BAEM students receive high praise from Exhibition News Dragons Den

Posted . Filed under News, Student Experience.


Edward Burton and Callum Roberts were recently chosen to present their event idea to the Exhibition News Dragon Den.

The pitch was in front of 6 of the most influential professionals in the event and exhibition industry as well as an auditorium full of guests.

Callum and Edward received great feedback during their presentation and also received an email from the editor of Exhibition Magazine saying

“Your pitch was definitely the most polished of the day and you really impressed the Dragons.”

Callum commented that he felt that the International Event Management bid that all students have to do in final year of the event management degree really helped them in the process:

“We feel that because of it we knew how to pitch and were not nervous in being passionate and showing emotion which we were later praised for.

As a student it’s great when something you practice at University translates into the ‘real world’ and we went in feeling confident after the assignment, especially after a tough grilling from Matt we knew we were prepared for the curve ball questions!”

After their presentation, Callum and Edward were approached by several of dragons who wanted to progress their idea and they event received a few job offers!!
Well done to the boys!

FeiFei Xu Fusion Funded Trip to China

Posted . Filed under News, Research.

Feifei Xu has recently returned from her Fusion funded trip to China as part of her research on “The Gamification of Tourism, A Future Trend”

Whilst she was in China, Feifei was able to launch her project at two Universities: Nanjing University, Nanjing and Donghua University, Shanghai.

Feifei collected some primary and secondary research data including 4 focus groups and 15 interviews with tourists, hotels, tour operators, restaurants and tourism administrations to identify motivation and expectation of tourism gamification. She also managed to collect documents on smart tourism in China

“My networking and discussion with the industry resulted in a genuine interest on a possible consultancy project on Gamification (discussion in progress).

My networking with universities resulted in a formal inquiry about the possible Costal Academy Summer School program and an interest in a 4+1 Program for students and possible research collaboration.”

As well as working on her research project, Feifei was invited to give several guest lectures during her time there:

  • Nanjing University to MSc students studying Tourism Management and Planning
  • Nanjing University of Finance and Economics to Undergraduate students studying tourism management
  • Nanjing University of Forest to MSc students studying landscape and planning
  • Shanghai Donghua University to MSc students studying Tourism
  • Anhui Normal University to Undergraduate and MSc students studying Tourism Management

Hospitality Management students serve HRH Princess Anne during her royal visit

Posted . Filed under News.

On 12th December Bournemouth University received a royal visit from HRH Princess Anne. The purpose of the visit was to see and hear about some of the achievements that staff and students have had over the past year, including working on the Olympics.

She spent a lot of her day in the Media School touring the facilities and hearing from students.

However, School of Tourism Hospitality Management students were lucky enough to serve HRH Princess Anne canapés that they made for her visit.

Mhairi Strachan; Cameron Mcglone; Sarah Carter and Harry Watts were the students lucky enough to be chosen to be part of the serving team.

2nd year student Mhairi Strachan commented on the experience:

“For the Princess Royal to visit Bournemouth University it was an honour not only for the university but for the students.

Being part of the serving team it was again another great experience to be ambassadors for the School of Tourism and not only that but for the other students studying hospitality in the UK, and having that recognition.

  It was definitely a surreal experience and one of the greatest achievements I am going to remember for a long time from now.”

Cameron Mcglone commeted:

“I was very happy to be asked and I positively accpeted the chance as soon as I read the e-mail. It was extremely valuable time spent, from our briefing with Martyn Bell and his team on Monday, right through to our involvement ending. It was interesting to get a chance to see a glimpse of what events like this entail and the preparations that need to be considered beforehand.

We were given very clear and simple instructions as Martyn had thoroughly prepared everything in advance and I cannot praise him enough for his friendly professionalism, putting us at ease and helping us to get the most out of the day. The food looked good and the guests we served were happy to be offered the choices on our plates. By far the most popular were the mini-eclairs! I have to thank Christian Lemmer also for choosing us to take part and represent the Hospitality program.”

Congratulations to all the students who were involved in what was a wonderful day.

 

Debbie Sadd to be interviewed on Radio Solent

Posted . Filed under News.

Debbie Sadd has been invited to appear on the Julian Clegg Show on Radio Solent on 21st December for a special show to celebrate the Olympics.

Debbie was heavily involved with Olympics Games this year, as not only was she a lucky enough to be chosen to be a torch bearer, she also volunteered at the games.

Debbie will be joining other people that were involved in the Olympics for the special show.

Debbie said that she was “Excited and keen to hook up with other Games Makers and torch bearers” and was very much looking forward to the experience.

Make sure you listen out next week to hear Debbie!

Hall and Woodhouse share their views on the Digital Destinations Project so far:

Posted . Filed under Research, Student Experience.

As part of the Digital Destinations Project, the companies involved have been asked to write up a blog of their experience so far. Below Hall and Woodhouse share their experiences:

“Bournemouth University’s ‘Digital Destinations’ seminar last week was certainly an eye opener. From ‘social media gurus’ to complete beginners, we all want to learn how to most effectively take advantage of this new phenomena to increase awareness and sales for our businesses. Times are changing in the world of Marketing, and as the digital world trickles down to the countryside and the rolling hills of Devon, Dorset and beyond, can we really ignore it in 2013?

It was really interesting to see how other companies have used viral campaigns to capture the imaginations of their audiences, and even attract new customers to the brand. The key objective to success, it seems, is combining originality, intuition and ingenuity – all with your key customer and objective in mind – and executing brave campaigns (such as Skittles’ ‘Touch the Rainbow’ campaign) with style.

