Tuesday 8 December 2009

New Journal Article in ANATOLIA

Today I received the hardcopy of the paper published in ANATOLIA: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research. The paper, entitled "The determinants of intention to purchase leisure travel over the Internet", was publised in Vol. 20, Number 2, pp. 345-358. This paper is still based on my PhD thesis.

ABTRACT: More than 10 years on since the launch of the Internet, there are clear differential levels of adoption of the Internet for purchasing leisure travel across countries. In some countries, such as Portugal, only a minority of travel purchasing is conducted over the Internet. This paper aims to contribute to a greater understanding of adoption of purchasing over the Internet by evaluating the determinants of intention to adopt the Internet for purchasing leisure travel. A number of variables are used to assess which factors influence intention, including the attributes of purchasing over the Internet (relative advantage and complexity), involvement, and the stage in the e-commerce adoption path. Kruskal-Wallis and logistic regression were employed and the results indicated that relative advantage, involvement and stage in the e-commerce adoption path were important predictors of the intention to purchase leisure travel over the Internet, while complexity was not.

Tuesday 17 November 2009

A note on current times...

Trying to make sense of the world where we live is one of my ongoing interests. My emphasis is trying to understand the reasons for the current economic (and social) situation. To be able to do this, one needs to take a step back and look at history. I am a firm believer that history repeats itself to a great extent. From time to time I come across certain sentences that are a great help to put things in to perspective. The first one, by Alexander Tyler, a Scottish historian, certainly gives you food for thought. If one accepts his view, which stage are we in? If you answer the question correctly, you know what is coming next... I have made my mind...

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

The second one is by Mahatma Gandhi

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“The things that will destroy us are, politics without principle, pleasure without conscience, wealth without work, knowledge without character, business without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice"

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Ask youself this questions about the western society:

* Do our politics have principles?

* Do we have pleasure with conscience?

* Is our wealth based on work?

* Do our businesses have a high moral standard?

* Is our science based on humanity principles?

Sunday 15 November 2009

MSc Events Management @ BU

The School of Services Management @ Bournemouth University holds the largest Tourist Masters in the UK. We have been at the top for more than a decade and each year we host around 120 students from more than 30 countries. Following the successful launch of the BA (Hons) Events Management in 2005 and the recruitment of a number of staff (including myself) since then, the school launched a MSc in Events Management in 2007. Starting this September I was also made the pathway leader for this Masters.

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I am pleased to say that the MSc Events Management is already a tremendous success. This year we saw the number of students growing to 40 (from 23 last year and 13 in the first year), which makes it the largest Events Masters in the UK. The 40 students originate from 17 different countries, with half the students coming from Asian countries (mainly China, Thailand and Taiwan) and the other half from Africa (Kenya) and Europe. The group of students is very enthusiastic, which makes teaching them so much more interesting. I am looking forward to continue working with such an engaged and culturally diverse set of students.

III International Congress Leiria and West

Next week I am presenting a paper at the III International Congress Leiria and West (Peniche, Portugal). My paper, co-authored with Nuno Ricardo Dias from the Estoril Higher Institute for Hotel and Tourism Studies (ESHTE), focuses on the satisfaction of golf tourists’ in the Lisbon Promotional Region (Portugal). During my stay in Portugal, I am also delivering a guest lecture at the school where I graduated and later worked for 10 years (ESHTE).

Saturday 14 November 2009

The "Bournemouth Matrix"

The new academic year is under way, in fact we are already half way through the first term! This has been a pretty hectic term and I cannot complaint of lack of work... I am unit tutor for three undergraduate units:
  • Leisure Innovation (Year one; BA (Hons) Leisure Marketing)
  • Event Innovation (Year one; BA (Hons) Events Management)
  • Consumer Experience & Behaviour (Year two; BA (Hons) Events Management)

I am also the leader for the Events Principles and Practice unit for the MSc in Events Management.

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These four units account for 340 undergraduate students and 40 Masters students! Fair enough, I am noyt teaching them alone - that would be impossible. The Event/Leisure Innovation units are co-taught with Pearl Morrison and the EPP unit with Caroline Jackson and Debbie Sadd.

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The content of the units is pretty much the same as in previous years, however I had to create something new for the LI/EI units. As I have reported in previous entries, in these units students have to develop a new leisure product/event for a real organisation. As part of the process, students need to examine the organisation’s product portfolio. One of the most methods employed to analyse an organisation’s product portfolio is the Boston Matrix. The focus of the Boston Matrix is on the relationship between the product and its market. Yet, sometimes it is not possible to clearly define the market for certain products. Recognising some weaknesses in the Boston Matrix, notably the fact that other variables than market share and market growth may be important means of analysing product portfolios, the General Electric (GE) matrix was developed. This matrix analyses each product based on market attractiveness (a measure of industry attractiveness) and business position (a measure of competitive position).

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The currently existing product planning matrices were formulated for business with clearly identifiable business units (SBUs). However, some businesses/organisations might not contain a range of clearly identifiable SBUs. In many cases, one businesses contains only one SBU – the business itself. Yet, the product offered by that business could be made up of different sub-products, that together contribute to the organisation’s competitiveness.

