Sustainable Tourism Experience Design
People
Course director
Description
The module Sustainable Tourism Experience Design will provide insight into the elements of the design thinking process and strategies from behavioural economics for designing inclusive, sustainable, and regenerative tourism experiences in particular (i.e., giving back more than we take from a destination's community, environment, and economy).
This module will start with an introduction to the design thinking process and experience design, followed by an overview of concepts such as regenerative tourism, sustainable tourism, responsible tourism, community-based tourism, indigenous tourism, ecotourism, and nature-based tourism. Special attention will be dedicated to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry, as well as its role in the ongoing academic debate on sustainable tourism.
In a second part, focusing on the intention/attitude-behaviour gap in sustainable tourism, learners deepen their understanding of current challenges and opportunities for regenerative tourism. Drawing on design thinking and strategies from behavioural economics, this module concludes by exploring different ways to bridge the intention/attitude-behaviour gap in designing regenerative tourism in and to destinations.
Throughout this module, learners will develop their ability to think critically and creatively about how we can design regenerative tourism experiences in an inclusive process by actively turning the acquired knowledge into action in hands-on collaborative exercises in small groups inside and outside the classroom.
Objectives
By the end of this module, learners will be able to:
- evaluate current design thinking applications in tourism in general – and in regenerative tourism in particular (i.e., giving back more than we take from a destination's community, environment, and economy) – using the acquired knowledge and hands-on experience of the design thinking process and its mindsets
- develop inclusive design processes starting from needs: not only the needs of (different) guests, but with special attention given to the needs of the destination community including local residents and tourism professionals
- design regenerative tourism experiences for everyone involved drawing on strategies from behavioural economics to bridge the intention/attitude-behaviour gap
Sustainable development goals
- Good health and well-being
- Decent work and economic growth
- Indusrty, innovation and infrastracture
- Sustainable cities and communities
- Responsible consumption and production
Teaching mode
In presence
Learning methods
The Sustainable Tourism Experience Design module comprises face-to-face sessions with in-class Wooclap quizzes to support the learning process, complemented by collaborative group projects, case studies, and hands-on exercises in class to train design thinking skills in the context of regenerative tourism. Contributions of USI Master in International Tourism alumni working in this field illustrate potential career paths in sustainable and responsible tourism.
Examination information
The assessment will consist of participation in as well as individual contribution to all in-class activities (10%), collaborative work in small groups during the lectures in class (40%), as well as a final individual final paper (50%) integrating also personal reflections on the learning process throughout the course. Instructions for the individual paper will be provided in class during the first lecture.
Bibliography
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Dolnicar, Sara, Knezevic Cvelbar, Ljubica, Grün, Bettina. "A Sharing-Based Approach to Enticing Tourists to Behave More Environmentally Friendly" Journal of Travel Research, 58, 2 (2017): 241-252.
10.1177/0047287517746013 -
Dredge, Dianne. "Regenerative tourism: transforming mindsets, systems and practices" Journal of Tourism Futures, 8, 3 (2022): 269-281.
10.1108/jtf-01-2022-0015 -
Higgins-Desbiolles, Freya. "The “war over tourism”: challenges to sustainable tourism in the tourism academy after COVID-19" Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29, 4 (2020): 551-569.
10.1080/09669582.2020.1803334 -
Juvan, Emil, Dolnicar, Sara. "The attitude–behaviour gap in sustainable tourism" Annals of Tourism Research, 48 (2014): 76-95.
10.1016/j.annals.2014.05.012 -
Juvan, Emil, Dolnicar, Sara. "The excuses tourists use to justify environmentally unfriendly behaviours" Tourism Management, 83 (2021): 104253.
10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104253 -
Maggi, Rico, Vroegop, Eva. "Decent work in traditional tourism destinations: Tourism Agenda 2030 perspective article" Tourism Review, 78, 2 (2023): 332-338.
10.1108/tr-08-2022-0414 -
Tussyadiah, Iis P.. "Toward a Theoretical Foundation for Experience Design in Tourism" Journal of Travel Research, 53, 5 (2013): 543-564.
10.1177/0047287513513172 - Vroegop, Eva, Maggi, Rico. "Well-being for everyone involved in tourism: An invitation to create a destination well-being agenda" In M. Uysal and J. Sirgy (Eds.), Handbook of Tourism and Quality-of-Life Research II: Enhancing the Lives of Tourist, Residents of Host Communities and Service Providers (2nd Ed.).
- Fesenmaier, Daniel R., Xiang, Zheng. Design Science in Tourism: Design Science in Tourism. Springer International Publishing, 2017.
- Scott, Noel, Gao, Jun, Ma, Jianyu. Visitor experience design. Wallingford UK: CABI, 2017.
- Vroegop, Eva. "“Diving with turtles”: In search of nature in recalled vacation trip experiences and their influence on subjective well-being" In F. Niccolini, I. Azara, E. Michopoulou, J.R. Barborak, and A. Cavicchi (Eds.), Nature-based Tourism and Wellbeing: Impacts and Future Outlook.
Education
- Master of Arts in Economics and Communication in International Tourism (COM), Lecture, 1st year