Overall reflection of the winter study tour:

At the beginning of the course, I was very curious about the virtual study tour, and I had very high expectations of this course after I seen the names of the external lecturers and the variety of the destinations. Four different cultures, four different approaches and presentations. I was really impressed by how the culture influenced the way of how rather small but also big entrepreneurs and lecturers in the tourism industry can give all different insights about their businesses and destinations.

George Scaria, Keralavoyages, Kerala, India

Key findings:

What I really found interesting, and I actually never thought about it deeply is how Kerala, or in general destinations rely on tourism as main income source for the destination.

Putting together tourism development with sustainable development for the destination of Kerala with the aim to solve the pernicious problem of poverty was form

The domestic tourism reduces the level of risk making as cushioning effect, but it is still a risk considering extraordinary events like the pandemic.

Personal learning outcomes:

What the lecture made me reflect about, is that the destination relies almost solely on tourism, both domestic and international, to contrast the poverty in Kerala.

Samer Alhaider, Emirates, Dubai, UAE

Key findings:

What really impressed me, even if in the previous aviation lectures, we already talked about it, is actually the low profit margins of an airplane seat and also how the competition can be very hard toward airline companies. I am impressed every time and thinking how fascinating and controversial the airline industry is.

Personal learning outcomes:

It was very interesting the part of the presentation when Mr. Alhaider talked about the challenges during the pandemic where all the world was in lockdown. The lecturer said in fact, that it was an hard time of adaptation and that they overcome the bad times by planning on a daily basis without planning too much.

Ina Reichenberger, Victoria University of Wellington, Te Herenga Waka, New Zealand

Key findings:

It was interesting to discover more about the Maori culture, eco-tourism and sustainability. I didn´t know much about Maori culture and that was a really good insight combined with tourism.

Personal learning outcomes:

What made me reflect most after the lecture of Mrs. Reichenberger is how difficult and challenging can be the coordination in a touristic perspective between the indigenous community, the locals and the sustainability aspect.

Bella Bello Bitugu, University of Ghana

Key findings:

It was a very good example of a destination basing its touristic flows on sports tourism as a key economic development in Africa.

Personal learning outcomes:

I noted this quote from Mr. Scaria during the online lecture: “if you take the human part out of tourism, there is no tourism”. I will not forget what he said, I couldn´t agree more with Mr. Scaria.

I want to thank you very much the professors that organized a very well structured and interesting lecture that let us home students to feel abroad for a few days even staying at home. I can imagine that it was challenging to organize the lectures, even more in a virtual context, but all in all from my perspective it was a very interesting course with lots of takeaways for the future.