Sustainable Coastal Development

This topic you can currently not choose as a minor project.

Understanding the economic impacts of tourism

About the project

Tourism is one of the most important economic pillars in Zeeland. Yearly, tourists spend 17 million nights in Zeeland and nearly 50 million day trips are undertaken in Zeeland. Estimated expenditure is 1,76 billion Euros. Although the economic importance of tourism is very high, we do not have a complete understanding of investments in and economic spin-off of the tourism industry. This is important looking at the current debate about tourism development in Zeeland.

Tourism is expected to grow significantly in the Netherlands from now to 2030. In Zeeland however, local authorities wonder how to respond to this growth – do we allow more tourism businesses to develop? How do inhabitants feel about that? In the media, many news items are published about inhabitant being fed up with the number of tourists in their town.

In order to make a good assessment of all plans for tourism development, is it important to have a good and complete insight in the economic impacts for Zeeland. In this minor, we need students who are as curious as we are, who can “follow the money” to find out who makes money out of tourism and who will work with us to set the numbers straight.

Topics and projects

Zeeland / Delta is a coastal region with a variety of challenges (from livability, to sustainability but also from (hidden) needs to new economic models. The stakeholders and students will focus on one or more of the following aspects in the Sustainable Coastal Development Project:

  • Customer journey (e.g. hidden needs, touch points)
  • Destination development (e.g. quality coast, vitality, ecologic)
  • Economics (e.g. new business models including vitality of businesses, new ways of cooperation’s between businesses, and different sectors working together doing cross overs)

You will

  • Learn and acquire skills about project management, research, interacting in a multi stakeholder environment
  • Be part of the team of the Research Centre for Coastal Tourism, within HZ.
  • Be working in our network with local authorities, tourism businesses, research organisations and other stakeholders
  • Develop skills like change making and research capacity in a practically-orientated research project

Learning goals

  1. You improve the challenge based on a professional and proactive attitude.
  2. You view and understand the challenge from different perspectives.
  3. You design, execute, monitor, interpret and/or validate the professional product systematically.
  4. You propose a desirable follow-up and critically evaluate the professional product (result) and the associated development process.
  5. You share and record the results in a structured manner and, based on your results, you potentially contribute to enriching existing knowledge.

Become Fit for Your Future

You will work on and gain experience in a real project. Stakeholders and experts from the work field are looking forward to collaborate with you and to find solutions to the challenges they currently encounter. Your contribution will be of direct use to them, and future minor participants will build on your work. 

By working on these projects you will learn to develop a project plan and experience how to execute this with your team. You will also learn from other teams by assessing their plans and results. In other words, you will further develop your professional skills and research capacity. Coaches and researchers will train and support you to achieving these. Read more about why not to miss this opportunity!

Admission

Economics & Management domain

  • Finance & Control
  • Bedrijfskunde
  • Tourism management

Entry requirements: you are in study year 3 or 4 and you have achieved your propedeuse

Capacity: 3 students can participate, preferably from different education programmes

Contact moments, work forms

  • Contact moments in general: kick-off (week 1), four workshops about research, workshops about relevant and specific topics (optional), poster presentation (end of the minor), final assessment (last week(s))
  • Contact moments specific for Understanding the economic impacts of tourism: 
    • You will be working as part of team of the Research Centre for Coastal Tourism at HZ,
    • Daily contact moments possible
  • Work forms: taking part in the theoretical part of the first year course World of Tourism; workshops about topics like economic impact studies, group discussions, expert consultation etc.

Language

Dutch

Location

HZ in Vlissingen

Examination

  • Type: individual, oral Final Assessment about the participant's digital portfolio
  • Content: Portfolio consisting of evidence for the six learning goals (Professional Products and a Progress & Reflections report)
  • Minimum grade: 5.5 out of 10 points
  • Planing: semester 1: no planning | semester 2: no planning. Inspection: same date as Final Assessment. Re-exam: 2 weeks after Final Assessment.

Contact

  • Download the brochure (PDF).
  • About Understanding the economic impacts of tourism: Timo Derriks and Margot Tempelman.




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