Rhetoric and persuasion in tourism communication

Rhetoric is the art or discipline that deals with the use of discourse, either spoken or written, to inform or persuade or motivate an audience, whether that audience is made up of one person or a group of persons. After a brief introduction into the setting of communication, this course will dive into strategic principles of rhetoric and persuasion from main theoretical approaches: persuasion research, advertising, argumentation theory, public speaking and audience adaptation. Students will learn how to structure persuasive communication about a set of touristic targets (e.g. holiday-villages, cruises, museums and other cultural events). Also, they will learn how to engage with an audience and how to present their ideas succesfully.The course will consider the production of quality-communication delivered though face-to-face interaction, leaflets and online texts. Within these perspectives, students will be guided to reflect on aspects including:

• The behavioral theories of persuasion
• Audience’s cognitive response
• Selling ideas (and products)
• The TED talks
• Persuasion versus manipulation
• Dealing with differences of opinion and conflict management

Each class will combine theoretical and practical aspects. Thus, more conceptual part of the class will be sided by laboratories of discourse production where students will be invited to design different formats of persuasive communication in role-play settings.