Economic approach to the tourist routes | IP Forte 28-03-2011

Today we began with a brief introduction of all new teachers who start to join us this week:

Natalie Aldous – Australian teaching in the Netherlands

Inna – Finland, 3^rd time in the project

Karine - Belgium, will teach tomorrow during the social aspect

Katrine (Belgium), Inna (Finland) 

Dandja did a brief recap about what we have done last week to inform the other teachers that just arrived.

Then Ms Aldous started her presentation: Economic approach to the tourist routes

She talked about the following 2 topics at the first part of the presentation

•           International and European tourism markets
•           Europe and sustainability

Ms Natalie Aldous's presentation

Then there was a short workshop before getting into the second part. Each national group thought about what the government could implement to develop sustainable tourism.

workshop of the Dutch team

presentation by Dandja & Ivan

We Dutch team came up with these recommendation

• Promotion on Energy label/ certification on sustainable transport, activity or accommodation.

Implementation plan:

1.       Educate the people on sustainable tourism.

e.g. teach children/ students by providing courses starting from elementary school to high school by giving a sort of diploma of sustainability.

2.       Promote the importance/ benefits via informal way e.g. websites/ social media.

3.       For the government to have a Culture Day with food and cultural information on European countries. The embassy should be in charge of the organization.

e.g. as Euro Food Festival.

4.       Competition on sustainability per sector. The most sustainable European country will win the prize.

• Government regulation on exceeding your energy categorization by giving taxes or using tariffs. This should apply per sector.

Implementation plan:

1.       Each sector has its own energy limit; when a company produces less than that, it will get a sort of tax reduction; yet when it exceeds that limit, it will pay high tax.

2.       Government apply sustainable labels on restaurants, basically restaurants get labels when they use e.g. 10% of local products/organic food. It will become a sort of competition for restaurants to become more sustainable and local supportive

• Decrease bureaucracy (minimizing paper work) and making the changing process easier for companies.

e.g. festivals

The government should become lenient on local festivals so they don´t spend too much time on ´paper´ work.

presentation by Spanish group

presentation by Belgium group

presentation by Lithuania group

presentation by Finland group

Then Ms Aldous continued with her presentation.

-          Consumer Sustainable Responsibility

-          Consumer trends (European survey done in 2010 about the influences that motivates the tourism)

After lunch, we started out workshop as usual. Today’s task was to finish analyzing cultural and ICT aspects and come up with recommendations. After around 3 hour’s work, each group did a short presentation about findings and recommendations so far.

Ms Aldous briefly introduced how the process is going to be on Friday, and concluded the works have to be done by Thursday.

It’s gonna be a toal busy week even more than last week, but we, Dutch team, are going to work hard as always!

App. Dandja & Ivan's fabulous presentation

Now time to do some more analyzing!

Groetjes,

Carla, Chymo, Dandja,  Ivan, Mireille

Study trip in Kaunas | IP Forte 26-03-2011

Before leaving for Kauno Kolegija by bus, our Dutch team was accompanied by Ms Aldous for the first time in Kaunas. She arrived on Friday night. 

From left to right: Chymo, Aina, Irma, Ms Aldous and Ivan

On Saturday we had another study trip in the outskirt of Kaunas. In the morning we visited Pažailis monastery (founded in 1662). For privacy reasons we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the monastery and of the sister whom guided us. The monastery is one of the finest architectural masterpieces of baroque architecture in the North-East Europe. The seventeenth century Camaldoli monks built the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Žygimantas Pacas (1621-1684). The design was by Italian architect Giovanni Battista Frediani, the ornate carvings by the masters of Lombardy and the moulding by Florentine painter Michael the Archangel.

Pažailis monastery

Pažaislis’ fame was not only devout Camaldoli or artistic life of the monastery buildings. Every year on 2^nd of July the festival attracts a large crowd of pilgrims distinguished a special grace, gift of the Holy founder. Image of Mary, popularly known as the "Mother of God Camaldoli" picture. As explained by the sister, more than three centuries of the history of the monastery had various events, wars, fires and attacks. Today, at St. Casimir's Congregation for the Sisters, are seeking to revive and extend the tradition of the worship of God, opening the gates to new societal attitudes on cultural life.

chymo in front of the monastery

After our trip in the outskirts of Kaunas, we went to the centre of Kaunas, where Tourism students explained to us the history and significance of the Kaunas castle (built in the mid-14^th century). The castle has a Gothic style and it served as a strategic outpost and guarded nearby cities as well as trade routes. 

