Author: TOURIST Network Administration

Creative companies are vamping up their business models and marketing campaigns for the corona era

Hashtags #DreamNowVisitLater by many destination marketing agencies keep the dream of travel alive in the minds of potential tourists.

There are concrete corona-influenced business ideas out there as well. We would like to present some interesting developments for all our readers and partners of the TOURIST project.

For further readings please refer to our blog post – enjoy the great read with innovative ideas.

TOURIST project at Hue Tourism Forum 2020: “Connecting travel agencies to Hue – a safe and hospitable destination”

Taking place in Hue on the 30-31 May 2020

The team of Hue University, national coordinator of Vietnam, represented the TOURIST project and also currently very important the TOURIST network (www.tourist.fh-joanneum.at/network) at the Hue Tourism Forum 2020.

Insights were given by the competence center staff which includes academic staff focusing on sustainble tourism but certainly also by the students contributing as trainees within the centers.

We are proud to have such a strong team representing the TOURIST project in Vietnam.

Towards the “new normal” – Viewpoints on post-pandemic destination management

As countries are taking steps to ease the corona restrictions, tourism destinations are looking for ways to open up for travel again.

Our colleagues from Haaga-Helia University, Leena Grönroos and Annika Konttinen, published a blog article about the possibilities of post-pandemic destination management.

The following link leads you to the insights: BLOG POSTING

Enjoy reading!

2nd TOURIST Online Meeting

The 2nd TOURIST online meeting took place on the 28th of May 2020. The main aim was to discuss the following points to progress with our project tasks:

• TOURIST 2^nd international conference in BKK – decision on the next steps/procedure for implementation
• TOURIST competence centers – status update of the technical instalment as well as the plan for the implementation for the services
• TOURIST joint publication
• Financial reporting
• Discussion of open points

The project team is very dedicated despite the current impact through Covid-19 and is doing its best to implement the planned activities accordingly. The team is very strongly connected with each other which supports them with the finalisation of the project. There will be more online meetings to come, still we are looking forward to meet each other soon again in person.

Student Exchange for the Competence Centers between Hue University/Vietnam and Payap University/Thailand

5 students from Hue University participated in the TOURIST student visit as part of the TOURIST exchange programme. The aim of the study visit was to get to know the operation of the competence center from the other partner country – Thailand.

The 5 students also contributing to the competence center at Hue University, attended various insight activities connected with the Payap University competence center and to sustainable tourism in the region from the 2nd until the 15th of February 2020.

The student exchange was a big success and connected remarkable students across countries.

Wow! What an exciting conference! On 3-4 December 2019, the “Sustainable Tourism Development for Southeast Asia Conference” was successfully held in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The two-day International conference, supported by the Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education project “TOURIST – Competence centers for the development of sustainable tourism and innovative financial management strategies to increase the positive impact of local tourism in Thailand and Vietnam”, was hosted by the VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Hilton Hotel in Hanoi. We are honored to report attendance of around 120 participants, from more than 20 countries worldwide.

At the beginning, Prof. Pham Quang Minh, Rector of the USSH, VNU Hanoi, welcomed the participants and officially opened the first day of conference. In the first presentation, guests were introduced by Claudia Linditsch, MA from the FH Joanneum of Graz. In her opening remarks, she as the project coordinator, explained the main goals, vision and mission of the TOURIST. She also highlighted the importance of the new-founded online TOURIST Network, as the main knowledge exchange platform on sustainable tourism and innovative financial management strategies in Southeast Asia and internationally.

During the conference, the three keynote speakers and well-known professors, Mr. Jarkko Saarinen (University of Oulu, Finland), Mr. Noel B. Salazar (University of Leuven, Belgium), and Ms. Jaeyeon Choe (Bournemouth University, UK) held interesting presentations in the field of tourism sustainability. The main topics of the conference were: Conceptualization of sustainable tourism development, stakeholder participation in sustainable tourism development, different forms of sustainable tourism and planning and managing sustainable tourism development.

We would like to thank all participants and the local community for an amazing organization. It is our pleasure to announce that the conference fulfilled our expectations.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to the TOURIST Network. Join here and share your amazing ideas!

Opening of the TOURIST Competence Center at Kasetsart University Bangkok

On the 27th of November 2019 the TOURIST competence centre was officially opened by the higher education management and the TOURIST project team of Kasetsart University. Additionally to the internal members of staff, also external stakeholders from tourism organisations attended the opening ceremony.