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One category where one SBU might consist of a number of products is service-based experiences. Experiential products are different from other types of products in that for a single price the person consumes a range of products (or sub-experiences). For example, visitor attractions are made up of a number of product propositions. These could include one core product (entertainment) and two supporting products (food and retail opportunities). The entertainment product, in turn, is usually made up of several components. If Farmer Palmers, a farm themed attraction for children under 8, is used as an example, its entertainment consists of pedal tractors, milking the cow, forest walk and straw mountain (just to name a few). In a similar vein, a fitness centre is made up of, for example, three products: Gym (core product), Spa/Beauty Centre and Café (Supporting products). The Gym, in turn is made up of several components, including group classes, weights and cardio fitness. Some of these components could even be further divided. For example, the cardio fitness component consist of different sub-components, such as treadmills, exercise bikes and rowing machines.

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This indicates that often:

  • leisure products consist of several components which are consumed at a single price. These individual components do not generate income independently of others (at least objectively) given the pricing structure. Together, they contribute to generate income through the single price charged for the consumption of the core product. Yet, existing matrices focus on a clearly identify business unit, capable of generating income independently of other products. They have not been designed to perform product analyses when it is not possible to establish revenues or units sold.
  • no information is available as to the size of the market (entire demand or supply) for each of these products/components. It is virtually impossible to establish the market for pedal tractors, straw mountains, treadmills and rowing machines. It is also difficult (if not impossible) to establish the market size of supporting products (such as retail and food)

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Thus, product portfolio analyses within the service-based leisure industries should be based on a different anchor that the notion of ‘market’. What I suggest as an alternative is to adopt an experiential ‘anchor’ as the basis for undertaking product portfolio analyses in the service-based leisure industries. The resulting matrix is tentatively called the “Bournemouth Matrix”. The proposed matrix analyses products (or their components) in relation to two areas: consumer appeal and development potential.

· Consumer appeal refers to how much a product (or component) contributes to the overall experience provided by the leisure organisation. Another way of looking at consumer appeal is to examine to what extent the withdrawal of that product (or component) would impact on how appealing the organisation would be to actual or potential consumers. Evidence to plot products (or components) along this axe could include: actual usage and consumer feedback (including consumer surveys).

· Development potential refers to the extent to which a particular product (or component) can be changed to enhance the customer experience (in terms of appealing/satisfying consumers more or satisfying a larger number of consumers). Establishing the development potential of products and components could result from an analysis of factors internal and external to the product or component.

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A more complete version of the matrix has been developed and an 8 page support document produced. Students are now applying the matrix to their allocated organisation and if the matrix proves to be useful to a wide range of organisations within the leisure industries, then I will ‘formally’ publish it.

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PS: As this is working in progress, no reference to the Bournemouth Matrix should be made without my previous consent. If you wish to discuss its use, contact me mmoital@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Tuesday 27 October 2009

Blog Updates

Dear Readers
Thanks for visiting my blog! Apologies for not updating it more frequently, but these have been very busy times. I've just 'survived' the beginning of another academic year. I am now trying to catch up. I have finished posting my 'Going East' journey (III- New Zealand; IV The Cook Islands) and will in the next few days post about other topics, including the Cancer Research UK 10k Run and the beginning of the new academic year. I've also got two sets of good news, but I will not spoil the surprise. You'l have to wait a few more days! Ok, one involves travelling East again :-)!
Cheers
M

Going East IV - The Cook Islands

Two years ago, after attending the Event Research Conference in Melbourne, I travelled to Fiji for a holiday. The Pacific Islands are beautiful and an excellent location to relax as well as to have some fun. This time I wanted to change location and after much consideration I decided to go to the Cook Islands (the initial plan was Tonga). I’ll never know if Tonga would have been better, but the CI choice was certainly a good one! I loved my week there J.

First, I travelled through the time line. That means departing from AKL on a Wednesday and arriving in Rarotonga on Tuesday! Confused? I was too...

I decided to stay in basic accommodation – as I was travelling alone the last thing I wanted was to end up in a luxury hotel full of honeymooners! (with me holding the candle J). So I joined the backpackers lot and stayed at Vara’s Beach Resort after reading good reviews on tripadvisor. The accommodation is very basic, but the crowd was fantastic! Sharing a room might be unimaginable for some, but if you want to meet people and socialise it is the best thing. In Fiji I had stayed in a dorm with 114 beds at Beachcomber Island!! This one was much smaller – 5 beds only and thus more private. While I was there, I had four girls as roomies (lucky me!): One Scottish, one Irish and two English (so long for me having a few days away from ‘Britishness’). They were good fun and we laughed a lot.



Arriving in Avarua, Rarotonga, Cook Islands

View of Muri Lagoon

View of Muri Lagoon from Vara's Resort Deck

Roomies Jenn, Mandy and Hannah, plus Stephen (in black)

The hostel was right in from of Muri Lagoon, in the most beautiful part of the Island. To wake up to this view for 7 days is an amazing experience. Nor surprisingly there was a lot of partying going on. There were two organised parties, one was a fancy dress party and the other a ‘pub crawl’. Mind that there are only 3 or 4 bars/nightclubs in Rarotonga, so you know where you’ve to go... The first party was the fancy dress party. Matt is an Australian who runs Vara’s Shack. He organises deep sea fishing trips (he’s also the skipper of a boat) as well as many other types of entertainment (including the organised parties). There’s a theme for every week – a letter of the alphabet. The week I was there the letter was G (some people were lucky enought to be there for the E, F, G and H parties!!!). The rule is that you need to produce your own costume – you cannot buy one (but you can buy some ‘ingredients’ to design yours). I dressed up as Global Warming (and the proof that it exists). There was a geek, a gladiator, two gipsies, guns & roses, just to name a few. The interesting thing is that the experience of the event starts much earlier, the day before the event Matt and others (including me) sat down and brainstormed ‘things’ starting with G. Needless to say that some people were very ‘inspired’... The other party was a pub crawl (on the Friday). Both parties were very good I (alcohol is not expensive there, which helped!), though I’ll refrain from making comments about the next day...



