Tourism Development Handbook: A Practical Approach to Planning and Marketing, Kerry Godfrey and Jackie Clarke

The book I decided to read for Inno58h was The Tourism Development Handbook written by Kerry Godfrey and Jackie Clarke. I knew absolutely nothing about the book before borrowing it, but it was recommended for me by a friend. After reading the back of the book, I chose it because it seemed interesting and I thought that it could benefit me by giving me a good overall look in the industry that our client Kustavin Kipinä works in – tourism.

Even though the book is written thirteen years ago it still seemed really relevant while I was reading it. The way to improve tourism in development area is not just about offering everything to every potential customer, or copying the ideas from those places that have great number of tourist arrivals. Every destination that wants to develop their tourism needs to find their own attractions and make a careful and detailed plan on how to meet the goals that they set for themselves in the development plan for the destination.

There are truly many aspects on how to make your destination attracting for those who have never visited there before. Like I said earlier you can’t just offer everything to everyone, you need to segment your potential customers and try to focus on how to get those tourists interested in your destination. The way to choosing your segment group is not just picking those tourists that have most money to spend, but picking those customers whose interest in the destination has more pros than cons overall. Sometimes you even have to use unorthodox ways such as demarketing to ensure that your destination area is valued by those that come to visit your location.

The key elements of the book include organization and development objectives; aspects of supply and demand; marketing; customer care; and monitoring and evaluation. Sustainability is and should be most critical factor in long term tourism. There are long term goals that can be met only by careful planning and all time evaluation of the tourism in the area.

Tourist destination should also always keep self-updated on the global trends of tourism, since they tend to change every now and then. What’s popular now might not be popular anymore in five years. Tourism is industry which is really sensitive to economic fluctuations, so you can never know for sure what’s going to happen in future. Because of that tourism should never be main industry of the destination area. It should rather be in more supportive and complementary role.

I believe that The Tourism Development Handbook gave me a lot better overall view on the whole industry and I’m sure that it will help me and my team in the task that we are yet to be received in Kunstenniemi. :) I would like to recommend this book to everyone interested in tourism, since it gives really much information of the industry that is rapidly expanding whole time.

-Marko

Dangerous Ideas, Alf Rehn

The book I decided to read for INNO58 was Dangerous Ideas (Finnish title Vaaralliset ideat) written by Alf Rehn.  I have read this book earlier, and I found it very usefull back then. Now when i read it second time it gave me even more than for the first time. 

Dangerous ideas is not quite the classic book about creativity and innovations. Normally these books always follows the same pattern, the same creativity exercises and claims how fun and easy creativity is. Alf Rehn slightly disagrees. He believes that creativity is hard, and if you want to create something truly new and creative, our brains need to work so hard that it hurts.

True creativity is anything but a little fun gameplay. It's dangerous, disgusting and uncomfortable, and above all difficult and exhausting. Creativity which really is close to creating new ideas forces our lazy brains to work in new unpleasant ways. In reality, the ideas which arise among the group easily without any effort and which are accepted by the team without any criticism, are very conventional ideas. Ideas that have been around for ages and ideas competitors already use.  

Our brains are extremely comfort-loving and good at generating passion and feelings of success to keep us focusing on the things we know already. Particular concern about all of this is in the fact that although the company thinks it is developing to a new level, our customers have found these tricks of the trade a long time ago. In this case the company is not creating new and innovative changes. 

New ideas should always be tested well before any action is taken larger. If your idea makes the listener protest by saying things such "That would not work in our markets!” or "Who the hell would want to use this service anymore if we did like you are considering, ridiculous thought", there is an opportunity to develop something really NEW and innovative. If negative reactions are born the idea should be tested by the person who can question the idea from many perspectives but still gives the inventor of the idea room for develop idea further so that it will take the later attacks and criticism.

I believe this book helps me and my team in our project whatever the assignment will be. I hope every team member is open-minded for the ideas that will born in Kunstenniemi and we can create something really new, something that has never seen before. Sad but true the fact is that "something" has to make us feel uncomfortable! :)

-Sanna-

I salute you!

Name: Minna
Studies: Bachelor in Hospitality Management
Beliefs: Honesty, Smiling and Spontaneous solutions

Well then, who is that girl behind locks and why is she here?

My interests are mostly in travel business. Through years I've worked as well in Finland as abroad too. Mainly with tourism, gardening  and catering. I'm about to found small business on my own(kind of B&B). Hopefully any day now.

This project truly inspires me. I'm waiting to learn new tools which could help me further with my own business idea. I'm grateful to have Kustavin Kipinä as our employer. I got feeling that they're struggling with same issues that I've faced during starting and developing my friends company.

At this time I'm also in other project where I'm in charge about marketing in social media. I've already scan through plenty books and other sources and also worked with small companies home- and Facebook-pages. 

I got insanely motivation and savor for our project. We do have a smashing INNO-Group! 

