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.