Fancy Dress Party

The crowd was so entertaining and sociable that I spent most days around Muri Beach. On Sunday I attended a religious service (mass), which is something unique and recommended to anyone who visits the island. The natives sing (both in English and Maori) and the whole experience is quite interesting. They even offer you biscuits and coffee at the end! Hannah (Irish) and Jenn (Scottish), two of my roomies, were my fellow churchgoers.

Before I left, I had the chance to dedicate one day to water activities. In the morning I went deep sea fishing and in the afternoon scuba diving. The deep sea fishing was very good. We caught to yellow fin tuna (part of one tuna was my dinner that day! Had half a kilo of tuna sashimi...)! But the best part was that the fishing trip turned in to a whale watching trip. Humpback whales hang around the island during the winter in south pole, and we were lucky to see 7 or 8 of them, a couple of which were very close to the boat!



The two yellow fin tunas that we caught (I pulled one... hard work and these are small fish, around 5/6kg each)

Humpback Whale, very close to the boat (no zoom used!)



Needless to say, the Scuba diving was also amazing. Lots of colourful fish! It is so peaceful down there! I am becoming a big fan of scuba diving and am looking forward to get PADI accreditation soon so that I can dive up to 20/30 meters.






I spent an amazing week in the Cook Islands, and when I look back what made it, most of all, was the people I met! The island is beautiful, the locals friendly, but it was the group of people who were at Vara’s Resort that made is an amazing week. I shall go back one day!

Going East III – New Zealand

My next stop was New Zealand. I flew to Auckland (the biggest city) before travelling down to Wellington (the capital city) where I met my friend Eli. I took an early flight, the day was bright and luckily I also got a window seat. To my surprise, we flew over mount Taranaki (whichI had never heard of) and the view from the plane was just amazing. The above picture is not mine, but it give an idea of what I am talking about! Not bad for a first sight of New Zealand! Mt Taranaki is a 2518-metre-high mountain and one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in the world. There is a secondary cone, Fanthams Peak, on the south side.

Mount Taranaki

Arrived in Wellignton, I met Eli. I know Eli from Bournemouth since she did her PhD here (back in 2003) and then got a job at Massey University in Palmerston North (2 hours north of Wellington). Meanwhile she got married to Shane (a Kiwi) and they have now got to beautiful daughters: Viana and Alexia.


Alexia (left) and Viana (right). This picture was taken at 7.30am... hence our faces!

We spent the night in Wellington and the next day they showed me the main tourist spots. Wellington is a nice city, though I would not want to land there when it’s windy! The airport runaway is surrounded by mountains! We were lucky with the weather (at least I was told so!) as the morning was quite sunny (albeit very cold!). The day started with a very nice English type breakfast at Smith the Grocer a café located in a boutique shopping centre – The Old Bank Arcade. The place is really well done, the food and coffee were great, I thoroughly enjoyed my breakfast.


Next, we visited some of the key tourist areas, including the top entrance of Wellington Botanic Garden and the Museum of New Zealand. You access the Botanic Garden by Cable Car, which takes from the lower area near the waterfront to the top of one of the Mountains that made up Wellington. From the top you can appreciate part of the city, including the bay. After a short walk through the beautiful Botanic Garden, we returned to lower grounds and visited the national museum. This is a very interesting museum and we were lucky because there was a performance of traditional Maori singing inside.


Cable car


View from the Botanic Gardens


Canoe - Museum of New Zealand


Because they had to pick up the kids from Shane’s parents (half way through Wellington and Palmertson North), we left Wellington mid afternoon. The next day was dedicated to visiting Palmerston North and surrounding areas. The city itself has little to see, but the landscape around the city is quite interesting. We visited a giant wind farm, and had lunch at a local farm where we enjoyed local food. I left Palmertson North the next day, travelling to Auckland with a short stop in Rotorua. It was great to see Eli again and meet her family.


The journey to Rotorua was quite interesting, albeit a bit long (nearly 5 hours). We travelled through Lake Taupo. Unfortunately, it was raining with low clouds and we could not see much of the volcanos around the Lake. The 24 hours spent in Rotorua were intense. The city is known for its geothermal activity, with a number of geysers and hot mud pools located in the city. Rotorua city is renowned for its unique "rotten eggs" aroma, which is caused by the geothermal activity releasing sulphur coumponds into the atmosphere. These can be seen throughout the city. I attended a Maori show which included dinner. It was not a very pleasant experience at the beginning because I had the worst head ache! Fortunately I sat next to a doctor (from England) and as a good doctor she had paracetamol with her! The show itself was interesting and the food was cooked according to the Maori Tradition (Called Hangi).



