Project outputs of the Erasmus+ project ‘Development of the Digital Marketing Competence of Adult Learners for Small and Medium-sized Tourism Enterprises (SMTEs) in Europe’ coordinated by Istanbul Medeniyet University and supported with a grant by the European Commission and the Turkish National Agency 04.10.2022 were introduced at Istanbul Medeniyet University Tuzla Campus.
Among the partners of the project are Professional Hotel Managers Association (POYD) from Turkey, PhoenixKM BVBA from Belgium, IACuDIT from Greece and Inercia Digital S. L. from Spain.
65 people, including Istanbul University and Istanbul Medeniyet University tourism management department undergraduate and graduate students, as well as managers and employees of the tourism sector, attended the meeting.
The following intellectual outputs were produced in the project which aims to develop the digital marketing competencies and competencies of entrepreneurs, managers and employees working in small and medium-sized tourism enterprises and to improve tourism employment, and to strengthen the competencies of tourism employees and managers:
- Research report on the knowledge, skills and competence needs of entrepreneurs/managers and employees in small and medium-sized tourism enterprises regarding digital marketing,
2-Learning units and evaluation questions covering digital marketing knowledge and skills for tourism businesses,
3- Competencies that the digital tourism marketer should have,
4-Interactive digital tourism marketing e-learning platform,
5-E-book containing learning materials and assessment questions on digital tourism marketing.
In the opening speeches of the introductory meeting of the project outputs, the project coordinator Prof.Dr. Salih KUŞLUVAN talked about the difficulties of international project management and thanked the local project partner in the project, the President of the Professional Hotel Managers Association, Ülkay ATMACA, and the association member Serkan GÜMRÜKÇÜ, who took part in the Project; international project partners and colleagues. Professional Hotel Managers Association representative, who is a local partner in the project, Asst. Prof Mehmet BAHAR, on the other hand, pointed out the importance of cooperation and solidarity between universities and tourism enterprises in such projects.
Project manager Prof.Dr. Salih KUŞLUVAN listed the project outputs as research report on knowledge and skills gaps and required competencies in digital marketing; learning material consisting of 12 units for digital tourism marketing training; digital tourism marketing qualifications framework, trainings on digital marketing in Greece and Spain; e- learning platform, which includes learning units and evaluation questions; e-books on digital tourism marketing. Participating in the project, Dr. Bahar TÜRKAY talked about the results of the research on digital marketing related professions, training programs, lack of knowledge and skills and training needs in four project partner countries. As a researcher in the project, Assoc.Prof.Dr. Özcan Erkan AKGÜN talked about the professional standards related to the digital tourism marketing specialist profession and the measurement and evaluation tools developed to measure whether these standards are met. In the next sessions of the project, examples of the learning materials of the project were given. Karel Van ISACKER, the researcher of PhoenixKM BVBA, the Belgian partner of the project, drew attention to the web page design and quality of tourism businesses. The researchers of Inercia Digital, the Spanish partner of the project, Caridad Martínez Carrillo de ALBORNOZ and Jesus Carlos Luna HUERTAS explained what tourism businesses need to do to rank first on the search results page of search engines. The Greek partner of the project, IACuDIT researcher Vicky ALEXANDROU, gave information about digital advertisements. The 4th international meeting of the project was also held before the presentation of the project outputs.
