Over 100 final year BA Events Management and BA Events & Leisure
Marketing students, accompanied by 6 staff, have recently made a 5 day long field
trip to Lisbon and Cascais & Estoril Coast, Portugal.
The trip is a key component of their International Event Management/
International Leisure Marketing unit, helping students to develop their
understanding of how a tourism destination markets itself as an international
event/leisure destination.
During the trip, students visited a number of event venues and attended
presentations with institutional and business representatives. The program also
included social activities for students to bond with each other and with
tutors.
The trip started with a visit to the Luz stadium, a modern 65.000 seat
stadium home of Benfica Lisbon which hosted the Euro2004 and the Champions
League 2014 finals. The visit included a guided tour of the facilities, a
presentation by Henrique Conceicao (Product Innovation Manager of the club), the
Eagle’s flight (a
tradition in the club) and a visit to the club’s museum (shortlisted to the
best 25 European museums 2016).
The Eagle's flight
BenficaTV, the club’s channel with more than
500.000 subscribers, did a 3 minute report about BU’s presence which was
broadcast on the prime time news.
The second day was devoted to Cascais & the Estoril Coast, a
municipality within Lisbon’s metropolitan area. Dr. Miguel Moital, lead
organiser of the trip, is an ambassador to the region and managed to secure
sponsorship from the Cascais Tourism Board in the form of a delicious lunch.
The three course meal took place at a restaurant in the recently renovated
Cascais food market, with the menu starting with local prawns, followed by
codfish with cream and ending with an almond tart. Before lunch students
visited the Estoril Congress Centre, where they attended two presentations. The
first was by Bernardo Correia de Barros, Head of the Cascais Tourism Board, who
explained the tourism and events standing within, and strategy of the municipality.
Linda Pereira from CPL Events shared her views on organising international
events, in what students considered to have been a very inspirational talk. After
lunch students visited the Oitavos Hotel, which features one of the best 100
gold courses in the world.
The third day involved a morning visit to the Nations Park area and an
afternoon session at the Corinthia Hotel. At the Lisbon Exhibition Centre
students were greeted by Alexandra Toregao, Marketing Coordinator in charge of
many of the events that take place at the venue. The visit included an
introduction to the venue, Q&A and a visit to each of the four pavilions. Next,
students visited Meo Arena, also located in the Nations Park, which is the
fifth largest arena in Europa and is a prime venue for both leisure and
corporate events. Jaime Fernandes from the Board of Directors hosted an
introduction to the venue using a photo presentation to show its various uses,
followed by a guided tour of the venue.
After
lunch students visited the biggest conference hotel in Lisbon – the Corinthia –
which was one of the sponsors of the trip. After a visit to the venue and a
coffee break offered by the hotel, students attended three presentations. The
first by Joao Vieira (Director of Human Resources) and Isabelle
Grignola (Director of Meeting & Incentives Sales) who explained the Corinthia brand and events at
the Corinthia, respectively. Next, Andre Moura from the Lisbon Tourism Board
provided an overview of tourism and events in Lisbon, with the afternoon ending
with a presentation by Carmo Barba from Events by TLC. Carmo used examples of
international events that TLC organised at some of the venues included in the
programme of the trip to illustrate the potential of Lisbon as a destination
for international events.
On
Thursday, Alexandra Toregao showed students around
the second venue she works for – the Lisbon Congress Centre. As the largest of
its kind in Portugal, the centre is a multi-purpose venue although most of the
events it hosts are congresses.
Students then moved to the Belem area, where
some of the main tourist attractions are located. They visited the most iconic
one – the Jeronimos Monastery – guided by final year tour guiding students from
the Estoril Higher Institute for hotel and Tourism Studies.
In between the visits
to the congress centre and the monastery, students could taste the traditional
custard tartlets ‘pasteis de belem’. For many students this was one of the
highlights of the trip (they are delicious!).
