The Co-operating for Leadership in Tourism (CoLead) project will establish a "Strategic Partnership for Innovative Leadership in Tourism" to develop and test existing professional trainings and tools to develop teams of professionals, trainers and students with appropriate management, leadership and entrepreneurial skills and expertise who can directly assist destinations and enterprises to support their strategies, plans, and actions for their sustainable tourism growth. The project will establish innovative training practices in sustainable tourism, defining, accrediting and certifying sustainable tourism modules alongside PM4SD and other existing training tools to be included within the European VET system, providing a standard benchmark for sustainable tourism management. The certified trainings and tools developed through the project will be based on: PM4SD (Project Management for Sustainable Development) certification; The Sustainable Tourism for Development Guidebook (edited by UNWTO); the World Heritage Sustainable Tourism Toolkit, and the European Indicators System (ETIS). Results will be accessible through an open source platform and for 40 participants, 2 training classes will be delivered, 15 trainers will be certified by the end of the project. The main target during the project delivery is represented by: ETIS destinations (220); UNWTO Heritage Sites (almost 500), established European Tourism Itineraries. The project involves 4 countries, Malta, Belgium, United Kingdom and Bulgaria. The consortia is a multi-disciplinary partnership which comprises six partners: 2 Universities (University of Malta and Cardiff Metropolitan University ), one small-medium sized enterprise which is training provider for sustainable tourism management, (JLAG-UK), one business public-private association (the Bulgarian Economic Forum), one European network representing European regional governments (NECSTOUR, bases in Belgium), one non-governmental organisation (The INTASAVE-CARIBSAVE Group, UK). The geographical impact and outreach will be much higher due to NECSTouR which represents 32 European regional authorities, and thanks to partnership agreements with key European and International Stakeholders. Stakeholders and end users will be actively involved during the project activities, testing, validating and disseminating project results. The CoLead Tourism Strategic Partnership aims to build training certifications for professionals and leaders in tourism and boost the capacity in the regions involved in job creation for tourism professionals and experts, as well as to support tourism students in defining their career path as well as support policy makers to elevate tourism to the next level in regards to sustainability. The EU is a major tourist destination, with 5 Member States among the world’s top 10 holiday destinations (UNWTO 2013). Taking into account the sectors linked to it, tourism is estimated to generate over 10% of the EU's GDP and provides 12% of all jobs. (Eurostat 2010). This project directly responds to the 3 priorities of the Europe 2020 strategy. It will assist the transition to smart growth through a tourism economy underpinned with enhanced knowledge and innovation; to sustainable growth due to the accredited project management methodology promoting more resource efficient management of tourism European destinations; and inclusive growth as a result of job creation in tourism destinations due to their being managed more successfully. The project activities will be: • Researching and producing 15 real life case studies of best practices in managing sustainable tourism projects from European tourism destinations. These will be used to develop practical training materials for the training course • Developing a unique course curriculum and training materials including a training manual and teaching toolkit for trainers to be able to successfully run the programme for both industry practitioners and students • Piloting the training programme with 40 participants • Launching an online e-learning platform with electronic training materials • Developing guidelines for policymakers, industry and academia to demonstrate the connection between tourism education and employment and how to embed projects results in their VET systems. • Organising 4 public event in different European locations to communicate the results of the project to a wide range of audiences working in the tourism industry.