Alan Machin: Tourism As Education

I don't want to switch you straight out of this website but here's a link to maps of a very different kind. They're quirky, nutty, silly or fascinating according to how you see them yourself. for starters, this will take you to a map of France about - French kissing. Don't approach it too open-mouthed - just know how to say hello ......

Click here to see what every tourist to La Belle France should know

Latest monthly pages: the February blog page on tourism's educational origins has proved the most popular. It has gained many regular readers and they have also been reading the pages with in-depth articles on tourism history.

The March page will continue to build postings on tourism's educational origins. These will be added daily but not rigidly limited to a one-per-day format.

The Story So Far: Tourism As Education
New March postings - see the list to the left

Tourism Question Time in Leeds

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Something is missing.

What would most students say are the most important words in tourism management? My guess would be – ‘marketing’ and ‘sustainability’. Where is the dominant weight of activity amongst the men (and women) in suits within the tourism industries? Marketing.

The half-day discussion at Leeds Met this week showed it. Questions revolved around the measures of success – in quantitative terms – ie visitor numbers resulting from good or not-so-good marketing. Oh, and seeing the men on the panel was a reminder that those other people, the (and women) were noticeable by their absence, at least from the panel. There were plenty in the audience and I also guess most of those were in marketing jobs. It was different for the preceding book launch of ‘Managing Regional Tourism: A Case Study of Yorkshire” in which more women were involved through their chapter contributions. Even so, these revolved around business, employment and rates of pay. All of which are undeniably important – but are these the only concerns?

‘Sustainability’ is one of the current buzzwords in tourism. It’s been creeping up the agenda ever since the late 1960s when environmental concerns raised their heads. Since then we have found other harbingers of doom – global warming (nasty tourist transport contributes!), inauthentic cultures (heritage industry!) and the erosion of community life (second homes! The tea shop economy!). All of these issues have begun to coalesce into the mega-questions labelled ‘sustainability’.

So what is missing? I think it is the discussion and especially the teaching of tourism managers to be of how marketing is handled in order to deal with all those sustainability issues. It’s all very well for the marketing folk to say they make sure their strategies are as green as green could be. Good for them. Fine. It’s equally very well for the environmentalists to say they redouble their efforts daily in the name of applying pressure to turn everyone greener. Great work, guys! But where do all of these initiatives meet and get coordinated? Where do they result in the agreements or compromises that shape the future? In political decisions, new structures, strategic frameworks – the how-we-are-going-to-get-there policies at local, national and international level. We are talking politics.

On the panel at the Leeds Met Q&A session was a politician. There were also people representing organisations that debate policies. But the thrust of the discussions was about visitor numbers, economic well-being and rates of pay in hotels and restaurants. We all want to see great increases in all of those things. Yet it’s obvious that those aims could be fulfilled more easily if all our efforts went into achieving them and to hell with environmental, social and cultural concerns. None of the people at the meeting would for a moment advocate that. The question about how communities around the world decide their policies needs a long term answer. It is to do with being able to set up the controls, decision-making processes and sensible strategies that are required. And that is related to levels of understanding. The need is for training; training about policy making – about politics at levels from villages to global communities.

How many of the multiplicity of higher education courses round the world that exist do include modules about political processes? I know that Leeds Met doesn’t though it still hangs in their Tourism Planning course, if only by a thread. What about the other courses? I don’t know. You tell me. I’m not thinking about modules which happen to make some reference to policy-making. I’m talking about modules which make a thorough, well structured examination of government approaches (local as well as national), political processes and how to get stuck in to them, and case studies of the resulting outcomes.

Because it’s no use paying lip-service to the need to manage tourism better – time is running out in terms of the environment and societies. Our holidays free of care are reaching their very last days.

[26.02.10]

Tourism Question Time in Leeds

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Is it a bad thing if Tourism Management graduates don't go into one of the tourism industries? And should they enter a tourism job within their region? These were two of the points made at a half-day conference staged jointly by Leeds Metropolitan University and the Yorkshire branch of the Tourism society today (24.02.10). A speaker said these were causes for concern.

I find this a very narrow view both of what university education is about and what tourism is. When I did my theoretical training in tourism thirty years ago the two main providers of tourism training at university level were Surrey and Salford. I believe that half the graduates completing their courses did not go in to tourism. It has been similar with Leeds Met, although sometimes a slightly smaller percentage.

Isn't a university a place to develop an understanding of what the world is about and what jobs there are on offer? I'm not at all surprised - or concerned - that graduates and diploma holders change direction. Good for them. And many non-tourism students will enter the industries with excellent ideas and knowledge. Tourism graduates may go elsewhere for a few years and then enter the industry with a broader knowledge.