After a free afternoon, students were invited to a social that featured
dinner and entertainment. Students enjoyed a steak at the traditional beer
house Cervejaria Trindade (open since 1837), where a surprise expected them - a
Fado performance by
Rui Neiva Correia. Although Fado requires silence, some Fado songs allow the
audience to sing along and students joined in when invited by Rui. To many this
opportunity to immerse themselves in one of the most iconic elements of
Lisbon’s culture was the highlight of the trip. The evening continued at a bar
in the bohemian quarter of Cais do Sodre.
The final day was devoted to a walking tour of Lisbon downtown,
including Baixa, Augusta Street Arch, Comercio Square and S. Jorge Castle.
Students were treated to a glorious sunshine and blue sky which helped to keep
the spirits up in the context of having to walk up the hills at the end of a
tiring yet fruitful week.
Students could not praise their
experience of Lisbon enough. Many have send tutors thank you messages. Here is s
sample:
I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed Lisbon I thought it was
an absolutely fantastic trip and I learnt so much.
Just wanted to say a quick thank you for the trip to Lisbon as I did not
get the chance to say this to you all at the airport! I had a great trip and
found it really interesting to see the capacity for events in an international
context. Portuguese custard tarts and Fado were a highlight!
Just wanted to say a very big thank you for taking us all to Lisbon. I
know myself and everyone I spoke to really enjoyed the trip. It must take a lot
of effort of your parts to organise a trip for over a 100 students but I really
hope your enjoyed it as much as we all did. Anyway just wanted to send a little
note of appreciation.
Thank you so much for the Lisbon trip and all your amazing organisation.
Will be the highlight of my UNI life by far!
As the lead organiser, it was a pleasure to
take the group to Lisbon. We had great support from local stakeholders and
students’ behavior was very professional throughout the trip. From an academic point of view, the
trip was a great success and many of the experiences are now serving as a basis
for discussions in class.
The team of tutors that accompanied the trip enjoying a 'bitoque' (fried steak with chips)
Perhaps more importantly, the best memories from
university are often created when students get to know each other and create shared
experiences. I believe that this trip provided students which many
opportunities to develop friendships and memories that will be cherished for a
long time.
Students having fun at Jamaica nighclub in Cais do Sodre during the trip's last night social
I am very proud of John Fotis for his award for best PhD by the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism at the ENTER2016 conference. His thesis on the use of social media on consumer behaviour was supervised by Dimitrios Buhalis, Alan Fyall and myself. Congratulations John!
John receiving his award
John doing a presentation at ENTER2016 about this research
A new journal article entitled "Segmenting the Business Traveler Based on Emotions, Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intention" has been published in Psychology & Marketing, following a collaboration with Angel Millan and Maria Luisa Fanjul. This is the abstract of the paper:
As travel is part of their work, business travelers are assumed to be focused on carrying out a work-related task, rather than feeling emotionally stimulated during their trip. Due to this belief, there is limited research on consumer emotions within this segment of the travel market. However, not only is business travel an experience and therefore it involves emotions, but many business trips have a strong leisure component and business travel decision making is often emotionally charged. This paper segments the business travel market based on emotions, satisfaction, and behavioral intention. Using a sample of 400 managers in small- and medium-sized companies, the study demonstrates that the relationship between emotions and satisfaction is not unidirectional as far as business tourism is concerned. For two of the four segments, the valence of emotions translated into an opposite level of satisfaction/intention. The segments were found to differ in personal and trip-related variables.
Psychology & Marketing is a Wiley Journal with an Impact Factor of 1.08. According to the ISI Journal Citation Reports 2014), it ranks 41 out of 76 journals (Psychology Applied) and 73/115 (Business). It is a three star journal according to the ABS Journal Quality Guide.
One of my papers published in the Current Issues in Tourism journal has just reached the 10.000 views mark. An achievement since the paper has been published less than 2 years ago. The paper is co-authored with Scott Cohen (University of Surrey, UK, but formerly at BU) and Girish Prayag (University of Canterbury, New Zealand).