Maori Show

The next day I just walked around town and before taking the bus to Auckland I paid a visit to the Polynesian Spa for an hour of pure relaxation! This spa has been considered one of the best 10 Spas in the world. The setting is really amazing! There are four pools at different temperatures. Not surprisingly without knowing this I entered the hottest one first which was a little unpleasant... It was cold outside (10ºC), but it felt great to be in warm water just chilling out. I think the picture talks for itself :-)

Polynesian Spa

I was time continue my journey towards Auckland and after a night there, it was time to fly to warmer waters – the Cook Islands!!! After a week in the CI (see next post for a report), I returned to Auckland, where I spent two nights before returning to the UK. I did this stop to talk at the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute and meet colleagues from Auckland University of Technology. This was possible because Professor Nigel Hemmington, who was the Dean of the School of Services Management @ BU for nearly 10 years (that is, my boss!) is now the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at AUT (the school of tourism and hospitality and the NZTRI are part of this faculty). On Thursday I caught up with Nigel, who showed me a bit of Auckland downtown before our lunch in the university’s practice restaurant (where hospitality students practice). I was impressed with the food and services. I was given really different things to try: a starter in a shot glass with a mussel inside! as well as an ice cream made of a stinky (and I mean STINKY) Asian fruit. The next day I talked to a NZTRI audience about the gastronomic experience of European tourists in Portugal. During my visit I also had the chance to meet some of their staff, including Simon Milne (Director of the NZTRI) and Jane Legget. The presentation was very well received by the audience made up of around 25 PhD students, practitioners and academics.


With Simon Milne and Jane Legget from the NZTRI

New Zealand is a very beautiful country and I am looking forward to go back and spend more time travelling around. Though I’ve learned the lesson! Visit the Country in the summer, because winters are very cold (and we’ve got enough cold in the UK)

Saturday 29 August 2009

Going East II – Australia

The second leg the journey took place in the Gold Coast, Australia, where I attended the International Event Management Summit, which incorporated the ACEM 5th International Event Management Research Conference (6-7 July) and the 3rd Event Education and Research Network (8 July). I presented two papers, one on event stakeholders and another on festival satisfaction. Below you can find the titles and the abstracts of both papers:


THE FUTURE OF A MARATHON AS PERCEIVED BY ITS STAKEHOLDERS

Caroline Jackson, Miguel Moital and Jenna Le Couillard

This paper is a result of Jenna’s undergraduate dissertation that I supervised. Jenna did very well (she got a first!) and me and Caroline picked up on her work and improved it in order to submit it to the conference. I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to teach some bright students who are able to do research that is good enough for publication. In addition to Jenna’s dissertation, I’ve got two other dissertations that could lead to papers (one definitely will). Not only Jenna’s chosen research topic is very relevant, but she did a very good job developing a creative methodology and collecting good quality primary data.

The aim of her research was to identify if the continuation of the event was supported by its stakeholders and what their objectives were for its future. The research attempted to understand if the stakeholders desired event growth, and if so, in which areas and to what level. Jenna adapted Shoemaker’s (1995) scenario planning process to suit the research. She developed three scenarios that were presented to the stakeholders: a small scale event, medium scale event and large scale event and within these scenarios a range of event features were covered. The overall finding was that the stakeholders wanted to maintain the event and to support its growth. They viewed the Marathon as currently being a small scale event with elements of a medium scale event and saw it growing to become a medium scale with elements of a large scale event. A key finding was that the stakeholders had conflicting views throughout and this was due to their varying backgrounds and objectives for the event. These potential differences will need to be carefully managed by the event organisers if the future development of the event is to be successful.

EXAMINING THE CONTRIBUTION OF EMOTIONS TO FESTIVAL SATISFACTION USING LOGISTIC REGRESSION

Miguel Moital, Caroline Jackson, Mary-Beth Gouthro

This paper is based on a study focusing on festival satisfaction that I am doing together with the two co-authors (and colleagues at BU) of the paper. The reason to write this paper came from the conclusion that past studies on consumer satisfaction have tended to focus on ‘cognitive’ determinants of satisfaction. In other words, they seek explanation to festival satisfaction on a range of specific (more or less tangible) attributes of the festival. Yet, in experience-based products, such as festivals, this may not be sufficient to fully understand the determinants of satisfaction. Emotions are at the centre of experiences and therefore we argue that these should also be incorporated in satisfaction models.

Therefore, in this paper we sought to examine the determinants of festival satisfaction and to understand the extent to which emotion is a determinant of festival satisfaction. Using the Beach Break Live Festival (UK) as a case study and logistic regression as the analytical technique, the results show that emotions do contribute to explaining festival satisfaction in addition to cognition. Moreover, positive emotions were the single most important determinant of overall satisfaction. Satisfaction with Food & Drink, Staff, Facilities and Information & Organisation were also found to influence participants’ satisfaction. We conclude by discussion implications for theory and practice.


If you wish to receive a copy of any of these papers, send me an email to mmoital@bournemouth.ac.uk


My colleagues Dorothy Fox, Debbie Sadd and Richard Shipway also presented papers at this conference (Yes, BU was the foreign university with the largest representation at the conference).

Dorothy presented a paper on The contribution of an events programme to sustainable heritage conservation: a study of the National Trust in England. The paper, co-authored with Nicola Johnson, explores the various ways in which the National Trust’s programme of events has been developed to contribute to sustainable heritage conservation. The method they used for this case study consisted of the collection and analysis of both primary and secondary data. The former obtained through in-depth interviews with key personnel within the National Trust, with secondary data from the National Trust and other sources used in support. The findings show the Trust’s events play a vital role in educating the public in sustainability, in respect of both natural and cultural heritage. The interview participants revealed that the events are conceived in two main ways – first, a topdown approach whereby events relate to a national organisational campaign and secondly, events which develop from the bottom-up and reflect the uniqueness of each of the Trust’s properties. This study therefore extends the prevailing approach to events and sustainable development by considering the very positive contribution of an events programme to heritage conservation, which has implications for other conservation bodies throughout the world.