During the opening ceremony, the TOURIST competence centre and all the available functions were presented and the basis for being the main contact point for sustainable tourism in the area of Bangkok was laid.

We are glad to announce that the TOURIST project in cooperation with the VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities, will organize and host the conference – Sustainable tourism development for Southeast Asia, in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The event will take place at Hilton Hanoi Opera, No.1 Le Thanh Ton str., Hoan Kiem dist., Hanoi, Vietnam from December 3rd to December 4th, 2019. The participation was confirmed by more than 100 people coming from 20 countries worldwide, including our speakers. The experienced well-known professors and researchers, Mr. Jarkko Saarinen (University of Oulu, Finland), Mr. Noel B. Salazar (University of Leuven, Belgium), and Ms. Jaeyeon Choe (Bournemouth University, UK) will be speaking about the current thought-provoking topics in the field of sustainability.

For more details on the schedule, take a look at this link.

We are extremely excited to be working with the VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities and hope that this conference will be even bigger than our last!

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Hanoi!

The next competence center at the Hue University was officially opened on October 29th, 2019. 

The TOURIST project today celebrated the official opening of its new competence center at the School of hospitality and tourism in Hue, Vietnam. The benefits for the local community are clear: continuous learning about the positive impacts of sustainable tourism and sharing new ideas.

Students along with their professors have spent hours planning and designing new activities in the local area, thus supporting sustainable learning in tourism.

TOURIST is very proud to be supporting the Hue competence center!

From the 12th until the 14th of June 2019, the 3rd TOURIST project management meeting took place in Chiang Mai at our partner Payap University.

The first two days were used to discuss the progress of the project and to fully concentrate on the technical and operational implementation of the competence centres as well as the network that is already developing.

The third day of the meeting was dedicated to a study visit that focused on getting to more know about community based tourism in the area of Chiang Mai.

About 50 students from the Hotel and Tourism Management department of Payap University have benefitted from a 1/2-day seminar on sustainable tourism and innovative financial management strategies held at the Payap University.

The seminar organized on the 26^th July by Michael Meallem, Waruth Kaosol, Chawan Maleehom at the department of hotel and tourism management, was aimed at helping young people to understand and share sustainable ideas in the field of tourism and innovative financial strategies. The seminar, as part of the TOURIST project, was an opportunity for students to meet researchers from universities and gain practical knowledge from the tourism industry.

One of the TOURIST main goals is to increase awareness and expertise of sustainable tourism, and we are continually working on attracting young individuals by organizing stimulating seminars and events.

Payap University has officially opened the first competence center of the TOURIST project during the third project meeting taking place in Chiang Mai, Thailand from the 12th until the 14th of June 2019.

The opening ceremony, held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, was attended by many students, academic staff, and tourism stakeholders from the surrounding areas.

The 3rd TOURIST project management meeting was crowned with the sustainable tourism study visit in the Mae Klang Luang village. We are proud to have such a great response at the opening event and we would like to especially thank the whole Payap team for making this meeting very special!

The 4th and final TOURIST train-the-trainer event took place from the 26th until the 29th of March 2019 in Pattaya/Thailand.

This training concentrated on the implementation and operation of the competence centres. Therefore, business modelling as well as the development of marketing concepts were in the focus. Again, the consortium also participated in a study visit organized by the host Burapha University.

With the 4th TOURIST train-the-trainer event, over 80 people were trained in the areas of sustainable tourism, innovative financial management strategies and competence centres implementation and operation.

The next step contains the implementation of the TOURIST competence centres and we are looking forward to provide more information on the upcoming activities.

From the 22nd until the 25th of January 2019 the third TOURIST train-the-trainer event took place in Phuket focusing on innovative financial management strategies and methods.

The training included also a study visit on Phuket so see all efforts taken in order to promote sustainable tourism. A great tour was organized by Prince of Songkla University, the host of the meeting, to get a detailed information on the regional efforts.

Recently, Leena and Jarmo from Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences presented our TOURIST project at the MATKA – Helsinki Nordic travel fair which is the lagest travel fair in the nordic countries in Europe.

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The installment of the TOURIST competence centres has started!

Payap University  is already advertising it on campus!