Current Issues in Tourism is a highly regarded tourism journal:
Co-edited by two of the most prominent tourism academics (Professors C. Michael Hall and Chris Cooper)
2 star ranking in the Academic Journal Guide by ABS - Association of Business Schools
Ranked as an "A" journal on the Australian ABDC list
2014 impact factor of 0.918
The paper is freely available for download for everyone (golden open access sponsored by Bournemouth University - no subscription needed!) from this address
A while ago I reported on the activities of place and place
research and their poor business practice (you can see my earlier posts here).
Yet, I continue to be contacted by people who have dealt with them who feel
compelled to share their (negative) experience with me. I recently received
another first-hands experience of someone who attended one of their events and
this is what the participant had to say about the experience (published with
permission).
“Came across your blog having just been browsing to locate
the tel no. of Ray Holden to remind him, yet again (after 6 written emails)
that he agreed to reimburse my organisation having overcharged it for my
attendance/presentation at a 'Climate Change Conference' held in London this
June. There are no numbers to be found.
The event I attended in London earlier this year was a joke
and if I had been either of those who travelled so far (one came from S Korea,
another from Toronto) I would have been outraged about the event.
Ray 'chaired' the event, wrote notes at the back of the room
as individuals presented, and then privileged his own questions in the short
period of time allocated to questions.
It was as if we had been gathered there for his own benefit and
training! It was poorly organised, no
meaningful discussion, effectively a one man show, limited refreshments, no
signage to get to the top of the building.
I left early and now can’t even get a response from him to get him to
reimburse the £100 odd that we are owed.
Yet, Still receive the marketing for the next 'conference'.
I’m also going to be looking out for whether my work appears
in any mutated way since the above gives me no confidence and there was less
than transparent management of the presentation on the desktop.”
Ciudad Real is not a touristic city at all. Although its
name is ‘Royal City’, there are very few signs of the old times. Over time the four kilometers of walls and 130 towers that protected the city in the middle age
were destroyed, with the last stroke coming in the 60's where all but two gates
were removed. So there is not so much to see in terms of cultural tourist attractions.
Yet the city is pleasant and very walk friendly. D. Quixote de La Mancha, the
legendary character of Cervantes novel with the same name, is present in the
city (as well as in surrounding cities).
The city has also got a beautiful park which I used for
walks/runs. In the summer walking or running starts at 8 or 9pm due to the high
temperatures. We had a maximum temperature of over 40oC every day (?!) and there
were days when I went for a run at 10pm as it was too hot to do it before then. The first picture below was taken at 7pm...
The salsa scene is actually good for a small city (75.000)
and I managed to go to two salsa parties. Bachata is very popular in the city
so I could also practice this genre.
Angel and Marta were great hosts and spend some time showing
me around or invited me to join them in social events they were attending. The
first weekend I was taken to Toledo, a beautiful historical city north of Ciudad
Real. We spent our time there visiting the grand and beautiful cathedral, walking
through the narrow alleys and having lunch at the very nice restaurant. We
ended the day tasting the Marzipan sweets that are traditional in the city.
On two different occasions, Marta and her parents invited me
to go to their summer house and enjoy the swimming pool (a must given the hot
weather!). The house is close to River Guadiana and an artificial lake and they took me there at dusk. The scenery was just beautiful. See for yourself!
Angel had talked about a nice restaurant where they
served beef that is mature for 60 days. So I invited him, his wife and Marta to
go there for my farewell meal. The restaurant works on price per person basis
and you are served eight courses (and can eat as much as you like!). It starts with cheese and two types of smokes meats, followed by tuna on tomato, two types of prawns, lamb and finally the matured beef. It
all ends with a desert. The food was delicious throughout, as was the wine that
Angel selected. Here are some pictures of the food and wine:
The owners of the restaurant are cheese producers and they
also have a delicatessen next to the restaurant, with products there are mouth
watering. Obviously the smoked ham legs are on display, as are the different
types of cheese. There are many wines available to purchase (Castilla-La Mancha
is an important wine producing region), and an impressive selection of canned
food.
After the meal I was taken to the Mirador de La Mancha Hotel & Restaurant, which sits on a mountain overlooking the beautiful Castilla-La Mancha plains. The impressive D. Quixote statue made of wood really stood out, as did the paintings in front of the car parking places, inspired in Cervantes' novel.
