LIT&TOUR - International Conference on Literature and Tourism

LIT&TOUR

International Conference on Literature and Tourism

University of Lisbon

26 November 2012

 CALL FOR PAPERS

Call deadline: June 14th  2012

The Lit&Tour: International Conference on Literature and Tourism will be hosted by the Centre for Comparative Studies of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, in collaboration with the School of Management, Hospitality and Tourism of the University of the Algarve. The theme of the Conference is the relationship between literature and tourism. The Conference will focus on the various forms and approaches of this relationship. 

The last three decades have been fruitful in studies and publications on travel literature. The relationship between literature and tourism has not, however, been the target of an intensive and systematic study.   

Although in Portugal literary itineraries and other forms of connection between literature and tourism are scarce, there are many and varied initiatives in this field in other countries. The fact that these have significantly multiplied over the latest years illustrates the growing interest in this type of tourism.  Besides, the recent establishment by UNESCO of a list of "Cities of Literature" is also relevant and an expression of this growing interest.

The way a place is mentioned and described in a literary text can be of great relevance for the construction of its image, a kind of reading protocol. This is relevant given that the image/memory of the place is central to the process of its transformation into a tourist product. The tourist place/destination cannot be experienced by the consumer before its purchase, therefore it is a product which value depends entirely on the imaginary, on the memories evoked by others on their descriptions, on the way they describe the experiences and emotions offered by a destination or lived in it. The descriptions presented by authors for centuries, the way they describe their own experiences or the experiences of their characters, create a memory of the place that can be used in the process of converting it into a tourist product.

Structure:

The conference will include plenary sessions, designed to invited guest speakers, followed by submitted paper parallel sessions. 

Keynote speakers:

Professor Harald Hendrix (Utrecht University)

Professor Helena Carvalhão Buescu (Lisbon University)

Submissions:

Presentations on, but not limited to, the following subjects are encouraged:

• Representations of tourism in literature (different types of tourism destinations represented and associated heritage);
• Representations of the tourist and of tourist experiences in the literature (writer tourist / reader tourist/ cultural tourist);                                                                        
• Literary tourism.

Presentations will be 20 minutes long.

Please submit abstracts of 250-500 words, in a Microsoft Word file, no later than June 14th, 2012, to the following e-mail address lit&tour@fl.ul.pt  Please mention any technology needed for your presentation.

Abstracts and Presentations may be in Portuguese or in English.

Together with the abstract, a short bio note (1500 character limit) should be sent.

Notification of acceptance: 31^st July 2012

Full articles should be submitted by January 2013 to allow for review, revision, and publication. Author guidelines are available at:

http://www.comparatistas.edu.pt/images/docs/normasparaautores.doc

Conference  fees:

With presentation: until September the 10^th -  60 Euros. Late registrations - 100 Euros.

Without presentation: until September the 10^th -  30 Euros. Late registrations -  50 Euros.

Free admission for those who do not wish to receive the information and support pack, FLUL PhD students, and ESGHT Master Students.

Registration will only be valid after the payment of the conference fee.

Scientific Advisory Board:

§  Ana Filipa Prata (FLUL)

§  Cláudia Henriques (ESGHT – UAlg)

§  Isabel Dâmaso Santos (FLUL)

§  Isilda Leitão (ESHTE)

§  José Figueiredo Santos (ESGHT – UAlg)

§  Raquel Baltazar (FLUL)

§  Rita Baleiro (ESGHT – UAlg)

§  Sílvia Quinteiro (ESGHT – UAlg/ CEC)

Organizing committee:

§  Ana Filipa Prata (FLUL)

§  Cláudia Henriques (ESGHT – UAlg)

§  Isabel Dâmaso Santos (FLUL)

§  Isilda Leitão (ESHTE)

§  José Figueiredo Santos (ESGHT – UAlg)

§  Raquel Baltazar (FLUL)

§  Rita Baleiro (ESGHT – UAlg)

§  Sílvia Quinteiro (ESGHT – UAlg/ CEC)

Contact:

Lit&Tour: International Conference on Literature and Tourism
Centro de Estudos Comparatistas
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
Alameda da Universidade
1600-214 Lisboa
Portugal

Telephone: (351) 21 792 00 85
Fax: (351) 21 796 00 63
E-Mail: lit&tour@fl.ul.pt  Este endereço de email está protegido contra spam bots, pelo que o Javascript terá de estar activado para poder visualizar o endereço de email

           cec@fl.ul.pt

AECIT conference: 21-23 November 2012

I am participating in the XVII AECIT international congress, which takes place in the town of Carballiño (Ourense, Galicia, Spain) this November. AECIT, the Spanish Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism, selected as the theme for the conference "Creation and development of tourism products: innovation and the experiential approach”. I am a member of the scientific committee, and I will also be delivering a keynote presentation on emotion engineering and the development of new tourism products. 

