Certour II
Nowadays, customer-friendliness in the tourism sector is an obvious necessity. Since the tourism market is a global market, the competitiveness of the SMEs, as a core factor affecting the sustainability and the responsibility of the tourism sector, has to be built on an international level. This is why transnational experience exchange is an absolute necessity for the tourism sector. Cross-border cooperation is based on joint development, implementation, staffing, and financing. The main idea behind the “FOR A BETTER SME MANAGEMENT” project is to upgrade the skills of people that run or work for the SMEs to be able to use proper managerial tools and techniques in their daily operations thus improving the competitiveness of their enterprises.
Two hundred staff members of SMEs will be trained in accordance to this platform. The project partners are AM, UA, TR, GR and RO. Pilot implementations of the management tools, that have a potential to initiate systematic management improvements is a core activity of the project. The sequence of activities towards the project overall objective is:
Development of management tools adapted to the SMEs;
Creation of a transnational group of skilled consultants (mentors) that includes a training package, joint mentors’ training programme;
Customization of the management tools to each SME;
Pilot implementations (e-training platform, e-training, mentoring);
Experience exchange (study visits).
The project’s target groups are a) Business Support Organizations in the field of tourism (the project partners included), b) Individual professionals (scientists or technicians) to be registered mentors, c) MSMEs (Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises) of the tourism sector d) the general public.
The transnational cooperation adds extra value to the project and offers important benefits to its target groups. The project also ensures sustainability and is expected to have a multiplier effect. The beneficiary SMEs that will improve their management will act as role models in their own areas.
The existing CERTOUR Network will be reinforced and after the second project, all the developed new packages of useful information including the project’s mentors’ registry, the management tools, the mentors’ training package, and the e-training platform will be available to any interested party and will become an integrated facilitation platform for improving the management of SMEs.