We are currenlty starting with the installment of the TOURIST competence centres within all participating universities in Thailand and Vietnam. The first step of the implementation is the development of the installment and prolongation statement. The installment statement confirms that the competence centres will be officially installed and will get their own spot within the participating faculties and universities. Further, the prolongation statement confirms that all partners are willing to have the compentece centres running at least two years after the end of the project to show their committment to the project and towards sustainabilty of the outcomes created.

In the week from of the 10th of December 2018 the 2nd TOURIST training take place in Ho Chi Minh City.

The first important part was to continue to talk about the pledge of all partners for the competence centers which were concepted at the first training in October. So the training started with the continuation of an activity which was started in the 1st training. The second training fully concentrated once more on the core topic of the TOURIST project “sustainable tourism” and put it in connection to other essential topcis such as communication, conflict management and branding. All sessions combined theory and practical excercises to show how the topics can be further spread to all target groups of the project.

Additional topics were amongst others sustainable communication of sustainable tourism, conflict management to enhance sustainable tourism development and destination brand image communication which were widely discussed by all participants. With the training implemented, the network among the partners was strengthened and interactive exchange on a national and international basis was conducted.

With the help of all partners the 2nd TOURIST was implemented successfully.

Daniel Binder and Harald Friedl published an article in the tourism press of Austria focusing on the question “Can the sustainable tourism concept be transferred to other countries?”

The article was published focusing on sustainability in toursim and can be found online

Your way to the article – althoug it is in German

On the 21st of November 2018, the Erasmus+ CBHE Cluster Meeting took place in Thailand. The main aim of this meeting was to bring all project participants of Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education projects together to share their experience and give additional information on the implementation of the projects.

Also the partners of the TOURIST consortium took part during this meeting.

The partners who were present at the meeting were:

• Kasetsart University
• Burapha University
• Payap University
• Prince of Songkla University

Thank you all for your participation at this important meeting!

The first successful TOURIST training – capacity building for trainers took place from the 2nd until the 5th of October at our partner Hue University in Hue/Vietnam.

The main training topics of this first were tourism development in South-East Asia, destination development, tourism impacts and challenges of overtourism as introductory tourism topics. As the TOURIST project also strongly focuses on sustainable tourism, this concept was already introduced at this stage of the project to all training participants. Within the area of sustainable tourism the trainers focused on the concept of sustainble tourism, the paradoxes and challenges of sustainable tourism, the main stakeholder of sustainable touris, the indicators to measure sustainable tourism and the committement towards sustainable tourism practices.

The training finished with a concept, the so called “TOURIST PLEDGE” which will be a sustainable concept for tourism activities done by each university throughout the four trainings.

It was most important to the trainers to not only give input on the topics mentioned above, but more important to also show didactical concepts that can support the participants from Thailand and Vietnam in teaching sustainable tourism in a more interactive way. Therefore, a focus was put on interactive teaching methodologies as well.

Summing up, it can be said that 25 people from the TOURIST partner organisations took part in this 3,5 days training with a special motivated atmosphere.

On the 4th of May 2018, our Finish partner, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences held their focus group for the TOURIST project in Helsinki.

Five travel and tourism professionals had a very lively discussion on sustainable tourism development in Helsinki-Uusimaa region. Helsinki-Uusimaa is the biggest tourism destination in Finland in terms of visitor figures. However, the differences between the Helsinki City and the surrounding province can be easily seen. The major visitor flows direct to the main attractions, causing pressure both on the nature and on local residents’ way of living. 

We would like to proudly present our first publication about the TOURIST project developed by Harry Friedl and Claudia Linditsch from FH JOANNEUM in the Respect – Naturfreunde International online newsletter!

It is in German but there are lovely pics from Claudia´s personal travels to Thailand and Vietnam

http://tourismus.nf-int.org/publikationen/info-mail/infomail-wissenschaft-ausgabe-01-april-2018#Meldung3

For further information please do not hesitate to contact us! We are happy to share more information on the article!

Our valued partner Payap University presented the TOURIST project at the Tourism Council of Chiang Mai/Thailand.

The meeting, held on Sat 28th April at the Kiree Thara Bioutique Resort, was to prepare a draft master plan (2018-2038) for the sustainable development of the tourism industry in Chiang Mai.

Many of the attendees were interested in being a part of the TOURIST project and will be invited to our focus group next month.

Generally, it can be said that the TOURIST project and its topics are highly relevant for the participants and they will be further involved in the project as external stakeholders.