Dorothy

Debbie’s presentation, entitled London 2012 – Will it be regeneration or renaissance in times of financial crisis? (co-authored with Ian Jones), focussed on the ‘regeneration’ that is proposed for the residents in the area of the Olympic Park developments in the Lower Lea Valley in London. The study (undertaken as part of her PhD) is based upon the detailed examination of two past Games and their impacts upon the local residents of the Olympic venues, in Sydney, 2000 and Barcelona 1992. The study evaluates the impacts of the planning for London 2012 to date on the local residents through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. This study also examines the impact of the global credit crisis upon the legacy planning and highlights some of the impacts already being seen with regard to the changes being made by the Olympic Delivery Authority to the original bid documentation.

Debbie

Richard presented a paper entitled Sporting events, distance running and the ‘third place’. His paper, based on his doctoral studies, adds to the limited body of knowledge on sports events by exploring the social world of active sports event participants. In his paper, the experiences of active sports event participants are explored at a selection of international distance running events. Preliminary results suggest that a key aspect of the sports event experience is that the event provides access to a social environment of like-minded people, especially within the event setting. Within these research results, the key emerging theme and direction of this study is to explore the role of sporting events as a ‘third place’ outside of the home and work environment.

Richard :-)


On the last day of the conference, the BU team met a number of academics from Victoria University. Professor Leo Jago is a visiting professor at BU, and we took this opportunity to discuss possible projects between academics of the two institutions.


Academic staff from Victoria University and Bournemouth University

After the conference, I stayed in the area for a two week holiday. My first stop was New Zealand. I will post about it over the next few days.

Going East I – Singapore

Apologies to all readers for not posting recently, but I was away most of July and the first two weeks in August and then I was catching up with some work. Undergraduate students are not around, but the work does not stop...

On the 2nd of July, a day after the Events Management exam board, I took off to ‘the other side of the world’ to attend the Event Research Conference in Australia. I went with three colleagues (Caroline Jackson, Dorothy Fox and Debbie Sadd). Travelling to Australia involves a very long flight. Two years ago, when I went to the same conference (in Melbourne), I flew to Australia directly and closer to the conference. This was a mistake... I struggled to be fully awake at the conference due to the jet leg! I can barely remember my presentation of two years ago as I was so sleepy. This time I did not do the same mistake. We flew a couple of days earlier, to have enough time to acclimatise and get used to the different time.

Instead of travelling directly to Australia, we decided to stop in Singapore (there are only 2 hours difference between Singapore and Queensland). For the first time I flew with Singapore Airlines and the flight from London to Singapore was on the… A380! Beautiful plane, very comfortable seat, outstanding entertainment system, excellent service and delicious food! I guess by now you have realised that I loved flying with SingaporeAir. From now on, I will fly with them if I can – having a good airline when flying long haul makes a difference.

The A380

We took this opportunity to visit Singapore and to make some contacts with local educational institutions. We visited Temasek Poytechnic and a private further education institute. We were very well received by Sandra, our host at Temasek Poly. The Poly offers culinary arts courses and the students work on some of the cafes and restaurants with their premises. We had a ‘comfort stop’ at one of these and the food was simply delicious. Look at the picture below! Mouth watering indeed.

Delicious food. OK, a third of the table contains my food! Greedy Miguel! Just could not resist trying the food. I had the soup on the left, the japanese style food next to it and the yellow cake at the bottom of the picture.




Starting on my right: Caroline, Sandra, Dorothy and Debbie


Needless to say that we also used our free time to visit some of the hotspots in Singapore. The Youth Asian Games were on and on Saturday we went to Sentosa Island to attend the Beach Voleyball tournament.


Sentosa Island, with the event taking place in the background

On the only night we spent in Singapore we did the famous ‘night safari’. It was an interesting experience. Basically it is a zoo, with the animals spread over a large area (unlike city zoos), but you have the chance to see the animals at night.

At the night safari

Just before resuming our journey to Australia, we had time to taste one of the symbols of Singapore – the Singapore Sling Cocktail. Of course, we did it where it should be: at the Raffles Hotel. The cocktail was invented by bartender Ngiam Tong Boon between 1910 and 1915. It is very tasty but you should not drink too many… the recipe includes Gin, Cherry Brandy, Cointreau and Dom Benedictine. We had only one as we were a few hours away from flying to Brisbane...

Cheers! Enjoying the Singapore Sling Cocktail at the Raffles Hotel

Friday 10 July 2009

Australia, NZ and more

I am currently on the other side of the world. Earlier this week I attended the 5th Event Research Conference in the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. On my way to Australia, I stopped in Singapore for 36h. This was quite an interesting experience. Singapore is worth visiting. I am now in New Zealand. I will spend the night in Wellington, before travelling to Palmerston North (visit a friend) and then to Rotorua. It is quite cold in NZ. The sky was clear and on my way from Auckland to Wellington the plane went through an old volcano covered in snow. The view was amazing and I regret not having my camera at hand to take pictures. This was a taster of what NZ has to offer... so I am looking forward to see more beautiful spots. As I am writting this post from an Internet cafe in Wellington, the background music just started playing a Portuguese song!!! Marisa is the singer's name and she sings fado. A little weird...

Next week I will be travelling to one of the (paradisiac) south pacific islands for a holiday - I will tell you later which one! I will then come back to Auckland, where I will be talking at the New Zealand Travel Research Institute, as well as visiting Auckland University of Technology. Then it is time to fly back to the UK...

I already have lots of pictures and stories to tell, but I don't think I will be able to post them before arriving in the UK at the end of the month (but I will try...). Stay tuned!

M

Saturday 27 June 2009

Presentation at AEME's Forum

On the 18-19 June I travelled to Huddersfield (Northern England) to attend the 7th AEME Events Management Educators Forum. AEME (Association of Event Management Educators) is an association of educational institutions set up to advance the education of the public in the subject of events and events management. More specifically, it aims to support and raise the profile of the events discipline through the sharing of education and best practice.

