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When you think of the U.S. National Parks, do the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Everglades immediately spring to mind? What most people don’t realize is that the National Park Service (NPS) actually protects over 400 sites including monuments, heritage trails and, of course, parks and is a pioneer in conservation.

As students of tourism management learn, wild, public lands rank among our country’s top treasures, attracting more than 300 million visits a year and creating billions of dollars in economic benefits for surrounding communities. But the NPS faces a backlog of $12 billion for maintenance of infrastructure including roads, bridges and pipes.

At a recent event hosted by the travel marketing group Brand USA, panelists stressed that the future of our parks rests on us. That means promoting parks—and especially lesser-known sites—to new visitors, including young people and international travelers.

For many years the International Institute of Tourism Studies has partnered with the NPS on a variety of research and tourism projects. This year, as the NPS celebrates its 100th anniversary, we’ve been helping to promote a trail right in GW’s backyard: The Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail, which crosses through three states and Washington, D.C., and includes hundreds of miles of natural paths and waterways.

Our work included a brand survey. We talked to tourism marketers and managers along the Potomac Heritage Trail to understand how the NPS can better promote the trail so that it resonates with visitors. One of the challenges is positioning a heritage trail in a way that makes its unique characteristics compelling. Unlike the world-famous Pacific Crest and Appalachian Trails, which can be hiked from end to end, a heritage trail is not necessarily one long route, but is conceptually connected by history, culture and nature.

We hope you’ll mark the centennial of the National Park Service by visiting our country’s parks and heritage sites this year and sharing your experiences—and this post—with your social networks.  

 

Students enrolled in the new course A Journey Through the Sharing Economy taught by associate professor Stuart Levy were recently in San Francisco, where they met with leaders from companies revolutionizing the travel industry through peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms. AirBnB and Uber for example, are not only improving the user experience, they’re gaining enormous competitive advantage over traditional travel and tourism companies.

Chip Conley, AirBnB’s Head of Global Hospitality & Strategy explained how the eight year-old company—which in July alone saw 2 million guests and is now valued at $30 billion—is striving to become the “global super brand of travel.” AirBnB's future success will be based on its ability to collect and analyze data on its users and then to use that information to offer curated travel experiences. So, for example, based on a customer’s recent stay, AirBnB may be able to assemble an individually-tailored set of recommendations that goes beyond accommodations to include dining and activity options.

The George Washington University’s International Institute of Tourism Studies is working with destinations to access and analyze data on their partners by facilitating collaborations with P2P tech companies. Join us to learn more at the Development & Management of Tourist-Oriented Walkable Urban Places seminar September 21st through the 23rd at George Washington University.  This executive seminar will introduce participants to the use of AirBnB data in analyzing the role of walkable urban places in tourism performance. Metropolitan Washington, DC will be used as the prototype for designing a model for a walkable city tourism strategy.  Through these partnerships, even destinations with traditionally limited marketing capacity have the ability to reach new customers and to improve the visitor experience. To learn how the International Institute of Tourism Studies can help your destination to join the growing trend of P2P engagement, please contact us at iits@gwu.edu.

For Natasha Gourd, tourism provides a way to preserve and share her tribe’s cultural traditions, so that today’s visitors and future generations—“the children we cannot yet see"—can better appreciate and understand her people’s way of life.  In July, IITS researchers met Gourd on a tour of North Dakota Indian Country, where five tribal nations are working to develop their tourism offerings. The five nations— including the Sisseton Wahpeton, Standing Rock, Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and Spirit Lake —have recently formed the North Dakota Native Tourism Alliance in an effort to design tourism opportunities together. Each tribe is also developing its own strategy around cultural tourism. For example, Gourd and other members of the Spirit Lake tribe are hoping to attract visitors to their reservation from Devil’s Lake, which is a fishing destination 20 minutes away.

For the IITS researchers, the Bureau of Indian Affairs-sponsored trip provided an opportunity to better understand the challenges that these nations face and to help them develop strategies around cultural tourism, which can provide tribes with a means of generating badly needed income. We listened to tribal elders share the oral histories of their people, watched as a traditional teepee was built and attended a wacipi or powwow, which you can see on our Facebook page. Please be sure to like and share this post with your friends.

