Alumni News : KARNCHANA PHAKPHO Lecturer in International Tourism Management, International College at Bangkok University, Thailand

Posted . Filed under Alumni News, Student Experience.

Message from KARNCHANA PHAKPHO Lecturer in International Tourism Management, International College at Bangkok University, Thailand

 I graduated with a MSc in Tourism Management and Marketing in 2014. I am currently a full-time Lecturer in International Tourism Management, International College at Bangkok University city campus, Bangkok, Thailand. Without my master degree from Bournemouth University I would not have been able to get a job at my current university.

KARNCHANA PHAKPHO

 

The MSc in Tourism Management and Marketing fulfilled both my academic and professional skills. I learned a lot from my lecturers who are experts, researchers and textbook authors and all courses that I took with them provided me what I need to do my current job well. The MSc in Tourism Management and Marketing course from Bournemouth University is a pathway to the global tourism industry. In particular the eTourism and sport- tourism courses helped me to get a job as they are quite new in Thailand and the tourism trend in my country is now focusing on sport tourism. Moreover, the wide spread of digital technology and its applications have tremendously influenced the tourism industry.

My BU experience overall was excellent. I learned from experts, gained worldwide opportunities and enjoyed university life with international classmates. I would advice recent graduates looking for work to choose the right job that they are interested and specialise in.

Karnchana Phakpho 

Food Research and Innovation @ BU celebration, on Wednesday 18th May 2016 at Bournemouth University

Posted . Filed under News, Research.

Dear colleagues, 

This is an invitation from Professor Heather Hartwell to attend FoodBiz – the Food Research and Innovation @ BU celebration, on Wednesday 18th May 2016 at Bournemouth University, Executive Business Centre (7th floor). This FREE event brings together industry and academic partners to celebrate our Food Research and Innovation in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality at Bournemouth University to share findings from research and to take ideas forward within the health and wellness agenda. Guest speakers include industry professionals, and an update on the latest research from Bournemouth University.

 The event is aimed at businesses and organisations in a range of sectors including food, tourism, hospitality and those associated with nutrition/health operating locally, nationally and internationally. The programme themes include:

 Food Innovation – Chair Professor Heather Hartwell

The research and innovation activities at BU exploit complementary competences and enable the sharing ofknowledge and ideas from research to market (and vice-versa).

Food@BU4U – Chair Dr Sean Beer

How can the university benefit not only the user but also the foodservice industry, creating opportunities for a business to become aligned with a lifestyle product, and as a result corporate health, in a way which is novel, innovative and demonstrates excellence in science?

Food science at work – Chair Crispin Farbrother

Bournemouth University’s research in food is international, broad and multidisciplinary. 

We look forward to welcoming you and co-creating the future of Food Research and Innovation.

 

Please see the agenda and register for FREE here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/foodbiz-tickets-19780427792 

  

Follow us on Twitter: @EU_FoodSMART and visit www.foodsmartproject.net 

 

For more information please contact: Carmen Martins: cmartins@bournemouth.ac.uk  

 

JOB : Digital Marketing Apprenticeship in Keeping&Co. a young Design Agency, based in Bournemouth.

Posted . Filed under Featured.

Digital Marketing Apprenticeship – Job Description

Keeping&Co

 

This opportunity represents a chance for a young individual to realise their

potential in a fresh, creative and damn-right-cool environment; whilst working

with a variety of clients in both scale and sector. From small local businesses, to

large multi-national corporates.

 

The view will be for the candidate to stay with us beyond the apprenticeship, and

use the year’s training as a stepladder to a successful career in Digital Marketing.

 

Duties include

  • Using PPC and SEO strategies to manage and improve brand awareness
  • Keyword analysis
  • Website optimisation and site analysis (title tags, meta descriptions, etc.)
  • Generating updates and progress reports to general manager and other key stakeholders
  • Link outreach campaigns
  • Management of corporate PPC accounts (Google and Facebook) within assigned budget and Cost of Sale for high profile clients
  • Competitor analysis
  • Identify and implement new revenue driving opportunities
  • Suggesting technical improvements
  • Work with marketing team to identify new/most valuable search terms to target
  • Identifying conversion rate improvement opportunities
  • Measuring performance

Desired skills

  • Fluent written and spoken English is essential.
  • Sufficient knowledge of Google Analytics, Adwords, YouTube and Facebook advertising (must include ‘remarketing’).
  • An understanding of link building and all elements associated with running a top performing SEO program.
  • Good knowledge of HTML, Java, CSS would be an added benefit.
  • Knowledge of how website design and structure influence SEO.
  • Good understanding of other digital marketing channels including YouTube,Facebook and Twitter.
  • Good understanding of content writing and PPC marketing.
  • Impeccable attention to detail with the ability to spot gaps in our SEO campaigns.

