Next Tourism Generation Alliance at Tourism Expo Destination Varna

Tourism Expo Destination Varna 2019 took place in Varna in the period 21-23 November 2019. It is a renowned event, attracting Bulgarian tourism professionals from all tourism subsectors. During the event, there were parallel conference sessions, where the industry representatives shared their experiences, views, and analyses about the trends in hospitality and tourism. One of these presentations was held byVarna University of Managementteam in the role ofNTG Alliancerepresentatives.

The NTG presentation took place in the afternoon on the 22nd of November 2019. First, Irina Petkova and Irena Erbakanova presented the NTG alliance, its goals, objectives and current development. They commented on the need to initiate certain measures with training and education of tourism employees, in order to address the coming dynamic changes in the environment and customer behaviour in the industry. The focus of the follow-up discussion, moderated by Maya Ivanova, was on the business perceptions on the future skills and how to train them. The participants in the discussion panel were general managers of hotels, a CEO of a tour operator company and a DMO representative. Each of them shared their experience with HRM, current concerns and forecasted needs. The managers emphasised that social skills will become even more crucial for future hospitality, but also recognized the digital and green skills as compulsory for any subsector in the tourism industry. The audience asked numerous questions about the training of the particular skills and how it will happen. The idea of education, stepping on larger basis, not only on degree/certificates was launched by some of the participants. Finally, Hristo Yanev, the CEO of VIP Sliven Ltd. expressed his desire tojoin the NTG Alliance, in order to contribute and participate in the process of elaboration of the Toolkit for the education and training, and dissemination of the project’s outcomes.

Follow the efforts of the Next Tourism Generation via ourwebsite,Facebook,Twitter| #NTGskillsalliance or viaLinkedIn