CoLEAD Seminar Panel 1: Prof Andrew Jones: ITTC, Dr Giusy Cardia, ITTC: Dr Sheena Carlisle, CMU: Ms Silvia Barbone, JLAG

CoLEAD Panel 2: Mr Julian Zarb, ITTC: Mr Lesley Vella, MTA: Dr Dane Munro Malta Union of Tourist Guides, Ms Silvia Barbone, JLAG

The transfer of sustainable development skills for the tourism and cultural sectors

The Institute of Tourism Travel and Culture (ITTC) recently hosted an evening seminar Tttled: ‘The Transfer of skills within Tourism and Cultural Sectors: Towards Sustainable Development’. The seminar explored the  development of sustainable tourism skills in project management  and formed part of the final project phase of CoLEAD (Co-operating for leadership in tourism) a European funded project led by ITTC.  

CoLead has been two year project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and was launched on 19 February 2016, at Europa House in Valletta. Partners included ITTC (lead partner) at the University of Malta, Cardiff Metropolitan University (UK), Jlag (Belgium),  and the Bulgaria Economic Forum (Bulgaria)

The key objective of the project has been to implement, develop and test PM4SD methodology  (project management for sustainable development) as a capacity building training tool, to train and empower professionals, civil servants and trainers with appropriate management skills and expertise to design and deliver transformative sustainable tourism projects.

Professor Andrew Jones from ITTC led the panel discussions on the outcomes and future directions of the project. He said the key aim of the project has been to use the PM4SD methodology as a sustainable tourism certification process to support and assist destinations, public authorities, international organizations, enterprises to support their strategies, plans and actions for their sustainable tourism growth.

In this context the two training programmes held in Bulgaria (2016) and Cardiff (2017) attracted over thirty participants representing both public and private sector organisations from, Malta, Bulgaria, UK, Ecuador, Bolivia, Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Belgium and France.

Professor Jones concluded that the project had been valuable in promoting and testing the PM4SD method for project management and establishing a range of new training opportunities that would hopefully lead to the establishment of new PM4SD training centres in Malta, Cardiff and Bulgaria.