HEAL-ALL - HEAlthy Life ALLiance for Health Tourism Education Development and
Reorganisation
Project Identification Number: 2020-1-HU01-KA203-078799
In the last years, media interest clearly showed a shortage of labour in tourism sector. Also the shortage of healthcare staff is a global phenomenon. Health and Wellness Tourism was a fast growing branch at a much faster rate than the overall tourism. The actual touristic situation of European tourism in the spring of 2020 cannot be drawn optimistic, but a requirement of special expertise and high quality of human resource, especially in Health and Wellness Tourism services can be foreseen.
The HEAL ALL project aims an international cooperation of institutions supporting health tourism education. The project planning was finished before the launch of Coronavirus response of the EU. With the run of time, it became more visible, that after the pandemic, tourism (including health tourism) will be one of the most sensitive economic sectors suffering from the consequences of the outbreak. This fact is why the proposed starting activity of a comparative market Survey in the sector will be not only a preparation for other activities, but will create a new foundation in every country for future development since any earlier surveying will lose its actual manner. This underlines the importance of a new ground zero for all activities built upon. This intellectual investment is necessary for the sustainability of the education in health tourism, and support not only a development but a restructuring of the sector including educational inputs.
The project consortium includes two higher educational bodies: University of Debrecen - Faculty of Health (Hungary) and Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania - Faculty of Economics, Socio-human Sciences and Engineering (Romania). Both Faculties offer education in different fields of tourism. The Faculty of Health controls a Health Tourism Specialisation in the framework of the Health Care Management BSc, while Faculty of Economics, Socio-human Sciences and Engineering manages a BSc study programme named Engineering and Management in Catering and Agrotourism.
The non-educational partners of the cooperation are the INNOVA Észak-Alföld Nonprofit Ltd. (Hungary), which is a governmental-founded regional development and innovation agency established with the aim of boosting the regional economy and of managing innovative initiative, like the Thermal-Health Industrial Cluster; and the Marco Polo G.E.I.E. (Italy), which was established in 2006 with the main aim of promoting partnerships and European partnerships, especially through mobility projects and training development in HoReCa sector.
The main measurable outputs of the programme are:
A mentioned situational comparative analysis of tourism sector based on surveying both demand and supply sides, as a situational description, after the hoped end of the coronaviruspandemic. The programme contains elements of best practice exchanges on international level gaining experience through GEMBA principles, but the most innovative content will be the creation of a Trainee Work Exchange (TWE) Portal, where the students will gain access to International Mobility offers of different companies from different countries. The Higher Education institutions will evaluate the needs of the surveyed companies and customers, and the innovative knowledge resulted by direct enterprise contacts will be built into a newly developed Curriculum of Health Touristic field, including 20 subjects and topics covering themes like growing requirements of Hygiene in Tourism for rebuilding trust of travellers. The Curriculum subjects will be organized into Modules (Lifestyle, Medical basics, Health Tourism and Wellness, Touristic Management, Social basics) commonly covering the complete Health tourism field. Each subject and topic can be reached electronically, study materials, question and examination databases, which is guarantee for OpenAccess through the TWE webpage, where all project activities can be monitored also for the general public. The cooperation will invent a further Distance Learning System too. The Quality of the project materials will be assured by intensive trainings of the producing staff and intensive use of professional review (both theory and practice) and proofreading.
The final outcomes of the project will support the final beneficiaries (students - having better education, businesses - more qualified human resource, and customers - having a health touristic offer with enhancing quality) in building a healthier society and the proposal will strengthen the European Higher Educational Area in international competition compared to other economies and will reduce brain drain.
The programme will promote internationalisation with the use of innovative digital access practices, resulting in a sustainable investment through enhancing quality and efficiency of education and training of youth.