This year’s theme was “Continuing Professional Development or Continuing to Develop the Professionals?”. The aim of the forum was to explore the roles, in partnership, that industry and educators have in continuing to develop current and future events professionals, including through continuing professional development. One of the teaching innovations I introduced this academic year was a closer link between the student work and the ‘real’ world and therefore this experience could provide a valuable contribution to the forum’s theme.

The unit is called Leisure Product (Event Innovation from October) and a piece of coursework was designed to meet the objectives of the unit, which revolve around exploring innovation and new product development theory and apply this knowledge to a real organisation. At the same time, the coursework had to give students the opportunity to reflect on their current knowledge of innovation and new product development, with a view to reflect on the key areas of the unit that they think are important with regard to their academic development and future employment.

The coursework involves developing a new event, for which students have to follow a step by-step process, divided in two stages:

  • Consultancy report (first term) - The aim of the consultancy report is to identify the company’s current market situation and to identify the gap in the market place.
  • Group presentation - The group presentation resembles an executive briefing to the management of the company. This presentation is for students to make a ‘business case’ for the new event they have developed for the company. The presentation follows a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style, where students present the business case in front of ‘dragons’, with a view to obtain their support for its development and launch.

The coursework has now run for 4 years, and over this period many changes have been made following an analysis of student performance. Until last year, groups were free to select the company they wished to employ as their case study. This caused a number of problems. For example, most groups selected companies for which incomplete information was available, hindering their ability to undertake a thorough internal and external analysis of the organisation. From an assessor’s point of view, it also made it difficult to compare student performance given the diversity of organisations and products that resulted from such flexible approach. In one seminar, I could go from wakes at the Golden Hinde (an old boat located in London), to a event at Swizzels Matlow (a candy factory) for former employees, to environmentally friendly weddings at the Eden Project! It is not surprising that at times it was difficult to keep track of all students’ proposals (there were around 25 groups)…

While what we were doing was already interesting and relevant for the students, for 08-09 a number of changes were implemented. One of the most relevant was the allocation of a specific organisation to each seminar group (there were 5 seminar groups of around 30 students each). This change in particular had a tremendous impact on student performance and engagement. Overall, we (me and my colleague Pearl Morrison, who is a co-tutor of the unit) feel that the right ‘formula’ was found. The allocation of an organisation to each seminar group allowed students to visit the organisation’s premises (we selected local companies) at the beginning of the academic year, while accessing detailed information via information packs provided by each organisation (e.g. strategic plans, marketing plans, financial data). In addition, managers of the organisations attended the presentations at the end of the year (they were one of the ‘dragons’). These changes led to students working in a much more ‘real’ context: working with a real organisation, real information and to real dragons.

In order to establish whether the coursework was perceived as an appropriate method for the unit, notably after the implementation of the changes, an evaluation of the experience was made that involved:

  • discussions with each of the seminar groups at the end of stage 1.
  • An online questionnaire at the end of stage 2
  • A brief email interview with the managers of the organisation allocated to each of the five groups

My session at the AEME Forum shared the experience of this unit with participants. The results of the evaluation process were presented at the forum. The main points emerging from the focus group were:

  • A sense of satisfaction of completing a consultancy report
  • A feeling of relief/satisfaction/pride
  • The opportunity to learning some of the theories/models (applicable in the real world)
  • More motivated by a real organisation than an ‘imaginary one’
  • ‘A chance to be creative’

In summary, the consultancy report was deemed ‘Challenging, interesting & worthwhile’ as well as ‘Useful, stressful & educational’

As far as the questionnaire is concerned (answered by 52% of the students who did the unit):

  • 95% said that having a real organisation was very or extremely useful
  • Around 80% of students indicated that the coursework has improved their communication & presentation skills, as well as their ability to work in groups.
  • The same proportion (80%) said they learnt a lot from the dragons’ feedback (tutors and managers)

Overall students were very pleased with the nature of the work – around 4 out of 5 were satisfied or very satisfied, with the remaining 10% neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. Only 7% were dissatisfied with the coursework.

All managers expressed that they were impressed with students’ effort and found it worth the investment in time. Several managers volunteered to do it again in the future. Some of the business cases were very good. Managers showed excitement about some of the business proposals and some expressed an intention to take some of the ideas forward with the help of students (on a voluntary basis).

Taken together, these results are quite positive. Yet, I am still not happy that 7% of students were unhappy (and a further 10% were not happy). Our own experience and the feedback allowed us to identify areas that need to be addressed and we are hopeful that once implemented they will improve the level of student (and our!) satisfaction with the coursework and the unit.

The experience was deemed relevant enough by the university, which organised a press release covering the dragon’s den presentations. We believe this experience could be relevant to others teaching events (or other business related courses), and therefore we are planning to write a paper about it. I will keep you updated about any developments in this front. Thank you for reading this post till the end!

Friday 26 June 2009

'Learning & Teaching'

I have been posting mostly about my research and my life, now it is time to close the 'triangle' and talk about my teaching.

I am fairly new to the world of learning and teaching/pedagogy in higher education, despite my 14 year (!) career in higher education. I started my career in higher education in Portugal (where I worked for 10 years) and higher education pedagogy was simply not in the agenda. I did not have to have any teaching qualification to teach in higher education (?!). While I was doing the best I knew and I could, in all honesty I was ‘doing’. The skills or knowledge to reflect on the nature of learning and my own practice were not there. For example, I had never thought about the definition of learning, let alone hearing about concepts such as ‘deep and surface learning’, ‘constructive alignment’ and ‘formative and summative feedback’.

