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Call key data
Upskilling and reskilling the Tourism Ecosystem: Tourism Knowledge hub and Tourism Data Space
Funding Program
Pilot Projects and Preparatory Actions (PPPAs)
Call number
PPPA-2024-SKILL-FOR-TOURISM
deadlines
Opening
28.11.2024
Deadline
13.02.2025 17:00
Funding rate
90%
Call budget
€ 1,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
€ 1,000,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
This call for proposals aims at supporting the current policy work on data management and data sharing by developing guidelines on how to participate and use the D3Hub and the future common European tourism data space for destinations and SMEs in the tourism sector. The selected proposal must join the Pact for Skills and participate in the LSP for tourism, in particular as regards the support for digital skills. The support must take the form of clear and friendly guidelines for the use of destination management organizations (DMOs) and of SMEs and micro-enterprises, disseminated strategically over the target countries in order to maximise outreach. The guidelines must be published and be broadly disseminated, and accompanied by training opportunities.
Call objectives
The actions resulting from this call for proposals shall promote the following themes (the list is not exhaustive):
- To promote data-driven solutions in tourism by:
- Supporting upskilling and training for DMOs and SMEs;
- Ensuring synergies with existing measures (policy initiatives, tools and actions) at EU level;
- To encourage a better understanding and uptake of EU initiatives in place in the field of tourism digitalisation.
To meet the objectives of this call, the proposal has to address the following priorities:
- To provide clear guidance on how to access resources for managing and sharing of data;
- To increase the use and adoption of digital tools, platforms and smart technologies by transferring knowledge to DMOs and SME on how to better use and take advantage of the digital tools available;
- To increase reliance on data: its generation, collection, use and re-use;
- To advise DMOs and tourism SMEs, in their transition towards more digital and sustainable activities;
- To improve access to training, upskilling and reskilling opportunities for DMOs and tourism SMEs;
- To promote the innovation and resilience of the tourism sector.
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Expected effects and impacts
- Enhanced reliance on high-quality data: its generation, collection, use and re-use;
- Increased capacity of DMOs and tourism SMEs to successfully integrate and implement integrated data-driven solutions in their offer and strategy;
- Setting the ground for the development of new business models in tourism building on digitalisation, data and new technologies;
- Improved DMOs and tourism SMEs’ usage of available tools and management strategies to increase their competitiveness and promote growth;
- Boosted quality and efficiency along the tourism value chain;
- Increased awareness by DMOs and tourism SMEs about existing EU programmes on digitalisation;
- Enhanced cooperation among existing measures at EU level as regards digitalisation of tourism.
Expected results
The applicant consortia must carry out the following mandatory activities:
a) Coordinate with existing measures
Applicants must set up a coordination mechanism to liaise with similar EU initiatives including the D3Hub and with the consortium winner of the DIGITAL-2023-CLOUD-DATA-AI-05 call for proposals Cloud, Data and Artificial Intelligence. The consortium is invited to include also other relevant initiatives, both at EU and national level. If necessary, EISMEA and DG GROW will facilitate initial contacts with EU funded initiatives.
In their proposal, applicants shall clarify their coordination strategy with the above-mentioned initiatives. The strategy needs to ensure a systematic flow of information, which shall be maintained systematically and transparently.
The coordination mechanism shall be flexible in order to be adapted/modified in case of need during the implementation of the project. Changes must be agreed with and approved by EISMEA, the contracting authority (in consultation with DG GROW).
b) Develop and publish the guidelines for the use of destination management organizations (DMOs) and of SMEs and micro-enterprises, to support them in understanding and accessing the knowledge hub D3Hub, and, as it develops over time, the common European data space for tourism.
The selected consortium needs to prepare a set of online guidelines for the use of destination management organizations (DMOs) and of SMEs and micro-enterprises, to support them in understanding and accessing the knowledge hub D3Hub, and, as it develops over time, the common European data space for tourism. Based on activity (a), applicants need to explain how they plan to keep the guidelines updated and accessible. The guidelines must be user-friendly, pragmatic, and formulated in such a way as to make it possible to update information swiftly and easily. They must only include official information as shared by the Contracting Authority, the D3Hub, the tourism LPS, and the Deploytour project. The Guidelines shall be drafted in high-quality English. The Guidelines shall be published on the T4T Stakeholders Support Platform.
Before publishing, the guidelines shall be agreed with and approved by the contracting authority (in consultation with DG GROW). If necessary, they shall be modified during the implementation of the project.
c) Propose and set up a communication and dissemination strategy, which takes into account the initiatives already ongoing at European level as regards data management and data sharing in tourism, as well as the upcoming T4T Stakeholders Support Platform, and which aims at reaching DMOs and SMEs in the tourism sector, and sectors adjacent, across the EU.
- Development of the communication strategy: In their proposal, applicants must detail a comprehensive communication strategy covering the publication of the guidelines. Specifically, they must explain:
- How the guidelines will be made accessible to the largest possible number of DMOs and tourism SMEs across the EU, also taking into account existing instruments at EU level, in particular the T4T Stakeholders Support Platform;
- How the guidelines shall be made known and understood by largest possible number of DMOs and tourism SMEs across the EU. This must include a strategy to engage with stakeholders so as to address queries (such as requests for clarification and comments) in a timely and user-friendly manner. An analysis of the queries, aimed at understanding the main difficulties and challenges presented by SMEs and DMOs, must be prepared as part of the final report detailing the implementation and impact of the deliverables.
