in NRAs2. Develop case studies of accessible tourism in NRAs, utilising video and other methods for capturing and recording access improvements and first-hand user experiences3. Provide hands-on business support and guidance, advancing the innovation capability of tourism SMEs for the development of accessible tourism products in cooperation with key stakeholders4. Create a solid foundation for usability and transferability of the project outputs to a wider audience of stakeholders5. Increase awareness of business opportunities in the accessible tourism market among EU tourism SMEs operating in NRAsThe project utilises life-cycle methodology, which defines a sequence of activities for planning, executing and disseminating project results. During the project lifetime, the following intellectual outputs will be developed:O1 Mapping report on determinants of tourism accessibility in NRAs, based on a genuine research into accessibility barriers and accessibility improvement challenges experienced by tourism SMEs;O2 Video case studies of accessible tourism, based on interviews with tourism SMEs that implemented innovative solutions for improving accessibility of their products/services, and managed to commercialize their new or improved offers;O3 Interactive business support toolkit, including “How to” guidelines for undertaking strategic approach to innovation in the development of accessible tourism products, web-based accessibility performance appraisal tool, and scenarios for co-design sessions;O4 Recommendations booklet summarizing good practices and success stories of stakeholder co-design of accessible tourism offers.The project is targeted at: tourism SMEs operating in NRAs (owners, managers, staff), destination management bodies in NRAs, VET providers offering programmes and courses in the field of tourism, individual learners and aspiring entrepreneurs. Stakeholder co-design sessions, planned to be held within the project, will also involve people with specific access requirements.More than 700 representatives of the project target groups and stakeholders will be directly involved in the project activities and events, such as surveys, stakeholder roundtables, training workshops and conferences. In addition, the project consortium intends to reach at least 5000 rural enterprises through targeted dissemination of the project results.We hope new VET training delivered by the project will help managers of tourism SMEs in NRAs to develop new and better tourist offerings, thus entering an untapped market of accessible tourism and stimulating growth of their businesses. This will eventually benefit tourists with access needs, who will be able to participate in а much larger number of leisure activities. This improved social inclusion will naturally lead to endemic growth of the local and regional economies in turn bringing heightened wellbeing of disabled people.

Senior Eco-Nect project will prepare a joint action plan to support the emergence and the development of European ecosystems dedicated to silver economy as well as ensuring the inclusivity and interconnectivity between all the key innovation stakeholders of the sector and cross-sectors. The specific objectives of Senior Eco-Nect are the followings: O.1 – Support the emergence, growth, efficiency, and interconnection of at least 4 European ecosystems dedicated to silver economy. O.2 – Unlock the full potential of silver economy sector by integrating key transversal areas targeting the ageing population beyond the scope of health and care. O.3 – Ensure inclusiveness and interconnectivity between the key innovation players from across the quadruple helix around the sector of silver economy at the local, regional, national, and European level and beyond O.4 – Increase the efficiency and innovation potential of silver economy innovators and projects by addressing key challenges and exploiting the opportunities offered by silver economy O.5 – Encouraging synergies and complementarities between Senior Eco-Nect Joint Action Plan and the innovation programmes of public authorities Six partners representing innovation ecosystems and sectoral networks will join forces and strategies toward the strenghthening of european innovation ecosystem in silver economy: Eurasanté in France, Munster Technological University in Ireland, Slovenian Innovation Hub in Slovenia, Cluster Saude de Galicia in Spain, the European Platform for Sports and Innovation, and the European Network for Accessible Tourism. Their effort will be supported by the engagement of 32 associated partners representing key innovation ecosystems members of the quadruple helix (industry, academia, public authorities and civil society across Europe.

<< Background >>While accessible tourism is a market of growing significance, the tourism sector is still failing to serve the needs of people with disabilities. According to a recent survey “Transport and tourism for persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility (2018)”, only 9% of touristic services provide accessible offers and the accessible tourism market value could be much higher (44% more) if more accessible offers were in place. One of the most important barriers is staff knowledge and information.According to the facts presented in the EC Report on Accessible Tourism Supply (2015) report, only 9% of European Tourism Suppliers promote “accessible” offers. Managers of companies and suppliers of tourist services have a significant ignorance of many aspects related to the accessibility of their establishments and services.Of all the disabilities and impairments, including age-related impairments, hearing loss is currently the most widespread. The World Health Organization estimates (2020) that over 5% of the world’s population – or 466 million people – has disabling hearing loss (432 million adults and 34 million children). It is estimated that by 2050 over 900 million people – or one in every ten people – will have disabling hearing loss. While there is growing research in the field of access requirements of tourists, very little of this work has concentrated on the requirements of tourists with hearing loss.Trying to explain how is to live with hearing loss to someone who has normal hearing is difficult. To improve customer services for such customers is an important task for tourism providers. The goal of the FEELIT project is (a) to train deaf people and people with hearing impairments on the basic tasks and skills of travel agents, in order to work as travel agents offering high quality and authentic tourism packages and experiences for their peers, and (b) to train existing travel agents and tourist operators in the designing accessible tourist packages for deaf and hard of hearing people.<< Objectives >>The objectives of the project are:-Offer a better understanding of the requirements of tourists with hearing impairments as a valuable share of the tourism market (referring to physical access, accommodation, food, activities, attractions and transport).- Create employment opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing people to work as tourist agents creating accessible vacations for their peers.- Train travel agents in how to serve deaf customers and customers with hearing impairments. Staff who are well-trained with a ‘can-do’ attitude are important in improving travel enjoyment for these groups of customers.-Create a European community of deaf and hard of hearing people that will be advising peers to organise their trips in the visiting country.<< Implementation >>The main activities of the project leading to the desired results are:-Development of a curriculum on entry-level travel agent basics adequate for people with hearing impairments (Result 1: Feelit Curriculum).-Development of curriculum on designing Tourism Experiences for Deaf and hard of hearing people (Result 1: Feelit Curriculum).-Development of an online e-learning platform with the course materials in all consortium languages and all countries sign languages (Result 2: Feelit online eLearning platform).-Training of 3 people with hearing loss from each country on the entry-level travel agent basics course (in total 12).-Training and certification of 3 people with hearing loss and 10 professionals from each country on designing Tourism Experiences for Deaf and hard of hearing people (40 professionals, same people with hearing impairments) (Result 4: Feelit certification system).-Development of a short game(playing in VR and PC screens) and a hand book with infographics for tourist providers is prepared in a co-design approach with the certified trainees, building empathy for visitors with hearing impairments(Result 4: Feelit handbook with 3D game).-Development of an online community of FEELIT operators(Result 5: FeeliT online community)<< Results >>The expected results during the project are:R1 a) A curriculum on entry-level travel agent basics adequate for people with hearing impairments. b) A curriculum on design accessible vacation for deaf and hard of hearing people (both for existing travels agents and also for people with hearing impairments followed R1)R2: An online e-learning platform with the course materials in all consortium languages and all countries sign languages. R3: A certification scheme for both target groups to acquire the FeeliT certification.R4: A VR and PC 3D game and a handbook with infographics for tourist providers to understand how it feels to be a visitor with hearing impairments in a foreign country.R5: An online community of FeelIt operators ready to support visitors with hearing impairments that want to visit their countriesIntended results on the completion of the project include:R6: To raise awareness of the project results, offering the game (for free) to the tourist industry. R7: To enhance sustainability by (a) illustrating the added value of the services offered by the FeeliT Operators, (b) providing a convincing argument to decision-makers through dissemination and communication of the results of the project activities, and (c) supporting the online community of FeelIt operators in expanding the services offered.