SkillsOnBoard - Soft skills for professional skippers in a changing tourism industry

SkillsOnBoard is a European project co-financed by Erasmus +. The SkillsOnBoard project brought together 8 partners from 4 European countries: BCA College (project coordinator), Militos Consulting and INMER from Greece, Sea Teach from Spain, BMTC and the Black Sea Research Program-NOAH from Bulgaria and the Faculty of Maritime Studies, University of Rijeka and the Institute of Tourism from Croatia.

 In line with the objectives, the project focused on two broad themes: 1. understanding how new demand-side trends in (yachting) tourism shape supply-side tourism services, and 2. acquiring or developing certain additional soft skills important for the work of professional skippers. The project included identifying the needs of professional skippers for the soft skills, analyzing demand trends in tourism, devising a methodology for training skippers adapted to the educational needs of adults and based on a modular approach, developing learning materials and testing the methodology.

As part of the SkillsOnBoard project, a special modular online platform for the training of professional skippers has been developed and is available in five languages (English, Greek, Bulgarian, Croatian and Spanish). The online platform in the first part includes four modules on new trends in yachting: (1) Profile of 'new' tourists; (2) Skipper profile, (3) Cultural context of yacht travel and (4) Innovative activities and services on board. The second part of the training, within 13 modules, is focused on acquiring soft skills. In addition to the platform, a manual for mentors was prepared, and for the purpose of disseminating the project, four half-day conferences were held. All training materials and project results are available on the project website http://skillsonboard.eu/ .