Janet Dickinson begins work on the 6th Sense campsite app

Posted . Filed under News, Research.

School of Tourism lecturer Janet Dickinson has been working on a research project with other academics called The 6th Transport project and they have recently started trails of the 6th Sense campsite app.

The RCUK funded project is designed to explore new ways to bring about more sustainable transport. The research vision is to understand the extent to which behavioural change in transport habits and practices can be facilitated through the creation of a new form of ‘transport network’, based on extending social networking principles to transport users and their individual vehicles.

The campsite app puts tourists staying at the campsite into a social network that facilitates opportunities for travel collaboration. Travel collaboration might involve:

  • Picking up an item from a shop while you are there to save another visitor making a car trip. The app will alert users to this opportunity using a geofence system
  • Organising lifts to avoid car use
  • Providing travel information to avoid car trips where congestion is bad or car parks are full

The app also visualises the collective patterns of the campsite users so people get a better understanding of visitor routines to realise collaborative travel opportunities.

This tourism trial is part of a wider project with 2 other strands. The first is about improving logistics and is working with Oxfam UK to improve the efficiency of their operations. The second is working with schools to develop a real-time walking school bus app.

For more information on the project and to follow the project please see here www.sixthsensetransport.com

A year since we were all watching the Olympics!

Posted . Filed under News, Research, Student Experience.

Event Management Lecturer Debbie Sadd is undertaking a research project which involves interviewing volunteers from London 2012.

Debbie was not only a Games Maker but also a Torch Bearer for London 2012.

Although it is a year since many people volunteered at the Games, Debbie along with her colleague Dr Ana Adi from the Media School, are undertaking the huge task of capturing the volunteer stories for an oral digital archive.

With several interviews already undertaken and many more to complete, the two have begun to develop a key message already for Ana to take with her to an Olympics conference in Buenos Aires in September attended by key Olympic scholars and International Olympic Committee representatives.

If you are interested in being part of this research project please email volunteerhistories@bournemouth.ac.uk

Barbara Neuhofer awarded ITT PhD Student of the Year Prize at ITT’s Annual Chairman’s Summer Cocktails

Posted . Filed under News, Research, Student Experience.

Last week Barbara Neuhofer was awarded the ITT PhD Student of the Year prize during the ITT’s Annual Chairman’s Summer Cocktails.

Barbara was nominated by Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, who has worked closely with Barbara in the e-Tourism lab. This is Dimitrios’ 2nd student in a row that has received the prestigious award as his PhD student Andrew Spencer was also awarded ITT PhD Student of the Year last year.

The event was held at The House of Commons and was sponsored by Dubai Tourism.

Guests were treated to a drinks reception and canapés before Dame Tessa Jowell MP presented the awards.

Barbara commented “I feel truly proud and honoured to receive this prestigious award by the Institute of Travel & Tourism. It is a great recognition for my PhD research and I am extremely grateful to Bournemouth University and to all the people who have supported me in my studies, in particular to my supervisor Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis. It was a privilege to celebrate this achievement in such a fantastic location, the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. It was a truly memorable evening for all of us.”

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, Barbara’s supervisor, commented “This is a great recognition of the great progress that Barbara is doing in her PhD and the contribution to knowledge she is producing as evidenced in her publications and her community service through IFITT and other communities. I am particularly happy that this is the second student after Dr Andrew Spencer who won the ITT award last year and this is a testament to the cutting edge research we do at the eTourism Lab at Bournemouth University.”

Congratulations to Barbara on this incredible achievement!

Dr Tim Breitbarth and a final year Sports Management student win best paper at the Academy of Marketing Conference 2013

Posted . Filed under News, Research, Student Experience.

Back in early July Dr Tim Breitbarth attended the Academy of Marketing Conference 2013 hosted by the University of South Wales in Cardiff.

Tim presented the paper “Downstream indirect reciprocity: explaining and measuring consumer reactions to sport clubs’ corporate social responsibility activities” which was co-authored by himself, Dr Stefan Walzel, German Sport University, Cologne and John Bryson, final year Bournemouth University Sports Management student.

