Within the Tourism sector, which employs over 12 million people, many employees and especially young people, work on short term contracts and follow a pattern of intense high season activity followed by low season unemployment. The issue of seasonality in tourism has long been a source of concern expressed in EU publications and it is feared that the intense concentration of touristic activities in a relatively short period of time “may have dramatic negative impact on local economies for the whole year” (Ecorys Study in support of policy measures for maritime and coastal tourism, 2013). This is particularly true with regard to employment prospects of the tourism workers in the areas of a “marked seasonality” that is, those dependent on the “sun and beach” model or winter skiing resorts. Official reports have proved this cross-border trend is evident in most seasonal tourist hot spots. This cycle disproportionately affects young people who resort to seasonal work to escape unemployment, but often become trapped in this cyclical process, where they are unable to follow more sustainable career options. And yet, seasonal workers within the tourism sector have already gained valuable skills that could be utilised for more professional careers. The main objective of the VALITS project was to break this cycle and help young people working in seasonal tourism to find longer term employment opportunities. Five project partners from Spain, Austria, Poland, Bulgaria and Italy cooperated in this project: - Sea Teach (ES) is a VET provider organisation active in tourism 'hot spot' of the Balearic Islands and experienced in the field of validation and comparison of qualifications.- Danmar Computers (PL) contributed its extensive expertise in developing software applications within an educational environment.- Know and Can Association (BG) brought to the project its experience in the field of applying specialized programs to develop social and civil skills using modern methods in non-formal education.- Euro (IT) runs the Alcamo National Park and employs seasonal workers as well as being a training center for the tourism sector.- SMC (AT) is a training centre situated in a winter alpine centre, experienced in offering re-education training and working with seasonal tourism workers.To reach its objectives, the partners undertook the following activities: 1.)The partners identified through extensive desk and field research the 10 most fundamental informal transversal skills and competences, inside and outside of the tourism sector.2.)The consortium developed an assessment methodology that is based on an objective assessment and not self-assessment. From this methodology the partners developed the 'Validation Tool' that assesses the users for their perfomance in all 10 informal transversal skills and provides them after test completion with a meaningful and graded assessment certificate. 3.)Finally the partners created and developed the 'Career Guidance App' that matches the users' identified informal transversal skills to longer term career opportunities that are required by other professional sectors. The VALITS project has provided the two tools, the Validation Tool and the Career Guidance App that have the potential to break the unemployment cycle for short season workers. These VALITS tools have a variety of important impacts and will 1.) provide young seasonal tourism sector workers with new career pathway options that match their informal transversal skills identified in the assessment and are in demand by longer term jobs and careers,2.) help young seasonal tourism sector workers to accelerate their pathways to quality employment in a more linear, less interrupted or detoured way,3.) save employers time and effort firstly in attracting and filtering the right kind of skills in their candidature that can also help them to base their recruitment decision on a transparent and concrete foundation instead of having to rely on subjective assessment and experiences,4.) make employers in the tourism sector more aware of the utilities of their employees’ skills and add new employment plans for them, including job rotation or promotion incentives, and 5.) add complementary tools to the existing EU skills and competency tools like Europass, EURES and ESCO.In the long-term perspective the VALITS Tools can be easily transferred to other target groups and other economic sectors, offering a viable Open Educational Resource (OER) to employees and employers, thereby fostering the recognition and use of informal transversal skills and enabling employees as well as employers to close skills gaps and skills mismatches more efficiently.

"For people from disadvantaged groups and low-skilled persons, Informal Transversal Skills are often the ""key"" to access a job and are likely to become essential in today's work environment: Whilst digital and technological developments replace many low skilled jobs, it is increasingly important to have skills that can not be replaced by computers or robots. Disadvantaged and low-skilled persons often lack formal qualifications and are not aware of their often high levels of transversal skills such as teamwork, customer orientation and work under pressure.The first step for these groups is therefore to have their personal informal transversal skills recognised and then to either use these to find employment or to learn new skills and improve existing skills. The VALITS 2.0 project will develop three tools that a) provide low-skilled workers with a detailed and objective assessment of their informal transversal skills ,b) suggest pathways to learn and improve those skills, and finally c) train professional qualification consultants in the better use and assessment of informal transversal skills. Through these tools, the VALITS 2.0 project will enhance access to training, qualifications and employment for low-skilled workers by1.) assessing their Informal Transversal skills with a tool that guarantees objective results (the user does not self-assess and is not aware of which skills are tested),2.) validating their skills by making their Informal Transversal skills visible and documenting them in a credible Skills Certificate that employers can trust,3.) supporting them by connecting the VALITS 2.0. Assessment Tool to a Learning Guide that helps to find resources to improve their skills (online courses, group training courses, MOOCs, national support systems) tailored to the individuals’ needs, and4.) providing a Training Manual for professional qualification consultants of how to support disadvantaged and low-skilled persons in identifying and better using these skills. The partner consortium brings together five partners from five EU countries who are closely linked to working with low-skilled persons, have close ties to employment services and are experts in qualification and skills analysis. They will jointly:a) develop an innovative free informal skills assessment tool that uses fully interactive test, gaming elements and 3-D environments to detect and assess users' skills,b) identify learning and training options and pathways for the users to learn and improve these important skills,c) compile and design a Training Manual to support qualification consultants in their use of informal skills,d) organise 5 national workshops and an international conference to disseminate and multiply the use of the developed tools. The immediate expected impact of the VALITS 2.0 project is to generate for disadvantaged groups and low-skilled persons (target group a) through the VALITS 2.0 Assessment Tool and the Skills Learning Guide - a diminutive effect on unemployment or job insecurity ,- to generate a positive effect on their job mobility, and- through this to foster social inclusion.The impact for professional qualification consultants (target group b) will be in the provision of an effective new tool-set, combined with a training directed especially at them. At the same time it will offer employers an objective tool to assess informal skills of future and/ or existing employees.In a wider perspective, the VALITS project will be designed with scalable and transferable outputs. By incorporating components of several EU tools into its methodology (such as ECVET, Europass and ESCO), the project will develop a model that can transferred to other target groups in order to support the mobility of workforce across different sectors and create flexible pathways in line with learners' and employees needs and objectives. The project will thereby deliver an important contribution to the “New Skills Agenda for Europe”, that aims at “making better use of the skills that are available” as well as fulfilling the requirements of the ET2020 strategic framework."