Since I joined Bournemouth University, this has changed dramatically. Learning & Teaching are a central activity for any UK academic institution, and BU is no exception. At the earliest opportunity I enrolled on the Post-Graduate Certificate (PGCert) in Academic Practice, which BU offers for free to all the academic staff (lecturers or support staff). Two years ago (when I did it) it was still optional, now it has become compulsory (if you do not hold a teaching qualification yet).

The PGCert was a fantastic experience and it really opened my eyes to a complete new world. Yet, this new world should not have been new for someone with 10 years experience in higher education. I realised that I had been doing a job (i.e. facilitating student learning) for which I had no training whatsoever! For an academic, who among other things attempts to convince businesses that they should be recruiting individuals with an events management degree because they have been well trained to do the job, it does not look good! In Portuguese we would use the expression “em casa de ferreiro, espeto de pau” (means something like this: "only wooden kebab sticks are used at a blacksmith’s home”).

After successfully completing my PGCert, I become a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. HEA’s mission is to support the sector in providing the best possible learning experience for all students. The HEA commissions a number of reports that they then make available in their website (see resources page). Generally, these are of a very high quality, usually involving reporting on actual pedagogic experiences at UK universities. And the access is free to all (even if you are not a fellow!). From time to time I pay a visit to their site to see what’s new. For those who are looking for inspiration with a view to improve their teaching practice, this site is a good source of information.

Back to the PGCert experience. Since taking this course, I have developed an ongoing interest in learning & teaching issues. The tools learnt during the course helped me to develop an awareness regarding my own pedagogic practice. I am now much more aware of my strengths and weaknesses. And this has been valuable information as it enables me to build on my strengths and work towards improving whatever skills I am lacking. At an attitudinal level, it has also entrenched in my mind the importance of continuously attempting to improve what I do to foster student learning. Actually, I have set myself the goal of introducing a new pegagogic element in my practice every year. My confidence levels improved to the extent that I have now introduced several teaching innovations (for me) in my teaching practice. Examples include:

  1. ‘Dragon’s Den’ Experience - involves using ‘real’ tasks and real organisations to improve student learning and motivation
  2. Use of banks of comments to improve the quantity and quality of feedback.
  3. Use of blogs to enhance students ability to self-assess

I will come back to some of these experiences soon in separate posts.

During the PGCert I had to do a portfolio of teaching and learning, which included a supporting report. In order to illustrate the dramatic impact the course had on me, I employed an analogy to a story I had heard from an ‘old wise man’ who is a very good friend of mine. The morals of the story address three important questions: where I come from, where I am and where I might be in the future as far as my academic practice is concerned.

The story goes like this. A group of humans had been living all their lives in a cavern, which had a little hole at the top. Because it was too high and narrow, they could not see what was going on outside other than shadows. One day, after much effort, one of them manages to get to the top, leave the cavern and see the world outside. The world outside was immense, full of different people, objects and practices. A world he had never imagined. Much different from the ‘single world’ he knew from living in the cavern. Before he left, he was an ‘ignorant’ – he though he had seen everything, he though he new everything. Now, he was in awe and fascinated with what he was seeing. He was ready to explore it, ready to learn what that new world would reveal.

My journey over the past three years at BU is a voyage of enlightening in much the same way as the cavern man’s one. I have climbed the rock and left my previous world, governed by shadows. Like the cavern man’s new world, I know that the learning and teaching world is much wider and richer than the one I knew before embarking on this journey. And it is much richer than the one I know today. You start seeing endless possibilities. Like the cavern man’s new world, after you have seen it, you will no go back to the shadow. You have no other desire than wanting to explore it, seeing what other new worlds are out there. And more importantly, the discovery of a new world leads you to the conclusion that as much as you may be learning exciting new things every day, you know that it is just another 'cavern'. Thus, you just need to climb the wall again and again to discover new worlds. You then realise you still know nothing when compared to what is out there to be learned. At this stage, you’ve become a scientist. You realise you still know nothing (much gthe same as the ignorant), but you are aware of it. Hence you keep climbing walls. You keep learning. As to the ignorant, he remains in the cavern, contemplating the shadows.

Thursday 21 May 2009

Cherries for Charity

I have recently returned from a one week holiday in Portugal. Among other things, I spent a few days at my uncle Necas' farm. He is a part time Cherry producer and his farm which contains hundreds of cherry trees. Since it is now cherry season, I spend the days picking (and eating!) cherries. Cherries are a great fruit, and believe me if you eat ripe ones straight from the tree, it is as sweet as honey! It is hard labour though and I am not surprised that they are so expensive to buy. Basically, it takes around 45 minutes to pick 5 kilos. And this is just picking, let alone the work (and luck!) that is required to ensure that the trees produce good quality cherries. The weather was great, sunny and a warm temperature, so besides an active day in the countryside you also get a nice sun tan...
With my uncle Necas

Boxes ready to go to the market


The buckets brought from the orchard


Cherries in the tree


My first bucket!

