Worldwide Destinations Casebook

Brian Boniface, MA, Chris Cooper, MA Boniface

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781136433078
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Worldwide Destinations Casebook features 38 comprehensive case studies of international tourism destinations, 10 of them brand new and 28 updated. A companion to the core textbook Worldwide Destinations 5th edition, these cases contextulaise the learning and provide real life illustrations of the theories covered.

This new edition covers subjects such as climate change, eco-tourism, destination regeneration and social impact. Case studies are drawn from all regions of the world and include:

• London Docklands regeneration
• A tourism strategy for Morocco
• 'New World' tourism - Outbound tourism from China
• Antarctica: tourism or conservation?
• Re-visioning tired destinations: Australia's gold coast
• Tourism in New York
• The Way of St. James: the pilgrimage as a cultural resource
• Ecotourism in the Ecuadorian Amazon

The casebook brings a range of benefits to the classroom and by encouraging active learning allows students to gain valuable experience in:

• Problem solving and decision making
• Focusing on key issues within a clearly defined situation
• The development or honing of critical thinking skills
• Recognising that there is no one 'correct' answer to a problem
• Judging the relevance of different types of evidence and techniques

Worldwide Destinations Casebook is the ultimate resource for contectualizing theory and is essential reading for any tourism student.

Part 1

Introduction

Chapter 1.1

How to Use this Book

Introduction

This book provides you with a variety of case studies based upon the geography of travel and tourism. The book is designed and structured to be used as a companion volume with the core text – Worldwide Destinations: the Geography of Travel and Tourism (fifth edition). However, as the case studies cover destinations, key issues in the geography of travel and tourism and contemporary points of debate, you can also use this book on its own. In this chapter, we outline the benefits and uses of case studies and provide some hints and tips on how you can get the most out of the case study approach.

THE CASE STUDY APPROACH

Case studies are an important element in the teaching and learning of the geography of travel and tourism. In particular, they enhance and enliven the subject area by examining stimulating issues in real-life situations, illustrating the key elements of tourism destinations and effectively bringing the real world into the classroom – without the need for extensive international travel (Swarbrooke and Horner, 2004). Social sciences make extensive use of the case study approach; indeed much of what we know about the world is drawn from case studies; Darwin’s 1836 voyage to the Galápagos Islands is an example, where the observations he made during one short visit gave rise to the idea of evolution.

The case study approach has sparked debate in the research literature, particularly focussing around the ability of researchers to generalise more widely from single cases. However, we find that a valuable use of cases is as a teaching tool to highlight key issues and relationships in the body of knowledge of tourism. We believe that case studies play a key role in teaching learning strategies for the geography of travel and tourism for three important reasons:

1. One of the problems of teaching the geography of travel and tourism is that in lesson/lecture presentation, the various elements of the body of knowledge have to be separated out – the economic, social and environmental impacts of tourism for example are treated individually, yet in real life they are all linked. Case studies allow us to demonstrate these important linkages and relationships and to see ‘the big picture’. Case studies work especially well for destinations at the local scale by drawing together the many different elements of tourism and the relevant stakeholders as they focus on one particular place.

2. As well as encouraging integration of tourism material, case studies also allow that material to be linked to other subject areas – for example, finance or human resources. Effectively cases can act as a ‘capstone’ to teaching and learning programmes by drawing all the elements of a programme together for either teaching and learning, or for the purpose of assessment. Indeed, case studies are ideally suited to creative forms of assessment on tourism programmes.

3. Using case studies as a form of assessment gets around the more arid and theoretical ways of assessing students’ understanding of the geography of travel and tourism – for example, cases lend themselves to ‘open book’ tests. Their role in assessment schemes needs careful thought however. It is important that cases fit into the progression of assessment for a programme and that care is given to the nature of assessment (Cooper et al., 1996). There are two key uses for cases in assessment. The first is where they are used to deepen understanding of a particular issue, these are sometimes known as ‘intrinsic cases’. On the other hand they can be used to integrate material across a range of subjects – such as the major elements of the body of knowledge of tourism at a particular destination.

However they are approached, cases bring a range of benefits to the classroom and by encouraging active learning they allow students to gain valuable experience in:

• Problem solving and decision making.

• Focusing on key issues within a clearly defined situation.

• Teamwork.

• Roles and role play.

• Working to deadlines for say, reports or presentations.

• The development or honing of critical thinking skills.

• Presentation skills.

• Recognising that there is no one ‘correct’ answer to a problem.

• Judging the relevance of different types of evidence and techniques.

Whilst case studies do much to bring the real world into the classroom, they do differ from reality in a number of ways. For example, the student is provided with the facts and the background to the problem and then asked to come up with a solution. In real life the problem often emerges first, and the facts and relevant background information then have to be sought out in an attempt to address the issue. Similarly, in many cases the student is provided with more information than would be available in reality. One way around this is to design a case where students have to purchase extra information to a budget. Finally, from a teaching and learning point of view the success of the case is very dependent on the communications skills of the teacher, the dynamics of the student group and the interaction between the two.

HINTS AND TIPS ON HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF CASE STUDIES

Case studies are complex and cannot be solved quickly or simply; so do not rush into a solution. When working on the cases in this book try to use the following guidelines (Seperich et al., 1996; Swarbrooke and Horner, 2004):

• Read the case carefully, making brief notes as you do so. You may need to read the case more than once to ensure that you fully understand the issues. Try to identify the key issues – to help you in this task we have provided a key issues section in each case study.

• Be prepared for the first session – case studies are often made available to you or your group before the session when the case will be introduced and discussed. Make good use of the extra time to arrive prepared. In this first session, the teacher will brief you on the task that you are expected to complete. It is important that this is clearly stated and that you understand exactly what you are being asked to do. Make sure that you fully know the assessment guidelines – for say, a report or presentation.

• Discuss the case with your group, and if possible arrange a meeting before class to ‘warm up’ on the issues. Identify any barriers and problems that may prevent you recommending particular solutions. In many of the cases in this book political realities act in this way. This also means avoiding the easy option solutions such as ‘fire the president’, ‘demolish the hotel’ or ‘do more research’.

• Think about all the relevant and realistic alternatives. For example, at a congested natural attraction or ‘beauty spot’ is it best to EITHER spread the load of tourists away from the attraction OR make the site more robust and manage it in such a way to increase its capacity to take more visitors?

• Select the best alternative by evaluating each option against the situation outlined in the case.

• Develop and implement a planned solution. Often when students present a solution to a problem they miss the all-important element of how to implement it. For example, you may recommend that a town designs a community tourism plan, but unless it can be put into practice within reasonable financial or other constraints the plan will simply be shelved and be a waste of effort.

• Be prepared to present your ideas either in a report or as a presentation. No matter how good your understanding of the case and your ideas, if they are poorly communicated you will fail to convince other people. You may also have to defend your ideas to the rest of the class, as their solutions may well be different to yours. Often, students will be assessed on the case as if they were a consultant or senior manager in an organisation or at a destination. This is good discipline as it forces you not to simply repeat the case in a presentation or report, but to show that you can think creatively and ‘add value’ – after all that is why consultants are paid a fee. Think about the following checklist when you are finalising your presentation or report:

1. Do you fully understand the facts and the issues of the case...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Casebook Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Part 1: Introduction
• Part 2: Cases illustrating the Elements of the Geography of Travel and Tourism
• Part 3: Cases Illustrating Regional Travel and Tourism Geography
• Part 4: Useful Sources
• Index