GreenHost - Vocational Excellence, Policy and Enterprise United for Hospitality Management Skills Adapted on Environmental Footprint Methods

The project “Vocational Excellence, Policy and Enterprise United for Hospitality Management Skills Adapted on Environmental Footprint Methods (GreenHost)” has identified two specific needs in the hospitality management and wider tourism industry that it aims to address:a) Shortage of Skilled Staff: According to DEHOGA (2021), EFFAT (2022), recruiting and retaining a skilled workforce is the sector’s biggest challenge, especially post the pandemic, but this also must to be understood in the wider context of the contemporary major need for upskilling/reskilling in all VET sectors, including tourism and hospitality, as highlighted by CEDEFOP’s Skills Panorama (2019).b) Becoming Green and Sustainable: Based on recent studies (Adedoyin and Bekun, 2020), the tourism industry, which includes hotels and the hospitality industry in general, as well as the transportation and food and beverage industries, is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change. In this direction, the European Council’s Recommendation on VET for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience (2020), and the Osnabrück Declaration on vocational education and training as an enabler of recovery and just transitions to digital and green economies (2020) must be also taken under account.At almost the same time, the European Commission has adopted the Recommendation on Environmental footprint methods (2021), to help companies calculate their environmental performance based on reliable, verifiable and comparable information and provide more environmentally friendly products and services.GreenHost combines a mixture of 19 partners from 7 countries that allow for interactions, exchanges and upward convergence between VET institutions of all levels (ISCED 3-8) and industry representatives, with the main objective to integrate green and digital practices into the hospitality management curriculum, and help students, professionals and trainers to upskill and reskill.