Learning outcome

After completing the course the student should have the following learning outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills and competences:

Knowledge

• to acquire insights and knowledge about what is a tourist attraction, what the resources are, and how a tourist attraction is developed and managed, and what challages that are related to attraction development.
• to acquire knowledge about different types of tourist attractions, events and other commercial tourist activities.
• to reflect what is the role of the experience in this context

Ferdigheter

• to make an experience-based business concept related to an existing or non-existing tourist attraction, event or tourist activity.

Generell kompetanse

• to acquire an understanding for the suppliers challenges and the users conduct related to tourist attractions and how these are developed and managed in a good way
• to acquire knowledge about theories, models strategies and methods for the development of tourist attractions and events

Course Description

First, this course will provide an overview and understanding of the various types of tourist attractions and tourist activities (characteristics, structural conditions, market role, segment, etc.). Furthermore, the course will discuss different forms of experiences (seeing, learning, doing, being) and different elements of experiences (multi-sensory perception; contrast; participatory; narrative; authentic; individual) in different types of tourism (cultural tourism, theme park tourism, festival tourism, leisure tourism, sports tourism, charter tourism, ecotourism, etc.). In addition, the course will discuss the experience in itself as a part of the tourist product. Hence, the course introduce the students to the experience processes; the way experiences are created, planned, designed, directed, dramatized, visualized, etc. The course will encourage the students’ own ability to create good and varied experiences in the context of tourist attractions, at least in theory.

The following subjects / topics will be included:

• Theory on tourist attractions and tourist events
• Theories and models related to experiences in a tourism context
• "Experience design": models of development and arrangement of experiences
• Theory and methods of conceptualization/concept development, such as storytelling and theming

Teaching and Learning Methods

3-4 hours in the spring semester. The tuition will vary between traditional lectures, work-shops, seminars, and group excursions.

Assessment Methods

Assessment of the course consists of: 1) a multiple choice test on the literature (25%); 2) an individual concept plan (50%); and 3) a presentation of the plan in front of an entrepreneur and/or the class. The multiple choice test, the plan, and the presentation count 100% of the grading which is assigned (A-E). The plan shall either 1) include a business concept of any existing or non-existing tourist attraction or event – or – 2) a business concept of a given case. The teacher chooses between one of these two alternatives. For the approval of assessment, both the plan and the presentation must be passed.

Minor adjustments may occur during the academic year, subject to the decision of the Dean