Kaunas Castle

Later, we walked to the Town Hall of Kaunas which dates from the 16^th century. While we were near the Town Hall and we saw some people running and having paper in their hands. Apparently it’s a competition that locals do by running and collecting information needed to win the challenge. 

Town Hall

Buildings around the town hall square

 Town Hall Square

One of the most remarkable sites, was the Vytautas the Great Bridge (built in 1930) which crosses the Nemunas River to connect Aleksotas and Old Town in Kaunas. It was called the longest bridge in the world, because of the fact that it takes 13 hours to "cross" the bridge due to different calenders in each countries on both side of the bridge.

 Vytautas the Great Bridge

Miri & Carla

During lunch time us Dutch team and the Lithuanian team went to a local traditional restaurant called ‘Berneliu Užeiga’. 

Restaurant Berneliu Užeiga

Here we were joined by our teachers and we tried Lithuanian dishes such as pigs ears, a special breadstick with cheese, a soup in a bread shaped container and meat, vegetables and potatoes as main dish. 

Breadstick with cheese

Pig ears

Mashroom soup contained by bread. YUMMY!

Shared main dish

Left to right: Indre, Aina, Miri & Chymo.

 Lithuania teacher Asta & Irma, Dutch teacher Aldous

After that we went for a walk around the city. Walking down the Laisves aleja (Freedom Avenue) and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine.

back left to right: Arūnė, Indre, Chymo, Ivan, Dandja
front left to right: Aina, Carla 

It was a "gezellig" Saturday indeed!


See you all on Monday;)


Groetjes,


Carla, Chymo, Dandja, Ivan, Miri

Our first study trip in Lithuania - Kernavè and Trakai

The Kernavė Archaeological Site (Cultural Reserve of Kernavė), about 35 km north-west of Vilnius in eastern Lithuania, represents an exceptional testimony to some 10 millennia of human settlements in this region. Situated in the valley of the River Neris, the site is a complex ensemble of archaeological properties, encompassing the town of Kernavė, forts, some unfortified settlements, burial sites and other archaeological, historical and cultural monuments from the late Palaeolithic Period to the Middle Ages. The site of 194,4 ha has preserved the traces of ancient land-use, as well as remains of five impressive hill forts, part of an exceptionally large defence system. Kernavė was an important feudal town in the Middle Ages. The town was destroyed by the Teutonic Order in the late 14th century, however the site remained in use until modern times. ¹

Besides  , there are more three World Heritages in Lithuania: Vilnius Historic Centre, Curonian Spit *, Kernavė Archaeological Site (Cultural Reserve of Kernavė) and Struve Geodetic Arc *.  You can find more information about Kernavè and other World Heritages on the Unesco website http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/ and on http://www.kernave.org/archeo_en.htm

Ruins of the first church in Lithuania from 14^th Century. Before this time the Lithuanians were pagans.

To know about the history of the Iron Wolf visit http://www.theironwolf.net/Stuff/WhyIronWolf/WhyIronWolf.htm

Lunch time – Typical Lithuanian Food

The group had a enjoyable lunch in a local restaurant nearby the castle in Trakai, our next stop.

Our lunch

Trakai Castle

Founded in 1948, the museum is situated in Trakai Castle, a unique ensemble of fortification architecture. The construction of the Castle was begun in the second half of the 14th century and completed by Grand Duke Vytautas at the beginning of the 15th century. In the 15th century the Castle was the residence of Lithuania’s sovereigns. During the 1654-1667 war with Moscow the Castle was destroyed. The exploration and restoration of the Trakai Castle ensemble have been going on since 1951.²

Useful information for tourists:

Opening hours:

May – September: Monday to Sunday 10–19.

March, April, October: Tuesday to Sunday 10–18.

November – February: Tuesday to Sunday 10–17.

Admission:
Adults – 14 Lt;

Seniors – 8 Lt;

Children and students – 6 Lt.

¹ http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1137

² http://www.muziejai.lt/trakai/traku_muziejus.en.htm

These were two of the many cultural/historical attractions that you can visit in Lithuania. on the next post we are going to talk about our second study trip in the Kaunas city!

Before I forget, on that Friday it was Mr van Leeuwen last day in Kaunas. On Saturday Ms Natalie Aldous joined us for the study trip. She will be also conducting lectures on the coming week.

Greetings from Lithuania,

Carla, Chymo, Dandja, Ivan and Mireille.

Sustainable tools (Web 2.0 – Social Medias) to promote the tourist routes

Thursday 24 March


The lecture of the day was conducted by Florida Universitária from Spain by Adrián, the Spanish coach.