For the Republican National Convention, the City of Cleveland welcomed some 50,000 visitors. Most of these delegates never had the opportunity to see the real Cleveland—the city’s neighborhoods; it’s heart and soul. And these neighborhoods, home to thousands of struggling families, received virtually no financial benefit from the thousands of dollars that each and every delegate spent during their visit to the city.

Too often city leaders downplay the reality of how mega-events fail to provide economic benefits for much of the population and particularly for marginalized communities located beyond the bubble—the walkable urban core of the city.

As we watch our two major political conventions this month and the Olympics in Brazil, students of tourism administration, event management, hospitality and sports management may want to consider how we can ensure a wider distribution of economic benefits for local communities hosting mega-events and the role of destination managers in a cities like Cleveland or Philadelphia.

What do you think? As you’re watching this week’s Democratic National Convention, you may want to ponder how visitors can experience the city beyond the protected security zone of the event bubble.

We've just returned from Mexico, where fifteen students from The George Washington University School of Business spent two weeks working on a tourism consulting project with the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí. The course, offered every year, is a unique and intensive opportunity to experience an international consulting project first-hand.

Check out the slideshow for photos from our trip and see more on Facebook!

 

Photo credits: Jill Christmas, Wendy Li, Zi Li, Michelle Wang

Did you know that Washington, D.C. is a national model for good urban planning, thanks to the proliferation of its Walkable Urban Places (WalkUPs)? Ranked higher than New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago, the country’s capital boasts dozens of pedestrian-friendly zones, extending from the district’s downtown to its outlying suburbs. Given current problems in places like Barcelona and Venice, where the influx of tourists is undermining the cities’ livability, visitor-friendly urban planning is becoming increasingly important and of particular interest to GW scholars along with city planners, real estate developers, hotel owners, and others interested in city planning.

GW’s International Institute for Tourism Studies (IITS) and its Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis (CREUA)—which have been conducting cutting-edge research on urban walkability and tourism—will be offering a three-day Executive Leadership Institute on September 21 to 23 at the GW School of Business.

The program will cover GW’s current research findings, research methodologies, and practical strategies and tools for enhancing a city’s appeal and quality of life. It’s particularly designed for real estate developers, government officials, nonprofits and place-based institutions, such as business improvement districts, neighborhood associations, historic preservation districts, and cultural heritage routes.

Professors Don Hawkins and Salvador Anton Clavé are two of the program presenters. Dr. Anton Clavé, a Visiting Research Scholar at the IITS and a Full Professor of Regional Geographical Analysis at the Rovira i Virgili University in Catalonia, Spain, has been studying new models for WalkUPs that can promote economic development and create positive relationships between locals and visitors. His work dovetails with that of Dr. Hawkins, founder of the IITS, who has been collaborating with the CREUA on the development of a methodology that analyzes the particular advantages of WalkUps.

For more information and to register for the program, click here. You can download the program’s PDF brochure here.

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After 44 years of teaching and conducting groundbreaking research at GW, Dr. Don Hawkins is retiring. His legacy in the field of tourism is outstanding. Not only is Dr. Hawkins the founder of the IITS, he has been instrumental in shaping the MTA program into an internationally renowned institution. He has also been a mentor, leader, and friend to countless numbers of students and colleagues.

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This week, 120 guests gathered to celebrate Dr. Hawkins' extraordinary achievements and the path he's blazed for tourism students and professionals.

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We encourage you to be part of that celebration. In Dr. Hawkins' honor, the IITS is establishing the GW Tourism Innovation Lab, which will develop tourism-related solutions to some of the world's most urgent social and environmental problems and help to achieve key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

But we need your support. All financial contributions will be matched by an anonymous donor and help us design and launch the first Tourism Innovation Challenge this fall. Contributions can be made here.

None of this would be possible without the visionary leadership of Dr. Hawkins. Congratulations and warm wishes for the next stage of your journey! We hope it will bring you back often to your GW family.

Anna Barrera, tourism consultant and 2014 MTA alumna, has been collaborating with the IITS on two sponsored research projects in Indian Country. She currently consults with the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota to help them create new economic opportunities through tourism. Check out this photo slideshow to learn about Anna's work, and tune in for updates from her other project, the first North Dakota Native Tourism Summit on May 5 and 6!

