The RURALTOUR: A Training Programme For Sustainable Rural Tourism

Tendecy to rural tourism as an alternative tourism is increasing in Turkey as well as in Europe. According to the estimates, the share of rural tourism in total tourism revenues in Europe is around 15% and shows a continuous increase. Important rural tourism activities are carried out Europe-wide. Small and medium sized hotels, restaurants, village houses etc. are active in the rural tourism sector especially in the form of family-run businesses. In addition to structural deficiencies, there is a significant lack of trained human resources in this sector. In the direction of the principles of Erasmus+ Program, it is necessary to provide training opportunities for the people working in rural tourism sector in order to gain new skills, to strengthen their personal development and to increase employment opportunities.The main goal of the RURALTOUR project is to contribute to the sustainable rural tourism targets at the European level by developing the skills of business owners, managers, employees, VET students and potential entrepreneurs in the rural tourism sector through an innovative and easily accessible training method. In order to contribute to this goal, preparation of rural tourism sector report, training material, e-learning program, set of good practices, e-learning program mobile applications and various training activities will be carried out for the stakeholders in the rural tourism sector.8 organizations with different backgrounds from 6 European countries will set up a strong partnership to achieve the objectives of the RURALTOUR Project. With the qualified partnership structure to be established, a training environment will be developed that provides distance education opportunities with innovative methods for the training of the business owners, managers and employees who work in the rural tourism sector and the people who plan to invest in this field and the students who receive vocational training on tourism. In this context, the following activities are planned.• Project management activities: These activities include administrative, legal and contractual responsibilities, budget management, website management, communication among partners, effective quality control of project activities, dissemination activities, transnational project meetings.• Activities for the development of intellectual outputs: The project is planned to produce 5 intellectual outputs with the active participation of all partners.• Learning/Teaching/Training Activities: A 5-day activity will be organized on the rural tourism in Spain for training and exchange of experince of the related staff of the partner institutions.• Multiplying activities: Following the development of all intellectual outputs, 8 muptiplier 2-day training activities for target groups in different level will be held in Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Spain and Turkey (2 events). In addition, an informative one-day conference with the participation of 100 tourism industry stakeholders from different provinces will be held in Turkey.Within the scope of the e-learning activities to be carried out in the project, a total of 24 staff will be provided a 5-day training in rural tourism in Almeria / Spain. Also within the scope of 7 multiplying training activities conducted in partner countries, 175 people from the target groups will get trained. In addition, 100 people from various tourism industry staholders will be informed.