Dr Vijay Reddy was invited to an influential UN conference on Sustainable Tourism

Posted . Filed under News, Research.

Dr Maharaj Vijay Reddy from the School of Tourism was invited by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Paris Office to moderate an intergovernmental conference session on “Tourism Growth – Sustainable, Green and Inclusive?” at the 3rd Annual Conference of Partners of the Global Partnership of Sustainable Tourism (GPST) on 26 March 2013.

Dr Reddy commented that “I was pleased to moderate the conference session advancing the green economy and tourism theme and we (the participants) came up with several priorities for consideration by the UNEP and its global partners in future. I see this as an excellent opportunity to highlight BU’s tourism reputation and develop fruitful partnership with these leading global organisations advancing sustainable tourism initiatives”.

Hosted by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development in Bonn, this important conference and sessions were attended by partners and representatives from many organisations including the Tourism Departments of the Governments of Mexico, South Africa, Mozambique, France, Philippines, Thailand, Morocco, South Korea and Madagascar; and leading international organisations such as the World Tourism Organisation – UNWTO, and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation – UNIDO.

Sandworld Weymouth Sand Sculpture Festival offering work experience opportunities.

Posted . Filed under Student Experience.

Sandworld Weymouth, Sand Sculpture Festival, has just opened for its third season in Weymouth. It is a self funded visitor attraction, run by artists, to promote sand sculpture as an art form, and in 2012 welcomed 25000 visitors, a figure set to rise in 2013.

Sandworld are offering an opportunity to work alongside their existing employed staff on day to day activities and/or specific tasks relating to your studies.

Sandworld are happy to tailor the work experience to suit you and are will to discuss individual aims and expectations of a placement with them.

Sandworld are not affiliated to any work placement scheme. This experience is a direct, real world business experience opportunity, to work in a fun environment, delivering a high level of visitor experience.

If you are interested please send a CV with a covering letter to dave@sandworld.co.uk 

Further details can be found at www.sandworld.co.uk  and www.facebook.com/sandworld

The Third Digital Destinations Seminars

Posted . Filed under News, Research, Student Experience.

The third Digital Destinations seminars took place last week at the EBC. The seminars started with a discussion on key concepts including: do businesses have an eVision for digital marketing? How do they perceive the benefits (and costs) of digital marketing? What is the role of their technical partner? How does digital marketing enable a more effective customer focus? How important is it to have a formal digital marketing plan?

The question of how you effectively measure your digital marketing was a strong theme across the 6 clusters in the project.

This was followed by a ‘show and tell’ from each of the businesses present reflecting back on the start of their journey in November 2013, the learning and the next steps.

Finally Maureen McAllister, who was facilitating the seminar, showed potential templates that businesses in the project could use for their case study.

The aim of the yearlong project for the 60 businesses signed up is to capture change in the adoption and use of digital technologies and to develop a strong, competitive local tourism economy.

Each business that signed up to the project is assigned a final year E-Marketing student who throughout the year has been helping them come up with an online marketing strategy.

For more information on the Digital Destinations project please visit http://www.budigitalhub.com/

Two Event Management Students make it to the final 12 of the prestigious Eventice Competition

Posted . Filed under News, Student Experience.

 

Last week two of our final year event management students made it to the final 12 of the Eventice competition, held annually at the Confex Exhibition.

Sophie Bailey and Jake Potter successfully made it through to the final 12 of the prestigious competition.

Run by Event and ESP Recruitment, the Apprentice-style competition is designed to bring the next generation of talent into the event industry.

Sophie and Jake had to face a number of challenges as part of the competition including scaling the O2 in London!

Although Sophie and Jake didn’t make it to the the final they both agreed that the experience had been extremely rewarding and worthwhile.

Congratulations to both for doing so well!

For more information on the Eventice please see here

4th Annual E-Conference between Bournemouth University and Institute for Tourism Studies, Macau

Posted . Filed under News, Research, Student Experience.

Last week, some of the MSc Events students organised the 4th annual e-conference between the School of Tourism and IFT, Macau.

The e-conference was this year titled “Heritage and Tourism: An Unholy Alliance?”

Dr Jonathan Edwards, Dr Vijay Reddy, Dr Feifei Xu and PhD student Indra Bhaskara from the School of Tourism gave key note speeches at the conference.

Key note speeches were given by Dr Sharif Shamslmon, Dr Wantanee Suntikul and Dr Max Zhou from IFT.

The conference continued to build on the strong partnership between IFT and Bournemouth University.

IFT sent a thank you message on behalf of their president Dr Fanny Vong thanking Bournemouth University for the opportunity to be involved with the conference and also thanking the master’s students for all their hard work.

Richard Shipway commented that the MSc students were “fantastic, as always in their preparation beforehand and contribution on the day.”

Congratulations to the students for their hard work and thank you to everyone involved who made the conference a success.

A Festivity Mashup

Posted . Filed under News, Research.

