New technologies, sustainability and changing visitor expectations are transforming tourism across the Adriatic-Ionian Region. Developing the right skills and creating fair opportunities to participate will be essential to this transition.
Tourism jobs are changing rapidly. Employees increasingly need skills that go beyond traditional service delivery, from sustainability, digital tools and artificial intelligence to accessibility, resource efficiency and changing visitor expectations. New professional profiles are also emerging in areas such as sustainability management, inclusive tourism and tourism data analysis.
At the same time, access to learning is not equal for everyone. Seasonal workers, employees of small and micro-enterprises and people living in rural, remote and island areas can face barriers such as lack of time, training costs, distance or difficulties combining work and learning. Young people entering the labour market may complete their education but still lack practical experience and contact with employers.
A more sustainable tourism sector starts with people who have the right skills and a fair opportunity to participate.
This connection between skills, employment and inclusion was at the heart of Skills for Sustainable and Inclusive Tourism in the Adriatic-Ionian Region, the EUSAIR thematic event held in Split on 5–6 November 2026. The event brought together EUSAIR Thematic Pillar 5 – Improved Social Cohesion and Thematic Pillar 4 – Sustainable Tourism to strengthen the links between tourism development, skills, education, employment and social inclusion.
Skills that lead somewhere
One of the central messages from Split was the need to bring education and the workplace closer together.
Education and training providers need regular contact with tourism businesses to identify changing skills needs, while practical learning can give people opportunities to apply their knowledge in real working environments. Structured workplace learning, mentoring and closer cooperation between employers and education providers can also help young people move from learning into employment.
Inclusion requires attention to what happens after training as well. Participants identified barriers such as inaccessible workplaces, inflexible working arrangements, unsuitable recruitment procedures and insufficient support after entering employment. The discussions therefore highlighted individual guidance, workplace mentoring, accessible recruitment and continued support as ways of creating more inclusive pathways into work.
Training opens the door, but practical experience and mentoring help people take the next step into employment.
The conclusion from the examples presented in Split was clear: skills development is most effective when education providers, employers, public authorities and local communities work together, combining practical learning and individual support with real employment opportunities.
When local knowledge becomes an opportunity
Not all the skills needed for the future of tourism are technological. Storytelling, cultural interpretation, creativity, communication and local knowledge can also create professional and entrepreneurial opportunities.
Dalmatia Storytelling Destination, presented during the event, demonstrated how local stories and cultural heritage can be combined with storytelling and interpretation skills to create distinctive tourism experiences. The approach develops competencies while bringing local knowledge and identity into the tourism offer and can create new professional and entrepreneurial opportunities for people involved in destination development.
When local knowledge is combined with professional skills, heritage becomes an experience that visitors can understand, remember and share.
A good solution should not stop at the border
The challenges discussed in Split are shared across the Adriatic-Ionian Region: skills shortages, seasonal employment, demographic change, unequal access to training and difficulties in attracting and retaining tourism workers.
At the same time, useful projects and practices already exist. The challenge is to make this knowledge easier to find, understand and adapt in different local contexts. Participants discussed study visits, mentoring, peer reviews, workshops and direct cooperation as practical ways for organisations to learn how solutions work and consider how they could be adapted elsewhere.
Macro-regional cooperation turns isolated examples into shared knowledge and shared knowledge into practical action.
This is where EUSAIR can add value: by connecting projects, institutions and people facing similar challenges, supporting the exchange of practical knowledge and helping successful approaches reach more destinations across the Adriatic-Ionian Region.
From Split to action
The discussions in Split also resulted in concrete recommendations. Participants proposed stronger and more regular cooperation between education providers and tourism employers, more structured workplace learning and mentoring, more inclusive pathways from training to employment, and stronger cooperation across the region to identify, test and transfer successful solutions.
Among the immediate next steps identified were mapping relevant tourism skills and inclusion projects across the Adriatic-Ionian Region, selecting good practices for study visits and peer learning, connecting recommendations with relevant national, regional and EU programmes, and exploring the feasibility of a cross-border pilot on housing and integration for tourism workers.
The next step is not simply to collect more examples, but to test, transfer and scale the solutions that already work.
The Split event showed that the Adriatic-Ionian Region already has ideas, experience and successful examples. The task now is to connect this knowledge, support the people driving change and turn shared recommendations into practical cooperation. Through EUSAIR, countries and sectors can work together to create better learning opportunities, more inclusive pathways into employment and tourism development that delivers lasting value for workers, visitors and local communities.
Because the future of tourism starts with people.