Greets. Minna

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Name: Sanna
Age: 25
School: TuAMK, 2nd year
Horoscope: Aquarius
Favourite food: As unhealthy as possible
Favourite TV show: Salatut elämät, now and forever <3

Hi guys! I'm a second year student from Turku University of Applied sciences. What will I be graduating to? Well, here's one cool name for you: Bachelor of beautycare and management a.k.a estenomi. I'm specially interested in developing services and marketing in the wide range of beauty. I really enjoy working in a team and that's propably the best part of our studies. At the moment I'm working as a beautytherapist so it's very interesting to work for Kustavin Kipinä which is quite far away from my own field. :)

I also like the fact that in Inno58 we can bounce ideas off each other to create something that nobody would have been able to create on their own. The opportunity to develop new skills, get to know new people and learn from other team members is great. I'm looking forward to work in Kunstenniemi and let the Spark Plugs SPARK! 

-Sanna-

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Name: Marko
Age: 22
School: TuAMK, Bachelor in Hospitality Management
Horoscope: Aquarius
Attitude to life: Stay positive
Favorite band: Guns N' Roses
Favorite TV show: Californication
Favorite Quotes:

"He was a wise man who invented beer."

-Platon

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with intent of throwing it at someone else; your the one who gets burned."

-Buddha

Hey there! I am first year Hospitality Management student from Turku University of Applied sciences. I am particularly interested in the tourism sector. 

I have worked in past as; elementary school substitute teacher, retreader(construction), care assistant and sports director. These being mainly summer jobs and internships. So I have tried many different fields before finding my own area. 

I chose INNO58h-course because it seemed interesting. I have always enjoyed working with a team and I like the concept of the course. Kustavin Kipinä is familiar to me from the quest lecture we had in my school, so it's not totally new company for me. We have great team and I'm sure our team will find good way to satisfy our customer! :)

-Marko
         
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Name: Anja

Studies: Bachelor in Tourism Management

University: Novia University of Applied Sciences, exchange student

Hello everyone!

I am an exchange student from Germany, currently studying Tourism Management at Novia University of Applied Sciences in Turku. I have chosen to study at Novia as it offered the most interesting courses compared to the other Scandinavian partner universities of my university. During my stay here I would like to gain insights in the Finish lifestyle, as well as the cultural, touristic and academic side of Finland.

Since the Inno 58 project was highly recommended from students who participated in it the last time, I chose to take part. Additionally I enjoy the fact that this project gives me a good opportunity to meet people from other Finnish universities in Turku. I am really pleased that our group got Kustavin Kipinä, because to me it is the most interesting project, as I am interested in the event sector.

I look forward to work on this project with our great team.

Greetings Anja

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Name: Alexandra, you can call me alek J

Studying at Handelshögskolan vid Åbo Akademi, masters student

Favourite food: thai, mexican, everything exotic and spicy

Favourite series: House of Lies and Suits

Hello everyone!

I am a senior marketing and organization and management major at School of Business and Economics at Åbo Akademi University. In the winter of 2013/2014 I will (hopefully) graduate with a master’s degree in business administration. During the fall of 2013 I was in Gothenburg as an exchange student, I’ve also worked and studied in Spain and the U.S. during the past years. My period abroad has been very rewarding in many ways. Professionally I am interested in building a career in PR/branding or strategy consulting.

I really look forward to see how this INNO-project will evolve. Our employer Kustavin Kipinä is an interesting client and totally new for me. Which makes it even more exciting! I am happy with our team and know for sure we’ll succeed as a team in this project. 

I look forward to combine our creative minds and start working for real in Kunstenniemi!

Best Regards

Alexandra 

The first Working Day is here!

Today we are working on our first Working Day at Turun Ammattikorkeakoulu. The morning started with a gathering where all groups checked if every member is here whereafter we got some topics to work with today. The topics included questionings about the company, their market and their competitors. We brainstormed 2 hours with our group and after that all the groups presented their ideas.

After lunch we had a short meeting where the group members presented the rest of the group which books they had picked. We checked that the books we were going to read had all the needed topics included. We will post a list later of the books we chose.

Now I have to continue with the Working Day, lots of stuff to do! Remember to check the blog regulary, we will write personal presentations of all the group members so that you also get an idea of who we are.

- Tommi

Hey and welcome to our blog! We are the Spark Plugs and our mission is to innovate as much as we can for the next few weeks. 

We created this blog for the project called Inno 58h, which started last week at BoostTurku with some info and group division. Our group consists of students from Handelshögskolan vid Åbo Akademi, Turun Ammattikorkeakoulu and Yrkeshögskolan Novia. 

This week started with a group leader meeting where we solved some issues with the groups and missing members. We also got to know which company we will be working with and some tips on what we might be working on. Our group will work with Kustavin Kipinä. We will also have our first Working Day on Friday at Turun Ammattikorkeakoulu, I'm guessing it will be awesome!

So long for now and remember to follow our tweets at https://twitter.com/Sparkplugs58h

- Tommi / Spark Plugs