- How the strategy will ensure a continuous and sustainable dissemination of the guidelines during the life of the project and afterwards.
The communication and dissemination strategy shall be agreed with and approved by the contracting authority (in consultation with DG GROW) and, if necessary, adapted during the implementation of the project.
- Implementation of the communication strategy (dissemination). The selected consortium shall raise awareness of the guidelines at national, regional and local level within Member States, reaching out to both the public and the private sector, with the goal of informing DMOs as well as SMEs in the tourism ecosystem, taking into consideration the barriers that SMEs face to access and understand the available information. Dissemination may include the organisation of (the list is indicative and not exhaustive):
- marketing or a dedicated communication campaigns;
- dissemination/networking events;
- publishing user-friendly material.
A report of the dissemination shall be submitted one month before the end of the project.
d) Envisage capacity building measures aimed at DMOs and SMEs in the tourism sector across the EU. These include online and offline trainings, workshops, study visits, awareness raising activities; production of training and educational materials; webinars.
- Development of the capacity building strategy: In their proposal, applicants need to detail a comprehensive capacity building strategy on how they intend to provide expertise, training and capacity-building activities to ensure that guidelines are picked up and understood by stakeholders. The target audience of these activities must be DMOs, public sector bodies tasked with tourism management, such as regional and local administrations, other relevant collaborating stakeholders in destinations and tourism SMEs. This may be done in particular through the organisation of (the list is indicative and not exhaustive):
- Collaborative workshops, webinars, study visits, in-presence and online training courses;
- Tailored coaching for DMOs based on destinations’ needs;
- Peer-to-peer learning by matching needs and solutions;
- Boot camps and hackathons;
- Production of training and educational material;
- Awareness raising activities.
- Implementation of the capacity building: Applicant consortia must organise minimum 15 capacity building opportunities which must represent a balanced distribution of tourism SMEs and DMOs per eligible country. To ensure this, they must represent as a minimum:
- all different geographical areas,
- at least three training opportunities in each geographical area,
- at least twenty different EU member states
- The geographical areas are defined as follows:
- Area 1: Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain;
- Area 2: Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland;
- Area 3: Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Romania;
- Area 4: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden;
- Applicants should strive to reach different levels of governance (national, regional, local) as well as a variety of tourism destinations (urban, maritime, mountainous, etc).
- Each capacity building activity must be accompanied by a monitoring and reporting mechanism to assess the satisfaction of users and the understanding of the guidelines presented.
- Applicants must demonstrate links of capacity building activities with, local, regional and/or national tourism strategies, as well as the 27 key topics identified by the Transition Pathway for Tourism. In particular, the proposal must demonstrate its relevance to the establishment of a future EU data space in the tourism sector and advancing public-private cooperation to support expanding official statistics on the impacts of tourism. Proposals without plans to develop transnational and cross-sectoral support schemes are not eligible.
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Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
eligible entities
Education and training institution, International organization, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)
Mandatory partnership
Yes
Project Partnership
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies)
- be established (have a registered legal office) in one of the eligible countries, i.e.: EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
Other entities may participate in other consortium roles, such as associated partners, subcontractors, third parties giving in-kind contributions, etc.
Specific cases:
Natural persons — Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of self-employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person).
International organisations — International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.
Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons.
EU bodies — EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) can NOT be part of the consortium.
Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. Please note that if the action will be implemented by the members, they should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible).
Entities from other countries (not listed above) are exceptionally eligible if the granting authority considers their participation essential for the implementation of the action.
other eligibility criteria
Proposals must be submitted by a consortium, which complies with all of the following conditions:
- minimum three (3) and maximum seven (7) applicants (beneficiaries, not affiliated entities);
- from minimum three (3) and maximum five (5) different EU Member States;
- minimum one (1) research, tertiary education institution, or training institution specialising in the tourism sector – to be clearly indicated in the proposal;
- minimum one (1) destination management organisation (DMO) – to be clearly indicated in the proposal;
- minimum one (1) public relations (PR) agency with expertise in EU-wide campaigns– to be clearly indicated in the proposal.
Applicants may NOT submit or participate in more than one proposal under this call for proposals. Multiple proposals will be rejected.If an applicant is found to be involved in more than one proposal, only one application will be accepted and evaluated; the applicant will be asked to withdraw from the other applications (or they will all be rejected).
Financial support to third parties is not allowed.
Please consult the call document p.14-15 for a description of the mandatory deliverables.
Additional information
Topics
Relevance for EU Macro-Region
EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region
UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)
project duration
24 months
Additional Information
Proposals must be submitted before the call deadline.
Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section. Paper submissions are NOT possible.
Proposals (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Submission System ( NOT the documents available on the Topic page — they are only for information).
Proposals must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:
- Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries and affiliated entities) and the summarised budget for the project (to be filled in directly online)
- Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the project (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)
- mandatory annexes and supporting documents (templates available to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded):
- detailed budget table/calculator
- list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years) (template available in Part B)
- CVs (short outlines) of the core project team listed in section 2.3 of the Part B of the technical proposal. Please note that the detailed CVs must be uploaded in the Portal Submission System in the section dedicated to additional documents as a pdf file using the same format for each CV.
- activity reports of last year: not applicable.
Your application must be readable, accessible and printable.
Proposals are limited to maximum 50 pages (Part B). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages.
Call documents
PPPA-2024-skill-for-tourism call documentPPPA-2024-skill-for-tourism call document(481kB)
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