Adrián exposed some interesting factors about how the internet changed the relation between producers and consumer. Nowadays there is the PROSSUMER relation in which the producer and the consumers interact directly and easily. It was highlighted that the emotions of the consumers, satisfaction and word to mouth are very important when the marketing is planned.

To illustrate it, Adrian showed some websites of companies where we could see the type of relation that they have with their consumer. Most of the companies nowadays that invest in costumer’s relationship are on the Web 2.0. It is possible to follow the news about the companies, have online chats to clarify doubts and even express (dis)satisfaction directly to the producers without the need to call them directly.

One example of this interaction was the issue involving the GAP Company. Years ago when the company decided to redesign their logo, they suffered a lot of criticism from their consumers that were expressed through the social medias. The issue caused a harm of millions of dollars to GAP in a couple of days forcing them to change their logo back to the original one.

Other examples of interactivity are the internet forums, mash ups and the website Wikipedia, in which anyone can add content.

As a practical assignment Adrián asked each of the national teams to evaluate other teams’ blog, taking in consideration lay out, the up to date information, links to Facebook and Twitter account.

The Dutch team analyzed the blog from the Finnish team, which you can find on the right side of our blog

Our “neighbors” from the Belgium team in a relaxing moment evaluating our blog! They were making funny faces just for the picture but in fact we know that they liked it! =)

After all the hard work, time to relax and have a nice dinner in group now that our team was complete again since Mireille is feeling better! =)

Next post… Study trip to Kernavè and Trakai!

Greetings from Lithuania!

Carla

Dutch team

Second lecture and workshop – Cultural approach in tourism and tourist routes

Lecture: Cultural approach in tourism and tourist routes -  Kauno Kolegija – Asta Valaityle-Brish

During Ms Asta class we watched a movie about the Lithuanian traditions in which we could see the how the ancestors celebrated Christmas, Easter and Mardi Grass and the Pancake Day to celebrate the end of the winter. This traditions are represented nowadays in local festivals.

For the group assignments each national group need to think about a tourist route that involves cultural aspects from each country, including museums, traditional food, accommodations, cultural attractions and local festivals.

The group work was very interesting to do because we could discuss about the cultural attractions that tourists can see in the Netherlands. Among the attractions we included in our presentation the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank's House in Amsterdam, the Keukenhof in Lisse, some traditional food such as the Stroopwafel and Gouda Cheese, and local festivals as the Queen's Day, when it is celebrated the birthday of the Queen Juliana, mother of the current Queen Beatrix.

Our team members Chymo, Dandja and Ivan with the Belgium front

During the same class, with the Lithuanian group members

With the Finnish team

And with “las chicas Españolas”

As you can notice, our dear Mireille is not present in any of the pictures because she was ill on this day and she was resting at the hostel recharging the batteries.

Work Shop – Afternoon

During the work shop and team work in the afternoon the groups were discussing about the Environmental part of the questionnaire.

First it was analyzed the general data involving all the countries were some conclusions could be taken. Following, each group member compared the general results with each national result in order to see if there were any expressive differences on the results.

It was very interesting to see that in general the European tourists are environmental conscious and they want to their part. This consciousness was expressed in all the group ages and people with different income.

Interesting to highlight that due to different infra structure among the countries there were issues that were more important in some countries than in others, for example the public transportation.

At the evening the Dutch team was working together to get ready for the next day to discuss the ICT perspective of the Sustainable Tourism which you can find more information on the next post! And off course… taking care of Mireille!

Greetings from Lithuania,

Dutch Team

Kaunas... here we are!

Group picture at Schipol Airport in Holland

(left to right) Dandja, Carla, Mireille and Chymo, Ivan (back)

Finally! After a long journey from Rotterdam (NL) to Kaunas (LT) that took more than 14 hours... (Yes, 14 hours!!!) we finally arrived in Kaunas. We came in company of our Marketing and Sustainability teacher Mr Core van Leeuwen. In the next week we will have Ms Natalie Aldous joining our group as well.

We had some issues to find the college hostel where we are going to stay for the next 2 weeks but once we got here everything started to work quite good.
On Monday we had the group introductions and afterwards we had the presentation of our research result, which will be further published here on our blog.

 

Ivan and Dandja

Chymo

Belgium Team

 

Susanna  Saari (Finnish team's supervisor and lecture at TUAS - Finland) giving presentation on 

"Tourism routes in the context of responsible tourism - environmental approach" 

Dinner with the Belgium team

Interesting link to share: www.myfootprint.org

The Dutch Team wishes to all the students participants a

 very nice time in Kaunas!

Groetjes from Lithuania!!!

Carla

Chymo

Dandja

Ivan

Mirielle