The association DOCUMENTA (European Institute of Studies for Training and Development) has been involved for almost half a year in the Blueprint project to analyze the tourism sector in the 28 countries of the area, an initiative that, as explained the president of the aforementioned association, Javier Farto, “is an achievement in itself since it is only possible to take part of it by invitation, something similar to a kind of competition restricted to approved entities, which have therefore to meet a series of demanding requirements that support their excellence”. DOCUMENTA thus becomes part of the European consortium that is responsible for this project together with other entities that have also been selected in the same way, such as SCOPE (INTRASOFT International) of Brussels, its promoter or the partners White Research and Valeu Consulting , also from Brussels. Finally, the Institute of Tourism and Culture, of the University of Malta.
The complete title of the project is Blueprint for sectoral cooperation on skills in tourism: Enhancing the image of careers in the tourism sector. In this sense, Farto stressed that the presiding Association supports a trajectory of more than 20 years based on three lines of work with local development always as a guiding thread.
Projects
On the one hand, projects at municipal and regional level, focused on training, employment and business creation. Secondly, of European projects, with the development of more than 60 in the last 20 years. A third line is the development cooperation projects with Third World countries, mainly from South America. In addition, and in this field of tourism in particular, which is the focus of the Blueprint project, the Cantabrian entity has carried out important initiatives such as the Noja Competitiveness Plan and the Tourism Promotion Plan of Castro Urdiales.
Regarding the Blueprint project, DOCUMENTA will be in charge of detecting the training needs of the tourism sector and what is the image of the sector in Spain, Portugal, France, Romania and Poland. At its conclusion, a campaign will be carried out in the different countries to publicize the results of this study as well as the opportunities of the sector, both towards the professionals who work in it and the potential users thereof, that is to say , tourists. In addition to this project, the association works in others related to tourism such as the CS Tour (Cultural Awareness and Social Skills as Key Competencies in Tourism) and the EPHT (Employer Program for Hospitality and Tourism / Employment Program for Hospitality and Tourism ), whose purpose is the design of a systematic methodology for the development, implementation and monitoring of a successful employment program for the sector through the creation of an electronic platform, as well as the preparation of a guide of good practices based on the aforementioned project. The Cantabrian association received at the end of 2017 the approval for the implementation of 8 projects and since it has another 8 in force and development, at some point of this year there will be 16 initiatives that are in operation in which DOCUMENTA participates.
