Results

About the Skills WatchTower

The TOUR-X Skills WatchTower is a regional skills-intelligence and anticipation mechanism for the tourism sector. It was created under Task 5.2 to help tourism SMEs, VET providers, regional Knowledge Triangles and public authorities identify current and emerging workforce skills needs and translate evidence into training and curriculum decisions. The contractual design combines three elements: a tourism-SME skills-needs survey, a digital mechanism for collecting and analysing evidence, and a repeatable process for enriching survey findings with secondary labour-market information and updating the analysis over time [1].

The WatchTower complements the TOUR-X Training Needs Analysis (T3.2) and the Graduate Students’ Tracking System (D3.3). The TNA provides broader sector-level evidence; the WatchTower adds employer-side, business-level quantitative evidence; and the GSTS provides the supply-side perspective of graduate outcomes. The Final Technical Report describes this combined logic as a supply-and-demand skills intelligence framework [2].

01

Why it was built

The WatchTower responds to the need for timely and actionable skills intelligence. Cedefop emphasises that collecting labour-market data is not sufficient by itself: robust skills anticipation must convert evidence into usable intelligence that can inform VET and skills decisions [8]. In tourism, the need is reinforced by the sector’s green and digital transitions and by persistent upskilling and reskilling needs highlighted in the European Commission’s Transition Pathway for Tourism and the Pact for Skills Tourism partnership [4][5].

For TOUR-X, this policy context was translated into a practical regional mechanism. The WatchTower therefore focuses on evidence that can be acted upon by training providers and tourism businesses: which competences are missing, where the gaps occur, which workforce groups are affected, what training is already taking place, and what skills are expected to grow in importance.

02

Evidence base and thematic framework

Development started with a structured review of the T3.2 skills-gap evidence, European policy frameworks, Cedefop analyses, national and regional studies, tourism labour-market intelligence and relevant academic/sector research. According to the Final Technical Report, this review took place between September 2024 and January 2025 and led to five principal thematic domains [2]:

  • Digital skills and technology adoption, including digital platforms, data use, online business and digital customer experience.
  • Green and sustainability competences, including resource efficiency, circular-economy practices, environmental management and responsible tourism.
  • Customer-service excellence, intercultural communication and inclusion.
  • Leadership, management, entrepreneurship and workforce-development capabilities.
  • Readiness for emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, smart tourism, automation and data-driven decision-making.

These domains are consistent with the green/digital/resilience priorities of the EU Tourism Transition Pathway [4], the Tourism Skills Partnership under the Pact for Skills [5], and the digital/green/social skills intelligence work of PANTOUR [6][7].

03

Development process — from evidence to operational tool

Stage 1 — Review and gap analysis — Existing evidence was mapped against the information needed for a repeatable tourism-SME monitoring instrument. The purpose was to avoid duplicating T3.2 and to identify where company-level quantitative evidence was still missing [2][3].

Stage 2 — Survey design — Between February and March 2025, HOU developed a dedicated survey for tourism SME owners, managers, HR representatives, supervisors and other respondents with direct knowledge of workforce needs. The instrument combined Likert-scale items, structured choices, checklists and short open questions and was designed for completion in approximately 15 minutes [2].

Stage 3 — Validation and refinement — The original DoA foresaw one focus group per country. During implementation this was adapted to a combined validation model: structured consortium peer review; a consolidated multi-stakeholder session involving TOUR-X, Pact for Skills and PANTOUR participants; targeted consultation in Attica and Veneto; and additional partner feedback during the Potsdam TPM. Feedback led to changes in terminology, question logic, thematic priorities, response options, SME relevance and technical usability [2].

Stage 4 — Technical implementation and testing — Following validation of the English-language instrument, HOU developed the digital environment. The Final Technical Report records the first functional prototype on 9 June 2025, followed by internal testing and partner feedback [2]. The public survey, data-import area and administrative reporting functions constitute the principal operational components.

Stage 5 — Data integration, reporting and continuity — The methodology established a repeatable workflow for survey-data ingestion, controlled addition of contextual secondary evidence, reporting and export. The Final Technical Report records that the WatchTower was enriched through primary survey data, partner/stakeholder evidence, national and regional labour-market information, publicly available datasets, EU-level evidence and relevant secondary research [2]. Authorised users can analyse question-level responses and export data for further comparison. Where screenshots contain sample/test records, these are labelled as technical demonstrations rather than used to infer sector-wide results.

