On a sunny Monday morning, the last week in April, 15 tourism students, head of department Peter Smeds and senior lecturers Heidi Hellström and Thomas Sabel travelled to Aalborg in Denmark. The trip was a part of the cooperation between Vaasan ammattikorkeakoulu (VAMK), University of Applied Sciences, the Dutch Hogeschool Utrecht and University College of Northern Denmark (UCN). As a part of the cooperation is one week, when students from the three schools cooperate on a tourism project. In VAMK this project is a part of the course ”Development of Tourism Products and Experiences”.
This week’s task was to come up with ideas about how to increase the number of international tourists in Aalborg. During the week, the teachers gave lectures on task related topics and the Aalborg tourism organization was visited. In addition a number of innovative learning methods were tested and international groups of students worked with ideas concerning the given task. The week culminated in the presentations of the ideas that the groups had come up with. A board of lecturers voted for the best idea.
“The week was very successful, educational and interesting”, said one of the students on her way back to Finland. Last year the week took place in Utrecht and next year Vaasa and VAMK will be the hosts.
Text: Heidi Hellström and Thomas Sabel