Personal qualities

  • Proactive and professional attitude to work and continuous professional development.
  • Well organised with a ‘can do’ attitude and able to work in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications required

Ideally C Grades or above in Maths and English or equivalent.

About Us

We’re enabled by digital capabilities and have helped our clients to achieve great success online –

almost doubling their turnover within two months in some cases.

We are now working with exciting projects, such as Jurassica. A £100,000,000

project to build a prehistoric visitor attraction on the Jurassic Coast.

We require a hardworking, committed and invested individual who is looking to

develop themselves, and the company

Destination Management Organisations from Denmark on digital marketing workshop at Bournemouth University

Posted . Filed under News, Student Experience.

A delegation from Denmark representing two Danish destinations, Djursland (http://www.visitdjursland.com) and Hvide Sande (www.hvidesande.com) visited the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Bournemouth University for a digital marketing workshop. 

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The Destination Management Organisations were welcome by Dr Philip Alford and Professor Steve Page as part of the collaboration following the publication of the Digital Destinations research in Services Industries Journal last year. They are here on a fact finding, knowledge transfer trip and were in Salisbury on a workshop facilitated by Philip and Stephen along with VisitWiltshire and Digital Visitor.

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The workshop in Bournemouth focused on engaging small and medium sized business partners in digital marketing and improving their skill set. They are adopting some of the recommendations that we published in the paper referred to above,including the testing of a digital marketing planning framework, adopting best practice in web analytics and data-driven marketing.

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Bournemouth University postgraduate Tourism Marketing students were also invited to join the digital marketing workshop as this is what they’re studying at present.

Tourism master students take part in a co-creation project on conflict transformation through gamification at post conflict sites

Posted . Filed under Featured, News, Student Experience.

During March 2016 three of our Tourism master students, Gian-Luc Angiolini and Hannah Lee (MSc Tourism Management) and Oliver Te-Chang Liu (MSc Tourism Management and Marketing) along with Dr Avital Biran have travelled to Kosovo. This was part of a co-creation project aiming is to foster conflict transformation (reconciliation) by facilitating engagement with a plurality of narratives, nurturing empathy and recognition of the cultural heritage of war via contemporary gaming technology. This is an inter-disciplinary project involving BU staff and students from a range of different departments and research areas (transitional justice, sociology, anthropology, game design and tourism) as well as students and staff from the University of Pristina, Kosovo and a local NGO.

 

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Following an intensive preparation workshop acquainting students with conflict transformation theory, and the pertinent cultural, historical and ethical issues of Kosovo, we headed for a week-long field trip in Kosovo. Once we had arrived in Pristina (the capital city of Kosovo), participants were split into different groups with diverse academic backgrounds and were tasked with different “quests” to explore the city and the heritage of Kosovo (revolving around issues like street art; transitional justice and traditions; politics of memory; gender and national identity). This was followed with visits to some of Kosovo’s main cultural and war heritage sites, such as Gjakova, Prizren, Mitrovica and Prekaz. After thoroughly researching the country, considering the massive potential it had to offer concerning its fascinating cultural heritage and history of conflict, and reflecting on their own visit experience, participants were charged with the task of designing a “serious game” for post-conflict sites which could help to bring about conflict transformation.

 

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Summarising their experience, Gian-Luc notes: It was really exciting for all of us to be involved in real, meaningful research. However, it wasn’t all work and no play, we had some fun too! We were based in Pristina, which is the largest city in the country and has about 200,000 inhabitants (slightly larger than Bournemouth). It is certainly the heart of the country and is a central spot for political thinking, an active student life and a developing international community. Even on our strict time budgets, we were still able to indulge ourselves in some well-earned rest and cross-cultural socialising with the students of Pristina, even after our tiring days of research. Well we did deserve to treat ourselves a little bit! We all worked hard and felt as though we achieved a lot, both academically as well as developing a positive link between BU and the University of Pristina.