How will we tackle the great, global problems of poverty, hunger, and social inequity over the next fifteen years? Or the threats posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, and unstable governments?

The United Nations' game plan is the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopted last September and endorsed by 150 world leaders, the SDGs place tourism as part of the solution to worldwide social and environmental problems. Goal 8, Goal 12, and Goal 14, which address economic growth and employment; sustainable consumption and production; and ocean and marine conservation all have tourism-related targets. That’s right—well-managed tourism is now widely acknowledged as a powerful development tool.

Not only that, but the UN declared 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. Next year promises to offer an incredible opportunity for people working in the tourism field.

For students, professionals, and government officials who would like to participate in tourism-related UN development projects, George Washington University and the UN World Tourism Organization Themis Foundation are offering the comprehensive training course Tourism and International Cooperation for Development this summer and fall in Washington, D.C.

According to the description, “This intensive course trains university graduates, industry professionals, and government officials in subject areas related to international cooperation and development through tourism.”

Instructors include Dr. Don Hawkins and Professor Seleni Matus of GW’s Master of Tourism Administration program. The first half of the course is online from August 15 to September 25, and the on-site component takes place at GW from October 8 to 20.

Registration deadline is June 30, 2016. You can apply online. For more detailed information, click here: GW 2016 Course Brochure.

Photo credit: John Shedrick

Immediately following the devastating April 16th earthquake that killed and wounded hundreds of people in Ecuador, the country’s Minister of Tourism Fernando Alvaro issued the following statement: “Visitors traveling to Ecuador or planning a visit to unaffected areas can feel confident that their trip will not be impacted and can feel secure to continue with their plans to visit the country.”

The earthquake itself and the minister’s prompt response, just three days before the annual George Washington Tourism Alumni Network Colloquium, a collaboration with the Organization of American States, highlighted the importance of smart and timely disaster response and management, particularly for a country like Ecuador that has invested heavily in its tourism sector.

In his presentation, Dr. Neil Parsan, Secretary for Integral Development of the Organization of American States, stressed that “To remain competitive in today’s travel market, destinations must maintain the safety and security of their people and tourists.”

The event, attended by tourism leaders including Jonathan Grella, Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, US Travel Association and Marcos Espinal, Director of the Department of Communicable Diseases and Health Analysis at the Pan American Health Organization, discussed the various organizational approaches to crises and the fundamental steps involved in managing them.

As Grella pointed out, “Crisis come in different forms: terrorism, health crisis, budget shutdowns, cyber-attacks, political boycotts, and they all have different implications on travel. In a crisis you have to acknowledge the gravity of the situation. If you are responsible for the crisis, you need to hold yourself accountable as an organization.”

Espinal focused on prevention: “Let’s have strong systems in place to prevent the crisis from happening in the first place," he said. He has been taking that approach in regard to the spread of the Zika virus, for example, which has experts scrambling and is already affecting the tourism industry.

Panelists from various destinations discussed their country’s approaches to safety and security:

  • Gloria Polastri, Alternative Representative of Ecuador to the Organization of American States and former Vice Minister of Security, explained how the history and geography of Ecuador has long made national security and safety a top priority, and that during the recent earthquake the Ecuadorian government was able to deploy 10,000 soldiers and 4,600 police officers to the affected areas.
  • Rodrigo Esponada Cascajares, Regional Director of the North America Mexico Tourism Board, addressed the public sector’s responsibilities and the re-positioning of Mexico following 9-11. “The tourism industry was never the same.” Not only did Mexico essentially halt tourism for two weeks to meet the UN health and safety guidelines, but the country publicly stressed to North American tourists that the country’s proximity to the US allowed visitors to drive as opposed to fly across the border. Through the tourism board’s strategic efforts and collaboration with the private sector, Mexico was able to increase the number of tourist arrivals last year to 32 million.
  • Malia Asfour, the Jordan Tourism Board’s Director for North America, explained how Jordan, in addition to struggling from internal crises, continues to work to counteract public misconception stemming from its geographical location and proximity to countries impacted by terrorism.

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Jordan promotes its natural and historical assets to offset the challenges posed by its geographic location.

 

If you were unable to attend the Spring Colloquium, you’ll find the recorded presentations here.