An ICT-Based Competence Framework to Facilitate Intercultural Competence Continuous Professional Development

Abstract

The changing nature of the socio-economic environment requires the operators update their knowledge and skills continually in order to remain competitive. Tourism is no exception. The Maltese Tourism industry has gone from a fairly homogenous to a much more diverse type of visitor who not only has different interests but may uphold culturally diverse values, beliefs and behaviour compared to those of the persons employed in tourism. The nature of the sector itself suggests that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) may help support training. ICT may be used facilitate the acquisition, assessment and ultimately accreditation of intercultural competence related knowledge and skills within a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme. To ensure the success of such an initiative, it is important to determine the fundamental knowledge and skills making up intercultural competence and devise a pedagogical setting which is appropriate, for the intended audience. Constructive Alignment may well provide the answers in this respect, as it permits the parties involved (teachers and learners) to ‘construct’ the requirements or evidence in order to achieve a specific objective or Intended Learning Outcome (ILO). However, the myriad of ICT-based solutions calls for a detailed investigation in order to select the appropriate electronic environment in order to truly enable the take-up, assessment and accreditation of intercultural competence.