New Paper: Strategic and tactical price decisions in hotel revenue management

Posted . Filed under News, Research.

 New Research paper:
 Graziano Abrate Giampaolo Viglia 2016,
Strategic and tactical price decisions in hotel revenue management,
Tourism Management Volume 55, August 2016, Pages 123–132
 

Highlights

•The study proposes and empirically validates a dynamic pricing framework.
•Three groups of factors are identified in their strategic and tactic dimensions.
•The Shapley-Owen decomposition of R-squared is applied to price regression models.
•Results allow measuring the relative weight of pricing determinants.
•Contextual variables have a relevant role in short-run price variations.

Abstract

Dynamic pricing techniques allow using a number of variables in a tactical way compared to standard catalogue prices. This study merges in a conceptual model the relevance of the tactical and the strategic dimension of these variables, classified according to their tangible, reputational or contextual nature. To empirically validate the hypotheses, a database of 21.596 price observations was retrieved from booking.com. The study presents a hedonic price function, using the Shapley-Owen decomposition of the R-squared to elicit the importance of each group of factors. Further, a hierarchical cluster analysis measures the presence of heterogeneity across operators. The results show that online reputation is gaining importance over the traditional star rating. Despite the tangible variables remain of paramount importance, the findings suggest the relevant role of contextual variables in short-run price variations. The players operating in the tourism and hospitality industries should integrate these findings when designing pricing strategies.

Keywords

  • Dynamic prices;
  • Competition;
  • Online reputation;
  • Hedonic pricing model;
  • Shapley-Owen decomposition
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Graziano Abrate is a Researcher in Business Management at the University of Piemonte Orientale, Italy. His research focuses on the application of quantitative tools for service management, particularly in the area of pricing, demand estimation and efficiency analysis. He has published in several international journals, among which Tourism Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Regional Studies, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Industrial and Corporate Change, Journal of Productivity Analysis, Journal of Economic Psychology, Transportation Research E and IEEE Transactions on Power Systems.

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Giampaolo Viglia is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Management of Bournemouth University, UK. His research interests lie in the areas of pricing, consumer anomalies and online reviews. Methodologically, he enjoys both quantitative studies and conducting experiments. His work has been published in a number of international journals, such as Journal of Interactive Marketing, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Economic Psychology, and The Service Industries Journal.

Studying sustainable and wildlife tourism at Bournemouth University

Posted . Filed under Featured, News, Research, Student Experience.

Studying sustainable and wildlife tourism at Bournemouth University Department of Tourism and Hospitality

Drs. Susanna Curtin and Jon Edwards had an enjoyable day out at RSPB Arne with the MSc students studying wildlife, nature and ecotourism. They were there to experience the diverse wetland and woodland habitat and to learn about the relationship between nature reserves and ecotourism.

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 Are nature reserves visitor attractions?  Becky Williams from the RSPB gave an interesting talk on how they manage the influx of visitors who range from avid bird watchers, dog walkers and/or family day trippers.  The new shop and café are an added attraction and will further increase visitor numbers causing pressure on car parking, facilities and residents along the approach road. 

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However, the increase visitor numbers is also a factor of changing lifestyles and the desire to get out and experience nature in a beautiful and accessible part of Poole harbour.  Visitors are therefore welcomed at the reserve as increased numbers means increased spend in the shop and the café and increased RSPB memberships inspired by the visitor experience.  Good for nature and good for people.  The students had a nice day out and learned a lot too. 

 

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CAA visits Bournemouth University to explain Financial protection for Air Holidaymakers (CAA)

Posted . Filed under Guest speakers, Student Experience.

CAA visits Bournemouth University to explain Financial protection for Air Holidaymakers (CAA)

13174226_10154054492847527_7263188789216448023_nDerek Robbins welcoming David Clover from Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is coming to give a Lecture on Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (ATOL) Financial protection for Air Holidaymakers. https://www.caa.co.uk/atol-protection/

David is Manager, ATOL, Crisis/Contingency Planning & Consumer PR at Civil Aviation Authority. He works in the Consumers & Markets Group where he is the Manager of the ATOL scheme.13177720_10154054492832527_165241770280492310_n13173899_10154054492902527_8389939761064182989_n