From 9 to 13 February 2026, we were able to further deepen our cooperation in the TourX project with colleagues from AKMI, EFTA, ENAIP, ASOFUER, AVT and DEHOGA Brandenburg during an interesting week-long workshop.
AKMI hosted the event, and we took the opportunity to exchange ideas with our colleagues from our project partner organisations about the results achieved so far and new ideas, in order to give fresh impetus to our bilateral cooperation in 2026/2027.
As always on such study trips, the programme was packed with activities, including a hotel tour, a visit to a winery, and cooking and bartending workshops.
As in a student training hour, we exchanged at first fundamentals about the different, complex vocational training systems, but many interesting discussions developed at the working level during the following days.
This was the essence of what made this study trip so valuable.
Colleagues who were participating in a study trip for the first time quickly realised how important it is to actively approach colleagues from other countries, and it didn’t take long for them to start also discussing internships for young professionals in Fuerteventura, Veneto and Brandenburg.
It became clear that we have a comprehensive portfolio at our disposal and that we should expand international cooperation and work even more closely with our immediate project partners and vocational schools in our partner countries.
This was particularly evident in the discussions on the organisation of internships.
Preparing internships not only requires cooperation between the sending and receiving organisations, but we should also involve the teachers who accompany the pupils and students on their development path, from their everyday training to the start of an internship, as they know the strengths and weaknesses of their protégés best.
This knowledge must not go unused, as it is important in order to be able to effectively and sensitively support and accompany future interns during such an important step as an internship abroad.
Joint action by all those involved requires mutual understanding of the details of the challenges involved in preparing and implementing the internships.
The interns, their teachers, the Erasmus organisers at the sending schools and the hosts at the receiving internship companies must get to know each other and work together step by step to prepare for the highlight of an internship abroad.
The TourX project provides many interesting tools for practical work. The short overviews of the various vocational training systems that have been developed provide a clear overview of their complexity, and the guidelines are valuable aids for joint planning.
Using these is both an opportunity and a challenge. This was demonstrated once again by this TourX mobility programme, because it is about so much more than just meeting formal participant numbers.
