This project will assess the intercultural competences of the hospitality managers and employees, and create a training methodology using critical intercultural incidents derived from the everyday work engagement. These incidents will be used to create three prototypes for each of the following hotel departments: Front Desk, Food and Beverage, Housekeeping and Management.

The prototypes will be localised and contextualised content in order to fit to the realities of each partner country. Animated dialogues will be created in order to make the delivery of intercultural education more effective. Taking into consideration the conditions in the hospitality sector after the Covid-19 crisis, the consortium will, as an addition to web-based resources, develop a mobile application to become the mean for delivering the education 24×7, anytime and anywhere. All content will appear in English as well as the languages of the host countries.

This project will also help hotel staff create intercultural connection with guests from China or Russia whose culture and social interaction differ significantly from Western cultures. The numbers of visitors from these countries are expected to rise and the mobile application will offer speedy access to simple phrases (as well as cultural information that will help staff adapt its cultural behaviour. Existing automatic translators are far from accurate and often fail to provide adequate translation exactly for fixed phrases like greetings, etiquette phrases, etc. The project will test and pilot all of its outputs through its target groups.

The project objectives are:
1.Broaden the intercultural awareness of hospitality staff;
2.Establish a more creative and collaborative working environment in hospitality;
3.Increase the competitiveness of the hospitality sector in Europe;
4.Foster an inclusive and equitable workplace culture;
5.Introduce an educational model which aligns with the realities of the hospitality sector and where possible, include VET tutors and students;
6.Offer localised and contextualised educational content;

7.Prepare hotel staff’s intercultural and linguistic capacity of the upcoming tourist markets of Russia and China;
8. Improve the cultural experience of guests;
9.Help build interpersonal connections and facilitate the interpersonal processes in a multicultural workforce

Website: https://intercultural-hotel.com/

Duration: 25 months (01/12/2021 – 31/12/2023)

Target Group: Employers and employees on the hospitality sector

Partners:

Munster Technological University Ireland
DEKAPLUS BUSINESS SERVICES Cyprus
EDEX – EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE CORPORATION LIMITED Cyprus
STOWARZYSZENIE CENTRUM WSPIERANIA EDUKACJI I PRZEDSIEBIORCZOSCI Poland
APOSTOLINA TSALTAMPASI KAI SIA EE Greece
STICHTING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FRIESLAND Netherlands
PLOVDIVSKI UNIVERSITET PAISIY HILENDARSKI Bulgaria
Klaipedos turizmo mokykla Lithuania
LABC S.R.L. Italy
Srednja sola za gostinstvo in turizem Celje Slovenia