A REVIEW ON THE QUALIFICATION TRAINING IN TOURISM: THE RELEVANCE OF THE MICRO AND SMALL ENTERPRISE FOR THE TOURIST DESTINATION

This paper aims to identify the main challenges and trends of the training and professional education in tourism, as well as their employability in the context of a tourist destination (TD) mainly formed by Micro and Small Enterprises (MSES). Based on the specialized literature on SME and professional education in tourism, we carried out a qualitative and quantitative exploratory study applied to those firms with Features Activities of Tourism - ACTS responsible for hiring at the TD. After literature review and analysis of secondary information, we proceed to the data collection which was based on the partitioned sampling technique choosing the most representative firms of the sector. The results indicate, first, that MSE's account for 92 % of the tourist trade and, second, it is very low the rate of the tourism qualified personnel hired in by these SME, which tends to impact the capacity and quality development of tourism products. In addition, it was identified significant lack of tourism specialist functions by the SME and a lack of skills and competencies by the employees to apply to them. Thus, it is concluded that there are two, structural and systemic, major challenges: to qualify the SME, but these, in turn, need the skills and competencies of the tourism qualified personnel, which however are not fully developed.