Tourism is an international activity. By its very nature it demands world knowledge and offers worldwide opportunities. A good proportion of Leeds Met award-holders should work elsewhere, and I'm tempted to say as far away as possible! I mean that for positive reasons as they should get experience of different cultures and situations. A lot will return. A lot of people trained in other regions and countries will come into the Yorkshire region with their knowledge made available. A good thing, too.

There is another point. A degree or diploma course in tourism clearly helps successful students enter a very wide range of occupations. Few Leeds Met students have failed to do obtain a good job very quickly indeed. It makes sense to think of these courses as being ways of preparing for working life in a particularly effective manner. It is like taking a business course with a strong element of social and environmental components embedded within it. Good, across-the-board, tourism management demands an amazingly wide range of skills and knowledge to sustain it. The modules comprised in the course set the foundations for very good appreciation of what life is all about.

Let's not be narrow-minded. Let's remember the importance, the very essential importance, of global understanding and experience.

(24.02.10)

Tourism Question Time in Leeds

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Following a question on the veracity and usefulness of statistics in tourism there was a lively debate. Some speakers said that good statistics were essential to measure performance. Another said that in business they didn’t mean as much as profit and loss levels or cash flows. Someone else complained that there was too much dressing-up of visitor number figures by public relations materials. There was a comment made that changes in the ways that figures were gathered in meant that comparisons over time could be difficult.

My own question in the midst of this followed on a rumour I had heard. This was that since the old Yorkshire Tourist Board became ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’, moved to Leeds from York and installed a new Director and staff structure, the visitor analysis reporting had undergone a change. It used to be that visitor statistics were gathered in from members, collated and circulated back to them. The rumour was that there was a new directive that only increases would be reported. This would, of course, mean a manipulation of the reporting in order to satisfy public relations aims, not performance monitoring.

This was not confirmed nor denied. Perhaps those present were the wrong people to be asking, though at least one, Peter Myers, is the Chief Executive Officer for the West Yorkshire Partnership, a component of Welcome to Yorkshire. The handling of statistics is important in any area of activity. There are plenty of concerns about running hospitals, local authorities, and educational institutions (including universities) with too great a focus on fulfilling targets and beating other people in league tables. It is to be hoped the new regional tourism organisation hasn’t put PR before objective performance reviews.

(25.02.10)

MEANWHILE
and this has nothing to do with the above comments ....


Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb has gained EU Protected Area Status ...

I really feel that anything involving being forced in sheds is on the dark side. This sort of thing is growing. It really leaves us in a stew. Society might crumble. Well, I suppose we might get a-custard to it ........

I tried out part of the new Google/YouTube venture yesterday: a virtual train ride on the Trans-Siberian Express. That's the 6-day, 9,200km train journey from Moscow to Vladivostok, the longest rail journey in the world (except when Virgin Rail is having a really bad time). Have a go at YouTube or hunt out a link from, say, the Daily Telegraph web site (couldn't find one on the Guardian ditto).

I didn't watch too much, getting to the edge of Moscow plus a few bits of the far east on my bit of virtual railroading. I have to say my first impression is that it's a lost opportunity. There used to be films called Ghost Rides based on film cameras mounted on the front of locomotives. The first were made over a century ago. Some poor soul was strapped onto the buffer bar of a steam loco and recorded the forward view until the film gave out - just a few minutes' worth of a shot at most. The Trans-Sib version includes the whole journey and of course in colour, with plenty of clickety-clack, dumbedy-dum if you decide not to listen to the accompanying balalaika music or Russian novel. But it was made with an angled camera looking out of a side window (sometimes the right, often the left), just part of the view available to an ordinary comrade - sorry - Euro-paying customer. There is no variety until you use one of the off-train virtual tours, at least, not that I could see. So the field of view is worse than the passsenger's real experience which would include more through this window, something through the one across the carriage, and some light relief of the activity inside the train. And given that the epic route is, I'm told, very often totally boring, its the friendly Russian people and fellow tourists who provide much of the fun. It is useful to have a second window with a zoom-able, pan-able map and a facility to jump between choice bits of the route.

It's a great pity that the camera wasn't mounted up front in the driver's cab with a wide forward view. The Microsoft Locomotive rides do better even though they are only relatively crude representations of the reality. In this virtual tour things close by rush past pretty quickly and its literally a one-sided view of the great continent that the line crosses. And I hope that for those folk who are thinking of making the real journey it doesn't create an impression of boredom. They ought to look at other YouTube videos shot by camera-panning travellers.

