Professor Andrew Jones, from the Institute for Tourism Travel and Culture (ITTC), has just returned from a visit to the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, where he delivered a paper titled 'Sustainable Tourism: Developing local capacity frameworks: the CoLead (Cooperating for Leadership in Tourism) initiative' at the annual CAUTHE (Council for Australian Tourism and Hospitality Education) International Conference.
Professor Jones said that CoLead is a European project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission which is led by ITTC at the University of Malta and works in partnership with Cardiff Metropolitan University, Jlag, INTASAVE and the Bulgarian Economic Forum. Launched in 2016, CoLead, he said, aims to implement the Project Management for Sustainable Development (PM4SD) methodology as a blended learning capacity building tool that will train and empower professionals, civil servants and trainers with appropriate management skills and expertise to design and deliver transformative sustainable tourism projects.
The paper presented by Professor Jones focussed on a review and evaluation of the CoLead project and its effectiveness in transferring sustainable tourism projects from theory into practice.
Professor Jones was also pleased to announce that the CoLead project, in conjunction with the Tourism Society - UK, won the Association of Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE) Award for 'Best project for Leadership in the Visitor Economy', at its annual conference in Cardiff UK held in December 2016. The conference aimed to celebrate the impact that teaching, learning and research in tourism can have on society.
Further details about the project can be found by contacting the Institute for Tourism Travel and Culture at the University of Malta, ittc@um.edu.mt or the CoLead project website.
Professor Jones added that a special thank you goes to Dr Giusy Cardia, Dr Sheena Carlisle, Mrs Silvia Barbone and Ms Christina Zlatnova, who also contributed to the paper and who together have helped to make CoLead a successful and innovative tourism project. The Project will be completed by December 2017.