When we come to think about what Digital Marketing really is – and what it has achieved for other larger companies in the past – it can be difficult to truly scope the potential for small and medium-sized businesses who may not have the budgets or manpower to throw at huge social campaigns.

SEO, hash tags, Twitter and Pinterest are unfamiliar and unfriendly terms for so many traditional marketers – let alone pub guests – so how relevant is it for a 235-year-old pub company to utilise them?

Our public houses have been going strong for 235 years – can a web page really help us provide a better service to our guests and even reach a wider audience? Are we and our comrades in Digital Dragons missing a trick by not being on ‘The Fancy’ or ‘Instagram’? It seems that one of the biggest obstacles of ‘getting into’ digital marketing is exactly where to start…

One of the biggest challenges for us is the regional nature of our business. Each of the public houses I help manage on Facebook (nearly 60 of them!) all have their own personalities and requirements, and so required their own personal Facebook pages. We don’t think it would make sense for us to have one large company page, since our guests have a relationship with their ‘local’ – and we have houses across the South of England! With team members within the public houses busy with our guests, the task fell on us at the Brewery to support their social media endeavours. Maintaining communication with the houses is key, so that we can endeavour to continue Making People’s Day.

One of the main lessons I personally took away from ‘Digital Destinations’ was to look beyond the industry we immediately work in for ‘internet inspiration’. Don’t be too caught up on competitor activity, but expand your web horizons further afield. The hospitality industry isn’t particularly well known for its online innovation, but we can look to the clever kids of fashion, FMCG and heritage brands – or quirky, up-to-speed small-scale businesses – who have really set a standard for digital campaigns. There’s no point emulating a competitior – the aim is to be new and different, and constantly “raising the bar”.

What will be most interesting for us at Hall & Woodhouse will definitely be how we use and translate these concepts and put them into practice. Is the internet really the best place for us to connect with our customers, and if so, how do we go about it? And more importantly, how do we measure the success of it?

We’re sure the students won’t be the only ones learning a thing or two at the next seminar…”

Hospitality Students to serve HRH Princess Anne during her Royal Visit

Posted . Filed under News.

Four Hospitality Management students have been chosen to serve HRH Princess Anne during her royal visit today at the University.

The students, Harry Watts, Sarah Carter, Mhairi Stachan and Cameron McGlone will serve HRH Princess Anne canapés during her visit.

We will bring you all the new of her visit soon.

Philippa Hudson gets interviewed by two radio stations regarding her recent research on children’s lunchboxes

Posted . Filed under Research.

 

Last week senior lecturer Philippa Hudson was interviewed by Radio Solent and Radio Wessex regarding how clean children’s lunchboxes actually are.

Philippa had already previously appeared in the Bournemouth Echo sharing her research on children’s lunchboxes.

The research, by Philippa and dissertation student Hannah Walley, took place at a junior school in Dorset where more than half of pupils took in a packed lunch.

Lunchboxes were kept in trays in corridors, and temperatures were measured throughout the day over a school term.

The results showed that all but one of the lunchboxes – which had a large ice pack inside – reached potentially dangerous temperatures.

Philippa said: “There has been a lot of concern about healthy eating and what children are putting in their lunchbox, but nothing about how safe the food is in their lunchbox.

“The lunchboxes started off refrigerated, but by about 10am they were at ambient temperature. After being in the sun, they went up to 20-24 degrees, which is the temperature at which bacteria grows very rapidly so the risk factors are there.”

To read the Bournemouth Echo article please see here

Events Management and Leisure Marketing students receive manual handling training

Posted . Filed under Student Experience.

 

This week all second year Event Management students and Leisure Marketing students are being trained in manual handling in preparation for their live events that will take place from February to March.

As part of their degree all the second year BAEM and BALM students are required to host their own events. The events range from Charity Auctions, to student events, to School fundraisers and all will involve some sort of manual handling at some point.

The training involved being taught how to correctly lift and move objects before the students got a chance to practise themselves.

Bournemouth University’s International Conference on Event Management introduces its Scientific Committee

Posted . Filed under Guest speakers, Research.

The International Conference on Event Management (ICE 2013) is taking place in July under the theme “Making Waves in Event Management”

Yesterday conference organiser Julie Whitfield announced who would be taking part in the scientific committee at the conference.

The scientific committee consists of:

Dr Julie Whitfield, Senior lecturer, Bournemouth University
Dr Miguel Moital, Senior Lecturer, Bournemouth University
Professor Don Dioko, IFT Institute for Tourism Studies, Macau (designated co-organizers)
Dr Viviennne McCabe, Adjunct Associate Professor, University of South Australia
Dr Mathilda Van Niekerk, Assistant Professor, University of Central Florida.

For more information on the conference such as how to attend and hot submit abstracts please see here

http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/tourism/news-and-events/events/conferences/ice2013.html

Masters Innholder’s Student Competition

Posted . Filed under Student Experience.

Every year Bournemouth University Hospitality Management students enter the Master Innholders competition.

Part of the competition process includes the students having to submit a ten minute video on a chosen topic area.

This year’s chosen final year Hospitality Management students; Fabian Amici; Camilla Larkan; Daniele Quattromini and Rebecca Cridge’s video can be viewed here:

http://youtu.be/PEHeP8dd29I

The Master Innholders is one of the largest and most influential groups who represent the Hospitality Industry. The competition will recognise what is happening in other industries and how hotels can best learn from those innovations. The competition is open to undergraduate students in their penultimate or final year of study in selected University Hospitality Departments. The winners will present at the prestigious Master Innholders’ conference

Our students should know by Christmas if they have been selected to present at the conference. We wish them luck and we will keep you up to date with all the news from their attempt.