Experience Product Development and Innovations in Tourism Enterprises (5cr)

Objectives (course unit)

During the course students will learn the special character of the tourist product and the different phases of the product development process, principles of customer oriented product development, prizing, legislation, marketing, selling and customer service tasks. The course will deal with the service activities and product development of tourist enterprises. Students study the models and tools for experience product development and product analysis in tourism.

After completing the course, the students will be able to:

Understand and know what is typical and characteristic for products in tourism business.
Know how to plan tourist service activities.
Know how to develop a new, experienceful tourist product and how to analyze an existing one in order to improve it.
Know how different forces influence price determination process.
Develop and improve the quality of the tourist product.

Content (course unit)

What are the factors of production and how do they contribute to the production process?
How to plan and develop a tourist product?
How to provide experiences as tourism products?
How to apply experience product models and tools in product development?
What are the service activities of the tourist enterprise?

Exam schedules

No exam

Assessment methods and criteria

Student project in teams, team presentations (40%) and discussions, individual report writing (60%) implementing uderstanding of nature of tourism products/services and enterprises, ability to apply methods of experience product development, knowing the basic functions of tourism enterprise.

Assessment scale

0-5

Teaching methods

Lectures, team working/discussions, report writing, company visits, team presentations

Learning materials

Lectures, Literature: Paul Trott, 2012, Innovation Management and New Product Development. Joseph Pine & James Gilmore, 1999, The Experience Economy: work is theatre & every business a stage: goods and services are no longer enough. Tarssanen 6 Kylänen 2004, Experience Pyramid.

Student workload

5cr are of 135h of work.
Lectures and meetings: 12h
Team working: 53h
Report writing: 70h

Content scheduling

Introduction lectures 24th and 31st October, team working, check point/supervising meeting 21st November, report writing, presentations on 28th November. Teams can decide working time table on their own to a great extend. Flexible studying is possible.Lectures and check point meeting are important, though!

Completion alternatives

Must be discussed with teacher beforehand.

Practical training and working life cooperation

Student project in co-operation with enterprises

International connections

International student teams

Further information

First meetings on 24th and 31st October are highly recommended in order to pass the course! The task and instructions will be released and the teams will be set during the introduction lectures. Also instructions for the report writing and presentation will be released during the lectures. After that the course is mainly conducted as a student project in co-operation with an enterprise as independent team working.

Assessment criteria - fail (0) (Not in use, Look at the Assessment criteria above)

No participation in student project/team working or lectures, task not followed/understood. Assignments not returned or returned very late.

Assessment criteria - satisfactory (1-2) (Not in use, Look at the Assessment criteria above)

No active participation in team working, task and tourism enterprise functions with product developing only partly followed/understood/applied, implementation of enterprise co-operation is missing or limited, only few innovative ideas or not at all, Tamk report formalities are not followed or there are major mistakes, poor structure/lay out in report, few academic references (1-3) used, mistakes in reference technique, poor content of presentation and lack of presentation skills.

Assessment criteria - good (3-4) (Not in use, Look at the Assessment criteria above)

Active team working, task and tourism enterprise functions with product developing are mainly followed/understood/applied, implementation of enterprise co-operation exists throughout the presentation and report,innovative ideas are presented, Tamk report formalities are mainly followed, only minor mistakes in report structure/lay out, suitable academic references (4-6) used and only minor mistakes in reference technique, relevant content in presentation, fluent and creative presentation.

Assessment criteria - excellent (5) (Not in use, Look at the Assessment criteria above)

Very active participation in team working, task and tourism enterprise functions with product developing are completely followed/understood/applied, strong implementation of enterprise co-operation, several innovative ideas are presented, no mistakes in Tamk report formalities, compact report structure and creative lay out, several academic references (7- ) used, no mistakes in reference technique, relevant and compact content in presentation, significantly fluent and creative presentation.