At least it's free and I will test out some more of the interesting bits - passing Lake Baikal and crossing the great river valleys - to see how they look. I must travel virtually some more in order to virtually understand better.

(18.02.10)

"How do you know that Australia exists? Maybe when you were young your great uncle told you he wrestled goannas along Christmas Creek on the Gulf of Carpentaria when he worked as a bandicoot farmer. Did you believe him? Or perhaps there was that TV series called Skippy the Bush Kangaroo or the movie ‘Australia’ with Hugh Jackman. Or did you take your lead on all things Oz from that geography teacher who lived for six months in Melbourne and reckoned it the best, the only important city on the continent. As you finished your days as a student you decided New Zealand was the place to be because Australia was full of men with corks hanging from their bush hats, swigging Fosters and decrying the chance of pommie bastards ever learning to play cricket......."

Part of the opening to this month's postings about The Development of Tourism As Education. See the February 2010 blog page listed to the left: open the page and scroll down to the foot to read the first posting.

... or just click here!

Pathe, Baby, it's cold outside.

Let's watch our holiday films indoors whether it snows or rains out there .. Postings on tourist photography in the January '10 blog pages - see the list to the left.

Click here to go to the "Are Universities Losing Their Way" page

More pages of interest on the associated Topics web site:

The Environment As Data: new tourism theory

Theory on attractions: Showcases

Talking to tourists: Visitor Interpretation

This personal web site started as teaching support for students studying Tourism Management at Leeds Metropolitan University. It grew as a way of keeping alumni of that course in touch. Now it has grown even further into an examination of tourism as a way of discovering our world and passing on ideas and opinions.

I have a set of pages on an associated web site - alanmachintopics.net. These have material drawn from postings on this web site or else specially written.

Click here to go to the thematic pages

Since launching on 7 January 2005 this site has received something approaching two million hits.

Variations in historic location in Paris: see the December 2009 blog - listed to the left.

Below: San Luis Obispo Farmers' Market. Tourism in California - click here, then scroll down the page

Scenes From A Course
The May blog page celebrates in photographs and text the Leeds Met Tourism Management courses since 1992.
The June 2009 page reflects on the same period in short essays which make some challenges about the teaching of Tourism.
See the pages listed to the left.

Below: Our History, Our Heritage - one of a series of postings in my April blog on the subject of heritage and tourism.

Click here to read the story

I retired on 15 July, the day of the 2009 Awards Ceremony. I have been asked whether the Alumni page will continue after then. The answer is yes - at least for now - but of course without being part of the University I might not be able to add news in the same way.

This web site will not only continue but will be revised with the opportunity to develop new and (yeah, its a cliche) exciting ideas. There are lots of things I will be free to write about. Including the inside view of university life and the tourism industry.

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Click here for news of the Leeds Met Tourism Management alumni

Thematic pages

Material posted on these pages may be found arranged under thematic headings on an associated set of pages - alanmachintopics.net

Click here to read the Thematic Pages

Highest number of hits on these pages on one day: 3,613 on 14 April 2008. Previous highest: 3,081 on 1 October 2007. Number of individual visitors on 15 April 2008: 226.

Since being launched on 7 January 2005 it is estimated that there have been something approaching two million hits.

Timelines: The Growth of Tourism as Education

Click here for Alumni News

The Alumni News page (see the left-hand panel) contains photos and news from many Leeds Met Tourism Management alumni - including those above. THESE PHOTOS supplied by, and copyright of, the individuals shown.

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This web site was launched in January 2005 and has been heavily used by Leeds Met tourism alumni and others. The ALUMNI NEWS page is adding entries as they arrive.

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Photos by the author unless otherwise stated.

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This is a personal web site originally designed to complement my work lecturing at Leeds Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, where I taught between 1992 and 2009. Past and present students, or other interested persons, may want to access photos, graphics and associated text. If you want to comment on any of the writing, do send me an email - the pages are not just for Leeds Met alumni but anyone with an interest in the subjects. You can find information about who I am on the "About the Author" page at the end of the page list.

Pictures below: see "A Positive Role: Tourism As Education" and "The Educational Origins of Tourism" in the sidebar list to the left

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You might like to visit the Leeds Metropolitan University web site for information on its work, courses (including those for tourism, hospitality and events) and alumni activities. The University is set in an extremely popular city and region and has a vigorous expansion programme. Strong international links enable students at all levels to participate in a wide range of opportunities and staff are engaged in research and consultancy that furthers progress in its subject areas and supports their teaching.

Click here to be transferred to the Leeds Metropolitan University web site

Hits = all requests to any pages from a distant computer
Visits = a single user looking at any number of pages and not returning for at least 30 minutes