I brought with me a suitcase full of cherries, which I have sold to colleagues and friends: £4 per ½ kilo bag! I did this as a means to raise funds for charity. In the UK it is common for people to raise funds for the charity(ies) they support and I have taken this opportunity to do it myself. The money raised - £82 - has been donated to 3 charities:

  1. Pebble Beach Charitable Trust – UK (£20): Trust associated to the Pebble Beach Restaurant in Barton on Sea (Hampshire). 50% of the monies raised by this charity are given to a local Hampshire and Dorset charity (currently 'help the aged'), while the other half provides computers and educational equipment to schools and youth projects in Brazil that would otherwise be unable to have access to essential technology
  2. Portuguese Association of Cerebral Palsy - Leiria Branch - Portugal (£20/€22): My friend Nuno Brilhante Pedrosa just fulfilled his dream of uniting the 2 Poles of the Globe, travelling as far as possible, by bicycle and in autonomy, from the Canadian Artic to the 'Tierra del Fuego' in Argentina, cycling over 42.000 kilometres. During his journey, he raised the flag (and money!) for this charity. To celebrate his achievement and the important work of the charity, I have decided to share the money with them.
  3. Leukaemia Research UK (£42) - the only charity in the UK dedicated exclusively to researching blood cancers and disorders including leukaemia, Hodgkin’s and other lymphomas, and myeloma. One of my best friends has recently been diagnosed with early stages of leukaemia, and the 3 year son of a colleague's best friend is also undergoing chemotherapy, hence the ‘double’ amount to this charity.

On behalf of the charities, a big thank you to all who have bought the cherries, as well my uncle Manuel Antunes Rodrigues (aka Necas) who kindly donated them.

III Conference “Advances in Tourism Economics”, Lisbon

On the 23rd and 24th of April I travelled to Lisbon, Portugal to attend the conference “Advances in Tourism Economics”. This conference was the third under a biennial conference series on Advances in Tourism Economics (ATE). The 2009 conference was jointly organised by the Portuguese Association for Tourism Research and Development (APIDT) and the Research Centre in Tourism, Innovation and Services (CITIS) of Lusiada University in Lisbon.

The conference attracted around 120 delegates from more than 20 countries, featuring 80 paper presentations, supported by two keynote speeches. I chaired two of the parallel sessions, one on “Motivation and consumer satisfaction in tourism markets” and another on “Tourism development and emerging products”. The first session featured papers from five and the second from four countries. Both sessions run very well and included a diversified, yet high quality range of papers. Besides chairing these two sessions, I also acted as a member of the scientific committee.

The conference program included a gala dinner at the Atrio Casino Restaurant (Lisbon Casino), after which we had the chance to try our luck at the slot machines using the €5 voucher given to all delegates. Needless to say that all delegates are still academics since no one has won the jackpot!


With Dr. Álvaro Matias and Professor Manuela Sarmento, co-chairs of the conference

Wednesday 22 April 2009

Visiting UNIVALI

As an academic, you are never really out of your work, and my journey to Brazil was no exception. After my holidays in Rio and Bahia, I flew south to Balneário Camboriu (Santa Catarina State) to be an external examiner for an MPhil at UNIVALI. Balneariu Camboriu is one of the main resorts in South Brazil, similar to Benidorm (located around a bay and featuring high rise buildings - see photo below). The thesis was undertaken by Laira Stock and supervised by Dr. Sara Anjos. The thesis examined the logistics of the Joinville Dance Festival (Santa Catarina State). That same day, I did a guest lecture to around 150 tourism, hospitality, gastronomy and business studies students on "Gastronomy and tourism: motivation and satisfaction of European tourists in Portugal".

With the other members of the examining panel: Dr. Sara Anjos, Laira Stock (student), Dr. Josildete Oliveira and Dr. Ovidio da Silva Junior

Balneario Camboriu

The next day, I was greeted by Dr. Valdir Cechinel Filho, Pro-Vice-Chancelor (Research and Post-Graduate Studies) of UNIVALI, after which I had a brief tour around Itajai (where the main UNIVALI campus is located). Itajai is a thriving port town, which has grown significantly over the past years.

View of Itajai

Cabeçudas Beach


"Parrot Beak" Rock, near Cabeçudas Beach


Later that day, Dr. Sara Anjos (my host) took me to Parque Vila Germânica (German Town Park) in Blumenau (around 50km from Balneario Camboriu), a city that I had previously visited more than 10 years ago during my first journey to Brazil (1998). Parque Germânico is a multi-purpose venue which hosts a range of events, the main one of which is Oktoberfest, the largest of its type outside Germany (around 700.000 visitors over two weeks). Mrs Cristina, the marketing manager of the festival, showed me the modern premises and talked about the festival. I was impressed by the quality of the park, the size of the event and effort put in to its organisation, notably the concern about improving the experience of event goers every year.

German Park, with the Mrs Cristina, Oktoberfest marketing manager



German Park, with Dr. Sara Anjos and Mrs Cristina, the Oktoberfest marketing manager


With Dr. Sara Anjos at the Pattisserie Dona Hilda (Blumenau), enjoying a tea and a delicious cake

Wednesday 1 April 2009

Holiday in Brazil - Easter 2009

After an hectic and draining term, I went on a holiday to Brazil. For those who don’t know me that well, I love Brazil and spend most of my holidays there. I have managed to make many good friends over the past years and this time I have visited friends in Rio de Janeiro (Niteroi), Bahia (Salvador) and São Paulo. I had the chance to relax, have fun and meet new people. Here are some pictures.

In Rio Scenarium, in Lapa District in Rio de Janeiro



In Rio Scenarium with my friends Rodrigo, Paula, Ana Luiza and Claudia



Celebrating the engagement of Rodrigo and Paula. With champagne of course!!



Enjoying a delicious cocktail in Salvador

Soho Restaurant, Salvador


One of my favourite foods: Sushi (Soho Restaurant, Salvador)