04

What the survey measures

The live questionnaire is organised into five sections [11]:

  • Business Profile — subsector, company size, location, workforce and training context.
  • Current Skills Gaps — digital, sustainability, intercultural and inclusion-related gaps and the roles most affected.
  • Workforce Competencies — proficiency, leadership readiness, sustainability-training coverage and competence-development methods.
  • Training Needs — recent training investment, priority topics, preferred formats and barriers/improvements.
  • Emerging Skills & Future Workforce Planning — AI/automation, data use, sustainability and climate resilience, inclusion, intercultural communication, crisis management and external support needs.

This structure allows the same instrument to capture current shortages, present training activity and expected future demand. The survey is multilingual at respondent level, and the public page identifies the supported language versions through the visible language selector.

05

Data sources and data-governance approach

The WatchTower uses two evidence streams. Primary evidence is generated through the tourism-SME survey. Secondary evidence is intended to contextualise the survey and may include official labour-market statistics, regional government publications, tourism-industry analyses, EU-level skills intelligence and other documented public sources [2][3]. Examples of relevant external reference frameworks include Cedefop skills intelligence [8][10], the Tourism Transition Pathway [4], the Pact for Skills Tourism partnership [5] and PANTOUR tourism-skills intelligence [6][7].

Secondary-source submission is controlled rather than anonymous. The public Data Import page specifies accepted machine-readable formats and requires authentication for upload. The Final Technical Report records primary/secondary data integration at system level; however, the revision evidence supplied to the Coordinator did not include an auditable source-by-source import log. This public description therefore identifies supported source categories without attributing individual imported datasets that cannot be verified.

Data protection. Personal-data handling follows the GDPR principles of lawfulness, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation and integrity/confidentiality [9]. Public survey participation, administrator access, analytical access and secondary-data upload have different access requirements within the operating model.

06

Reporting, analytics and visualisation

The operational environment contains an administrative Reporting and Analysis module. It supports question-level chart views, an administrative results log and CSV export. The Final Technical Report further records visual analytics, filters, regional/thematic comparison and reporting functions [2]; radar/spider-type visualisations can be produced by authorised users from the exported data (CSV) for further analysis. The public presentation links these functions to the documented initial evidence base and clearly labels the provenance of any chart or sample output.

For transparency, the public presentation distinguishes between three evidence layers: (a) the initial HOU evidence review and its thematic findings; (b) primary/secondary data integration recorded in the Final Technical Report; and (c) platform screenshots or sample/test records used to demonstrate technical functionality. Any published quantitative chart should identify its underlying dataset and coverage.

  • The Tourism Workforce Skills Needs Survey feeds the reporting interface used to process submissions;
  • Chart/sample outputs are labelled as technical demonstrations where real-world data are insufficient;
  • The operational interface provides analysis/filter/export controls for authorised use;
  • Regional/thematic comparison becomes analytically meaningful only once sufficient comparable real-world observations are available;
  • The platform generates chart-based visualisations (e.g. pie, bar and box charts) directly from submitted responses; where a spider/radar comparison is wanted, it can be produced by authorised users from the exported data (CSV). Such comparisons are not presented as empirical skills evidence when based on test data.
07

Initial data collection and initial results

Initial evidence collection. Between September 2024 and January 2025, HOU consolidated partner evidence and reviewed European policy frameworks, Cedefop analyses, national and regional studies, academic literature, WP3 skills-gap evidence, and relevant tourism and labour-market intelligence [2]. This was the WatchTower’s first structured data/evidence-collection stage and provided the empirical and policy basis for the survey design.

