The ECOViP Project launch, that consisted of a public launch event and a kick of meeting for partners served to present the project to the consortium and to relevant regional stakeholders. This first face-to-face meeting started the collaboration among the partners, developed a sense of ownership, and contributed to building relationships.
The objectives of the project launch were:
Introducing the ECOViP project to stakeholders in Vietnam, the Philippines and beyond, and to increase participation in project events
Raising awareness on the importance of supporting university students and graduates in the development of their employability and entrepreneurship efforts
Promoting University-Business partnerships for improving students’ employability
Raising awareness on the importance of Sustainable Tourism.
Learning from experiences of past Erasmus + CBHE projects related to Entrepreneurship and Tourism.
Familiarising partners with each other and with the project objectives, work plan and methodologies, as well as with the expected results and impact, in order to ensure smooth project implementation and begin developing a sense of ownership.
That partners could identify the project benefits and expected impact for their institutions and begin planning for sustainability.
After this meeting, PC-HEIs multiplied the awareness of the project among key university stakeholders by following up with outreach actions in their institutions. These outreach events served to disseminate the project as well as to bring it closer to each university’s community. The different coming activities under the project’s framework were exposed and the staff and students’ interest around them were raised, especially concerning the Ecotourism Hub and the student bootcamp. In overall, a sense of ownership and engagement with the project was created. In addition, these events improved the partnership between different departments in one institution, or even between different institutions and, as a result, promoted collaboration as well as a feeling of shared purpose and community. Moreover, these events not only served to make participating staff and students clearly aware of the opportunities of the project, but also motivated them to spread the spirit of entrepreneurship to other students, since these events were also framed under activities that enhanced entrepreneurship.
In conclusion, the project’s goals have been greatly aided by the favourable participation and responses of the Outreach Event’s audience. Thanks to these events, information about ECOViP has been transmitted to at least three thousand people, including faculty staff and students from the different universities, particularly from Tourism-related disciplines but not only. These initiatives support the project’s information-sharing and innovation-fostering objectives by broadening students’ understanding and engagement to ecotourism and entrepreneurship. Lastly, they lay the groundwork for the influence by providing the students with the means to make a significant and sustainable contribution to the growth of the tourism industry in the Philippines and Vietnam.
