How to skill the workforce for sustainable tourism and inclusive growth?
VVOB - education for developmentWhat is it?
With a 6.1% share in 2020, tourism featured among the six industries with the greatest contribution to Ecuador’s national employment. Remarking the 2021 World Tourism Day, together with other stakeholders, international communities call for a responsible, sustainable, and resilient tourism ecosystem that ensures that the benefits from tourism’s renewed growth are felt outside of the sector itself and help advance wider progress. Quality TVET can contribute to this transformation.
HIGHLIGHTS
This article is to provide an overview of the initiative led by the VVOB in the past three years. They have been supporting the 21 secondary schools in the canton of Quito and the province of Manabí that offer the tourism-related areas of study in the national curriculum for TVET with the Skilling for Sustainable Tourism project.
To improve the quality and relevance of tourism learning for the more than 4,000 students who enrolled in these areas of study since 2018, VVOB and Ecuador’s Ministry of Education have brokered a range of partnerships with community and ecotourism initiatives, hotels, tour operators, universities and organisations providing capacity development in the tourism sector – all committed to sustainable tourism.