The initial research phase produced the following documented results:

  • five recurring skills domains were identified: digital skills and technology adoption; green and sustainability competences; customer service and intercultural communication; leadership, management and entrepreneurship; and emerging technologies, including AI, Smart Tourism and automation;
  • the five domains were translated directly into the survey structure, indicators and reporting outputs;
  • the subsequent validation process refined terminology, question logic, thematic priorities, response options, SME relevance and technical usability;
  • the Final Technical Report records integration of primary survey data with partner/stakeholder evidence, national/regional labour-market information, public datasets, EU-level evidence and relevant secondary research;
  • the project files supplied for this revision do not contain a consolidated respondent-level statistical table that would allow the Coordinator to reproduce an auditable N and percentage breakdown; therefore, this web copy does not introduce numerical claims that are not traceable to the available source files;
  • platform screenshots and exports should be labelled with their data provenance and coverage, and sample/test records may be used only to demonstrate functionality;
  • future reporting cycles should publish the achieved N, geographic/subsector coverage and appropriate caveats alongside any statistical findings.

This approach allows the Results page to present genuine initial findings immediately, while keeping later survey-based statistical interpretation proportionate to the dataset actually available in each reporting cycle.

08

Access, transferability and post-project continuity

The public survey can be accessed without registration. Analytical and data-export functions may be restricted to authorised stakeholders following verification. This separates the public deliverable and participation route from potentially sensitive respondent-level or future aggregate datasets. Stakeholders wishing to obtain analytical or reporting access should contact the WatchTower team via the Contact section of the platform, stating their organisation and purpose of access. The WatchTower team carries out the necessary internal checks and then sends the requesting stakeholder an email with a dedicated account and login details.

Transferability is supported by the Methodology and Operations Guide and the Long-Term Action Plan. Together they describe survey deployment, data processing, reporting, technical maintenance and post-project use. The model can be replicated by a regional Knowledge Triangle or VET provider by: (1) adopting the common survey or a documented local adaptation; (2) appointing a local coordinator; (3) recruiting tourism SMEs; (4) collecting and cleaning responses; (5) contextualising findings with documented secondary evidence; (6) generating regional outputs; and (7) feeding findings into curriculum, training and policy dialogue [1][2][3].

09

Version and verification information

Online toolClick here
Public surveyClick here
Current revision statusFINAL revised web copy
Revision date22 September 2026
Final platform version/datev2.0 / September 2026 revision reference
Primary-data statusNo statistically sufficient real-world tourism-SME dataset available at project closure; sample/test records are technical demonstration data only.

References and source framework

[1] TOUR-X Application Form, Technical Description (Part B), Task 5.2 and Milestone MS16. Internal project source. Task 5.2 defines the survey, technical implementation, integration of survey and secondary sources, annual updating, and transferability; MS16 specifies questionnaires/interview guides/reporting and the transformation of findings into learning objectives.

[2] TOUR-X Final Technical Report, WP5 / Task 5.2 — Skills WatchTower. Internal project source. Records the five thematic domains, the adapted validation model, prototype date, analytical functions, primary/secondary data categories, and sustainability arrangements.

[3] HOU, Final Methodology for Implementation of WP5 — Task 5.2, 14 February 2025. Internal methodological source used to structure survey design, data management, continuous monitoring and operational guidance.

[4] European Commission, Transition Pathway for Tourism (2022). https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/news/transition-pathway-tourism-published-today-2022-02-04_en

[5] European Commission, Pact for Skills — Tourism ecosystem and Skills Partnership for the Tourism Ecosystem. https://pact-for-skills.ec.europa.eu/about/industrial-ecosystems-and-partnerships/tourism-ecosystem-and-lsps_en

[6] PANTOUR, Skills Profile Report Europe (2024/2025 publication page). https://pact-for-skills.ec.europa.eu/community-resources/publications-and-documents/skills-profile-report-europe_en

[7] PANTOUR, Sectoral Skills Intelligence Monitoring System (2024). https://pact-for-skills.ec.europa.eu/community-resources/publications-and-documents/sectoral-skills-intelligence-monitoring-system_en

[8] Cedefop (2024), Next generation skills intelligence for more learning and better matching. https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/publications/9190

[9] Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation), especially Article 5 principles. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj

[10] Cedefop, Skills anticipation in Greece (2023 update) — example of national/regional skills anticipation and employer-survey approaches. https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/data-insights/skills-anticipation-greece-2023-update

[11] TOUR-X live Skills WatchTower survey. https://watchtower.tour-x.eu/tourism-workforce-skills-needs/

[12] Skills WatchTower — Long-Term Action Plan