20 students who are currently in the fourth year of their studies at the Institut St. Josef completed a twelve week internship at a hotel within Europe. The internships took place in France, Portugal and the UK. They started on the 7th June and run until the end of September 2015. Primarily, the goal was for the students to perfect the training they have learnt at school and expand their employability skills at a company in Europe, their aims were as follows: • Further develop and strengthen their practical and theoretical skills in the hotel and gastronomy field. • Personality development, strengthening selfconfidence and independence. • Boost teamworking skills and for them to develop a sense of responsibility. • To develop an openness to learn and deal with things both new and foreign. • Expansion of communication skills (general, subjectspecific,foreign language) • Willingness and ability to participate in the labour market outside of Austria’s borders. Results and impact: Most participants were able to develop and strengthen their linguistic, practical and theoretical skills, as well as their social competencies,some of them to a considerable extent. We have been able to maintain our partnerships with a number of hotels and catering companies in other European countries and at the same time have managed to build new relationships with four institutions which are now willing to accept students from our school for future work placements. It is obviously a great advantage for our students to have been able to gain deeper insight into the chances and opportunities individuals can take and profit from doing an internship in another European country. In addition to this, they have also realized the value of taking part in this European network in connection with future jobs they want to apply for in the Vorarlberg region. More and more of our students use the contacts they have established during their work placement to find employment abroad after their final exams at our school and they are now aware of the various mobility projects offered by the National Agency for Lifelong Learning. Most of our Erasmus participants are enthusiastic about the programme and the great chance they have been given and therefore look back to their experience with pride. However, there is also a small number of students who have had to find out about their own limitations doing their internship abroad and are now more aware of the qualities it takes to cope with stress. The implementation of the Erasmus + project encourages the cooperation of schools like ours with economical connections of EU-wide contacts. This increases the chances of all pupils of our school to make career-related experiences abroad. The implementation of the Erasmus mobility+ project is also a way of ensuring the quality of schooling. Together with their employer’s reference letter this can be seen as a valuable asset for their future career.