The conference will also involve a research component, where a maximum of 60 papers will be selected for presentation. The first deadline for submitting papers is the 31st of May. For more information, please go to the conference's website. http://www.aecit2012.com/

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).

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.

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!

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

Review of 2008 (3) - Presov, Slovakia

In October I travelled to Presov, Slovakia, to deliver a keynote speech at the 8th International Conference of Partner Institutions, La Fondation pour la Formation Hôtelière, Nestle Pro Gastronomia and Hotel Academy. The Conference puts together 18 European educational institutions in the field of hospitality and tourism to share experiences in teaching and research as well as to stimulate mutual activities. My presentation focused on gastronomy and tourism, presenting a summary of the results of the research on European tourists’ motivation to consume, and satisfaction with the consumption of, Portuguese gastronomy. This study has been carried out together with Dr. Antónia Correia (Algarve University) and Carlos Ferreria da Costa (Aveiro University).
The social programme included a visit to the local wine museum and a gala dinner at a private club, which was prepared and served by the students and staff of the local hotel school.

Visiting the wine museum

With Dr. Iordanka Alexieva, Chair of the Conference

Central Square in Presov, with the beautiful cathedral behind

Review of 2008 (2) - EIGTUR and more

In March 2008 I attended the First International Meeting on Tourism Management – EIGTUR 2008, hosted at Parque Metalúrgico in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil, by NUPETUR, the tourism research centre of Federal Univerisity of Ouro Preto. The conference attracted more than 100 delegates, mainly from Brazil but also from other South American countries including Argentina and Uruguay, as well as delegates from Europe, Africa and North America. The conference featured a diverse range of paper presentations, supported by a series of high profile keynote speakers and round tables addressing contemporary issues in the tourism industry.

In addition to delivering a number of presentations, I was a member of the scientific committee. I presented two referred papers: one on the determinants of the intention to purchase leisure travel over the Internet and another on the determinants of the intention to adopt mobile electronic tourist guides. I have also delivered two other presentations as keynote speaker. The first one focused on a model that I have developed (together with Antónia Correia from Algarve University, Portugal) to study the prestige motivation in tourism (see post below). The second presentation covered the legacy of mega-events. These topics were presented in sessions were renowned international academics also presented their topics, including Larry Dwyer (Australia), Brent Ritchie (Canada) and Carlos Costa (Portugal). The conference was an excellent opportunity to network and meet fellow tourism academics (mainly Brazilian).

Besides attending the conference and develop contacts with Brazilian academics, this journey to Brazil had two other purposes. One of them was to raise the profile of Bournemouth University by delivering guest lectures at Brazilian Universities. Three guest lecturers took place: São Paulo University (undergraduate students & lecturers), Universidade Anhembi Morumbi (under & post-graduate students and academics) and UNIFACS - Salvador University (undergraduate students & academics).

The other purpose was to collect primary data about the carnival experience. I have participated in two carnivals (Carnabeirão and Micareta de Feira) and collected data through observation and interaction with event participants. Email contacts were also obtained and online interviews with event attendants will take place in the near future.

Review of 2008 (1) - ANPTUR

Nothing much relevant is happening at the moment, other than teaching, (lots of) marking and writing up a couple of papers for conferences that are coming up later in the year. Hopefully, these will then result in submissions to academic journals. Therefore, over the next few weeks I will be posting about my main work last year.

In August I travelled to Brazil to be the international keynote speaker at the V Annual Conference of the Brazilian Association of Tourism Researchers (ANPTUR), which was hosted by UNA University Centre, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. The conference attracted more than 200 delegates, all tourism students and academics from Brazilian universities and research centers. The conference featured a diverse range of paper presentations, supported by three keynote speeches (including mine). My presentation focused on the impacts of mega-events and how the tourism industry can leverage the hosting of such events. I used EXPO’98 as the case study, following a research undertaken in 2002 with my colleagues at BU Professor Roger Vaughan and Dr. Jonathan Edwards. In addition to this presentation, I was also invited to co-chair one of the sessions on tourism marketing, which enable me to have a better understanding of what fellow Brazilian academic research.

The conference was an excellent opportunity to network and further develop contacts with Brazilian tourism academics. I thoroughly enjoyed it. This was also a good opportunity to enhance my understanding of the Brazilian tourism education system, both at graduate and post-graduate level: size, key players and sources of funding. One of the consequences of my attendance of the conference was the invitation to become a member of the editorial board of two of the main Brazilian tourism journals: ‘Cultura e Turismo’ and ‘Visão e Ação’.

(Photo: with Professor Miriam Rejowski, President of ANPTUR)