 

 Last week the School of Tourism hosted a “festivity mashup” ideas cafe in the Loft. The event was put on by the Leisure and Recreation research theme from the School of Tourism.

‘Festivity’ is an expanding and critical phenomenon that is impacting on all areas of life from events, technology and gaming, health and wellbeing, media and digital culture, to tourism, fashion and food. 

The festivity mashup was an informal ‘eat, drink and discuss’ session that explored these areas. Guests were treated to pizza and snacks whilst they discussed the theme.

All the tables had been covered with white paper tablecloths so that the guests could write down their thoughts, opinions and discussions straight on to the table.

Going forward the discussions from last night will be used to shape research within the Leisure and Recreation theme.

For more information on the evening please contact Caroline Jackson CJackson@bournemouth.ac.uk

To view the highlights of the evening please see the link to watch the video

eTourism innovations in the Digital era event as part of the Festival of Learning

Posted . Filed under News, Research.

Monday, 10 June 2013 from 13:30 to 18:30 (BST) 

The Digital Era requires tourism organisations and destinations to use Information Communication Technologies and adopt eTourism innovations to strengthen their competitiveness.

This free event, which is part of the Festival of Learning, gives the opportunity to show case research undertaken by the eTourism Lab at the School of Tourism, Bournemouth University 

Chairman Professor Dimitrios Buhalis will ensure that there will be great interactivity and also networking will take place prior to the event on Facebook and on a social gathering at the Slug and Lettuce Pub in Bournemouth after the event.

The event will discuss a range of issues including:

  • Social Media, Location Based and Mobile (SoLoMo) Marketing is increasingly becoming a critical and pivotal tool for tourism marketing.
  • Social Transformation and the new generation of ‘digital travellers’ that make use of new technologies in all stages of the customer journey (mobile devices, tablets, desktop PCs etc.).
  • Augmented Reality and Gaming has the potential to augment a number of important activities, as well as different types of environments (hotels, parks, airports) and services (entertainment, education) to engage with a destination and its history, architecture, heritage and traditions; to interact not only with the physical surroundings but also with other people (residents and visitors). 
  • Online reputation and E-Branding The interactive power of social media encourage more business to consumer, consumer to consumer engagements and dialogues.

For more information on this event please see the Facebook page

To register please see here

David Kilburn interviewed on South Today and Radio Solent

Posted . Filed under News.

Yesterday David Kilburn was interviewed on Radio Solent and appeared on South Today as a Retail Expert. David was commented on the retail state in Christchurch.

Christchurch is currently going against the economic downfall facing most other towns. Christchurch currently has only 1 empty shop which is much lower than anywhere else in the South.

Experts including David believe this to be of the so called “Grey Pound”. Christchurch has the highest proportion of pensioners in all of England and experts believe this is the cause for the low shop vacancy rate.

David commented “They have lived here for a very long time and already have paid off their mortgages. They probably had good jobs; therefore they have a reasonable pension and a high disposable income”

You can watch David on South Today here (12 minutes in) or you can listen to the Radio Solent interview here (40 mins in).

Visiting Associate Professor Nao Li gives guest lecture on ICT use in China’s city destinations

Posted . Filed under News.

Nao Li is visiting the School of Tourism for 6 months sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

The purpose of her visit is too collaborate on eTourism projects and publications on computer simulation of visitor behaviour in attractions and current challenges and opportunities of ICT use in China’s city destinations.

Yesterday she gave a guest lecture to students and staff on her research on ICT use in China’s city destinations. She shared the positive steps that China has been making in IT but also shared the limitations that China faces in implementing ICT use in China.

Nao is an Associate Professor of Institute of Tourism, Beijing Union University, as well as Director of Institute of Information Technology and Tourism and University President Assistant of Academy of Tourism Development at the university.

We welcome Nao to Bournemouth University and look forward to working with her over the next 6 months.

Managing Director of Chewton Glen gives guest lecture and presents students with prizes for the Master Innholders Competition

Posted . Filed under News.

Last week the Hospitality Management students were given a guest lecture by Andrew Stembridge, Managing Director of the Chewton Glen Hotel and the Clivedon Hotel.
Andrew is also Chairman of the Masters Innholders and is a member of the International Executive Board for Relais & Châteaux

Andrews shared his experiences of all the different jobs he has had within the industry:

I’ve always said yes to everything and its served me very well, that’s been my approach throughout life”

Andrew continued to provide insight and advice to the students “I do believe in legacies, whatever job you’re doing or whatever you’re doing you should leave behind legacies. I only go into things if I know I can leave it better than before.”

Following on from sharing his experiences with the students, Andrew took part in a question and answer session.

After his guest lecture, Andrew, awarded our students who took part in the Master Innholders Competition with prizes. The Master Innholders is one of the largest and most influential groups who represent the Hospitality Industry.

This year our team from Bournemouth University came 2nd in the competition. There video entry can be viewed here.

Congratulations to Fabian Amici; Camilla Larkan; Daniele Quattromini and Rebecca Cridge for their fantastic achievement.

For more on Chewton Glen please see here