The paper won the Best Paper in the Sports Marketing track at the conference. The award was sponsored by Emerald.

The paper presented by Tim forms part of an on-going research project. The international project team for the research, led by Stefan has also just been awarded £15,000 from the prestigious UEFA Research Grant.

Congratulations to Tim, Stefan and John on this achievement.

First International Meeting UNWTO.TedQual Students’ Advisory Board

Posted . Filed under News, Research, Student Experience.

Bournemouth University will be hosting the first meeting of the UNWTO.TedQual Students’ Advisory Board from September 4th-6th 2013.

The Advisory Board has been created with the goal to learn from and share with future tourism professionals their thoughts, worries, aspirations and commitments once accessing the labour market.

To this aim, students from around the world will gather for three days in Bournemouth to share their opinion with UNWTO on two main topics: The Tourism Labour Market and how they, as future professionals, can make clear commitments to contribute to the Sustainable Development of the sector.

With this focus in mind, during the meeting, the Advisory Board will have the opportunity to speak with the employers, to participate in mock job interviews, and work on the ethics Decalogue for future professionals of the tourism sector.

We strongly hope this Students’ Advisory Board will contribute to the better development of the sector, as well as to the development of the student’s own personal and professional talents.

We will be keeping you updated with this event over the next few weeks

For more information please see here

For the programme please see here

For travel information please see here

To join the conversation on Facebook please see here

Making Waves: The International Conference on Events and 10th AEME Forum

Posted . Filed under Guest speakers, News, Research.

Last week Bournemouth University School of Tourism hosted the International Conference on Events (ICE) and 10th AEME Forum.

The conference was attended by event management academics from around the world and also several key members of event management industry and associations.

The 3 day conference was opened by the Vice Chancellor of Bournemouth University John Vinney and School of Tourism Dean Keith Wilkes. They were followed by Nick de Bois MP and Chair of All Parliamentary Group who delivered a Keynote presentation on “The importance and challenges of event policy, practice and education”.

The first day continued with a Professionalisation of the Industry Panel, Key notes from Alistair Turner, PR Director of Davies Tanner; Jon Weaver, Marketing and Events Manager for Bournemouth Tourism and Professor Stephen Page from Bournemouth University, as well as several breakout sessions for academic paper presentations.

The 2nd day of the conference had a mixture of academic Keynote speeches including Don Getz and Alan Fyall and several industry Keynote speeches from Fiona Pelham, Director of Sustainable Events Ltd and Liz Sinclair, ESP Recruitment, to name a few.

The 2nd day of the conference also had lots of breakout sessions with academic presentations.

The final day of the conference hosted the 10th AEME Forum and an Association Panel hosted by Glenn Bowdin. There were also key note presentations from Professor Leo Jago, Nick Dodds, Managing Director FEI and Philip Day, NOEA.

In addition to the conference, the delegates enjoyed a packed social schedule which included welcome drinks at Aruba, a beach themed evening with dancing and ice cream at Bournemouth Pier and a Gala Dinner at Compton Acres.

As well as providing networking opportunities, the conference helped to build new and develop existing academic relationships that will be beneficial for future research and ultimately for our students.

Thank you to all you came to the conference or helped in some way to make it a success.

The ICE discussion will continue on the website and via social media. We will also be posting photos and videos and any updates on the Let’s Talk Events and Leisure website.

Barbara Neuhofer selected as this year’s ITT PhD Student of the Year

Posted . Filed under News, Research, Student Experience.

Last week it was announced that Barbara Neuhofer had been selected as this year’s ITT PhD Student of the Year.

Barbara was nominated by Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, who has worked closely with Barbara in the e-Tourism lab. This is Dimitrios’ 2nd student in a row that has received the prestigious award as his PhD student Andrew Spencer was also awarded ITT PhD Student of the Year last year.

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis commented “This is a great recognition of the great progress that Barbara is doing in her PhD and the contribution to knowledge she is producing as evidenced in her publications and her community service through IFITT and other communities.

 I am particularly happy that this is the second student after Dr Andrew Spencer who won the ITT award last year and this is a testament to the cutting edge research we do at the eTourism Lab at Bournemouth University.”

