On January 24, 2024, restaurateurs, hoteliers, HR managers and education managers met with the TourX team of DEHOGA Brandenburg to discuss the possibilities of the European Union’s ERASMUS+ program and to strengthen the attractiveness of hospitality professions in Brandenburg by means of internships for young people in the industry.
Traditionally, educational institutions such as the “Johanna Just” secondary school in Potsdam have used the ERASMUS programme for apprentice exchanges during vocational training. However, many HR managers are not yet aware of the possibilities of internship exchange for trainees and students of European training institutions in the Brandenburg hospitality industry. In order to overcome this hurdle, the TourX team of DEHOGA Brandenburg presented the current projects TourX and HOGAVET.
However, this workshop was not intended to be limited to general, flowery project marketing, but rather to discuss the experiences that entrepreneurs and education managers had already made during the first HOGAVET study visit to the Greek TourX partner AKMI International in November last year.
The biggest challenge is seen as the different framework conditions and curricula in the hospitality professions in the individual European countries, because the desired exchange requires more than just declarations of intent to cooperate. Above all, mutual understanding of the respective vocational training courses must be strengthened.
Formal evaluation criteria for internship companies, such as hotel stars or proximity to large cities, do not come close to meeting these requirements for attractive internship companies. Brandenburg’s hospitality industry offers many attractive internships, which the interested educational institutions of our European project partners first have to get to know. Only then will it be possible to evaluate the companies accordingly and to make their attractiveness visible to interested students in the commonality of sending educational institutions and receiving internship companies.
All participants of this workshop agreed that the design of an international internship exchange still requires a lot of detailed work.
In order to further strengthen TourX and HOGAVET, the first ambassadors of DEHOGA Brandenburg have now been appointed to the TourX Ambassador Club. Together with the project team, they will critically question the previous project results and further develop the regional prerequisites for a successful implementation of the TourX project in the Brandenburg hospitality industry.
The joint work will also strengthen the quality of DEHOGA Brandenburg’s project work and improve its usability at the regional level. The aim of all activities is to use the opportunities offered by the European exchange of knowledge with ERASMUS+ for one’s own work.
There’s a lot to do, so let’s take the chances!
