Higher education training in tourism (HETT): skills in accessible tourism

Start date: July 2019
Duration: 7 Months

The offer of adapted tourism products to the ATM implies that tourism industry staff have the skills necessary to serve this market. The limited literature in this field highlights that in the majority of countries, tourism schools have not initiated any specialized programs for the requirements of (PwD). In Portugal, there is an absence of studies in this domain. Therefore, it is of utmost relevance to analyse how far the specific skills needed for this market are being developed in undergraduate tourism degree programmes (UTDP) in Portugal, identifying the changes that should be introduced to improve these skills.

To achieve these objectives, the following methodological process will be used:

  1. Based on the outputs obtained in activities 1 and 2, a list of the skills that tourism professionals should have to serve this market will be designed. This list will be used to identify gaps in tourism undergraduate study programs;
  2. The analysis of the skills being developed in UTDP will be conducted through:
  • The analysis of the curriculum of all UTDP existent in Portugal. For this analysis, the information available on the websites of HETT will be used, as well as the self-assessment reports produced by the programmes to get accredited by the National Agency of Degree Accreditation (A3ES). The goal is to identify courses” contents and intended learning outcomes related to the offer of accessible tourism products, as well as evidence of the presence of the aforementioned listed skills.
  • The UTDP curriculum is the formal face of tourism higher education training in Portugal. Nevertheless, the skills needed to adequately work in this market may also be developed in less formal ways, some of them also taking place in HETT. To identify these less formal ways, an online questionnaire will be applied to all the tourism undergraduate study programme directors.
  • Finally, an online questionnaire will be implemented with a sample of students, from the last year of all the UTDP in Portugal. Students will be asked about their perceptions on how far they hold the identified competences needed to perform well in this tourism market, as well as about their attitudes towards (PwD).

The expected outputs are:

  • a diagnosis of the Portuguese HEET regarding the “production” of graduates with the necessary skills to serve the ATM;
  • the identification of the changes that should be introduced in UTDP;
  • the definition of strategies to improve future professionals” attitudes and competencies, if needed;
  • data and information requirements of HETT, which will be used in the design of the intelligent information system that will support the co-creation of tourism experiences.