The award will be presented to Barbara during the Chairman’s Summer Cocktail Party at the House of Commons on Thursday 18th July.

We will be bringing the news from that event next week.

Congratulations again to Barbara!

Andrew Hares PhD Success

Posted . Filed under News, Research, Student Experience.

Back in Early June, Andrew Hares was awarded his PhD due to some minor changes. His examiners commended Andrew on his research and were impressed by the quality of the thesis.

Andrew’s thesis was titled “Tourist understanding of and engagement with the climate change impacts of holidays” and a brief description is included below:

The research study examined tourists’ understanding of and engagement with climate change.  Holidays were treated as a social practice, in which the type of holiday, destination and transport mode are considered integral to the holiday package.  The aim of the study was to analyse the role that the climate change impacts of holidays play in the decisions of tourists in order to develop a conceptual framework of the barriers to behavioural change.  A mixed methods strategy was employed, based on a sequential exploratory design.  The results of focus group research in the initial qualitative stage of data collection and analysis were used in the formulation of a questionnaire survey adopted in the second quantitative stage of the study.

The findings of the research indicate that levels of awareness of the impacts of air travel on climate change are high, but awareness and understanding of other ways that holidays contribute to climate change is low.  Climate change impacts do not feature in the thoughts of the vast majority of tourists when they are planning their holidays, and only a very small minority of respondents in the questionnaire survey said that they think about the impacts their holidays have on climate change.  Although there were high levels of awareness of the impacts of air travel on climate change, this did not manifest in tourists’ attitudes towards behavioural change.  The majority of tourists were strongly resistant to changing their holiday and travel behaviour for climate change reasons.  A number of barriers to action are prevalent which lock tourists in to current hypermobile holiday lifestyles and prevent them from adopting less carbon-intensive holiday practices.  The research discovered that the most salient barriers to behavioural change in a holiday context are a combination of internal, external and structural constraints.

Andrew commented on the experience “The PhD was a very challenging journey, but the satisfaction at the end is huge.  To have a successful and enjoyable viva, and for the examiners to compliment me on both the quality of my written thesis and oral defence, makes the whole experience worthwhile.”

Congratulations to Andrew on this achievement.

 

MSc Event Management Students raise over £1700 for Charity

Posted . Filed under News.

 

 

Back in March as part of their Event Management degree the Masters students had to host live events. The events varied from conferences, to food festivals to charity events.

One group of students hosted an event called “Carnival Blowout” aimed at students to raise money for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research Trust.

As well as a Carnival Theme there were DJs from around the world to entertain the guests. The event was sponsored by Bournemouth University and Chang Beer.

The students worked incredibly hard throughout the event and in the lead up to it. They managed to raise £1769.99 for the charity, which was the highest raised out of any of the masters events this year.

The students are here pictured handing the cheque over to Sue Rae, from the East Dorset Branch with their lecturer Julie Whitfield.

Congratulations to the students on this incredible effort!

 

 

 

 

 

Making Waves: The International Conference on Events and 10th AEME Educators Forum

Posted . Filed under News.

Next week Bournemouth University will be welcoming over 100 guests to the University for the International Conference on Events and 10th AEME Educators Forum.

The conference will be held at the EBC and will be attended by Event Management academics and professionals from around the globe.

The conference has an extremely varied programme across the week. There are several Keynote speakers attending the conference including Nick de Bois, MP and Chair of All Party Parliamentary Group who will be giving the first Keynote of the conference titled “The importance and challenges of events policy, practice and education”.

Other Keynote speakers at the conference include:

Alistair Turner – PR Director, Davis Tanner and Britain for Events Campaign

Jon Weaver – Marketing and Events Manager, Bournemouth Tourism, Bournemouth Borough Council

Professor Stephen Page – School of Tourism, Bournemouth University

Jim Winship – Secretary, Events Industry Forum

Professor Donald Getz and Professor Leo Jago to name a few

We will be sharing information about the conference with you throughout the next week. Keep and eye out for photos!

For more information and to see the full programme please see here