TREN 1F90 Winter Term

TREN 1F90 Winter Term 2008

From: David Telfer

To: All TREN 1F90 Teaching Assistants

Re: Instructions for the Winter Term

The format for the seminars remains the same so there is no real difference from the fall term. Please have a look at the Winter Term Outline on Web CT. Note there are no seminars the first week of class (the week of Jan. 7^th), and the week of the mid term in Week 6.
Be sure to continue to mark all of the components for the seminar as you have been doing. Encourage students to do the reading, come to seminar and class, post comments etc.
Tell them that I will be posting summaries or list of topics covered in lecture on WebCT. Tell them to look on Web CT where I placed the outline for the winter semester. Also remind them that I will not be posting entire lectures but rather lists of topics covered - this is different from the fall term.
There are 8 seminar slots you need to fill with students for presentations. You need to get this all set up next week (the week of Jan 14^th)
Seminar leaders are responsible for leading the seminars in Week 2 and in Week 11. Ideas for running the seminar in Week 2 are provided below. In Week 11 you will be running a planning and development exercise in class. More information will be provided to you later.

Seminar # _____________

Week Number	Names of Student Presenters (max 3 per week)
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 12

I will ask you to assign students to the various weeks for presentations. They need to present with different people then they did in the fall term as this is a requirement in the course outline. There are several ways to assign students - for example:

Option #1

Assign the students to a seminar before the seminar based on student numbers or you could do it by alphabetical order. Make sure you have all 8 seminars covered by at least 2 people. Then just present the list to the students in the seminar. If there are students away from the seminar you will need to let them know what they are presenting. If you have requests from students to make any changes I will leave that up to your discretion. If someone is away the first week of seminars I would suggest that they not make the first presentation of the term. Be sure to have at least 2 presenters for each seminar if you can. Some smaller seminars may have single presenters to fill all 8 presentation dates. If you do not have students covering all the presentations then as the TA for that class you will be required to cover the seminar material and do the presentation.

Option #2

You can ask them to get into 8 groups themselves however as noted in the course outline they need to present with someone different than the fall term. Again it is very important that you have 8 groups. Have one member of the group draw a number out of an envelop and the number they pull is the week number they will be presenting (I have the week numbers in the table above). If there are people away then just assign them presentation dates that are left over towards the end of the term. The most important thing is to make sure you have all 8 presentations covered by at least 2 people. Again for smaller sized seminars you may have single presenters. If you do not have students covering all the presentations then as the TA for that class you will be required to cover the seminar material and do the presentation.

Which ever option you chose, once you have the final list of presentation dates with the names of the student presenters email it to Ian and he will get them posted to WebCT.

Instructions for Seminar for the Week of January 14^th.

Introduction

Read over Chapter 2. We are going to be talking about the demand and motivation of tourists. The chapter identifies different types of tourists. For example a tourist staying at a beach resort in Mexico for a week is very different than someone going on a one week camping and hiking trip in British Columbia. Some authors have tried to come up with classifications of different types of tourists, which are in the textbook. What is important in this class is trying to understand tourists' motivations and behaviours and therefore understand the impact they will have on the environment (natural, built, social).

What are the demands that the beach tourist has on the environment (natural, built, social). versus the hiker? If there is a market then the industry will respond and build the supply (hotels etc.) to satisfy the market. What types of markets or tourists are destinations trying to attract. Does the destination want to attract beach tourists and if so what will the resulting development look like? Will it be large-scale mass hotels like Cancun Mexico? What if they want to attract ecotourists? What will be built? How many people do they want to come? Do they build a small scale ecotourism lodge hoping to attract environmentally friendly tourists? What will make the destination more money - large scale mass tourism or small scale environmentally friendly tourism?

Changes in tourists. --- On page 31 there is chart about the changes in new tourists? Have a look at this. As tourists change over time are they becoming more environmentally friendly? Remember we are a consumer society and we consume travel just like any other product. In fact we tend to behave very differently when we travel (good or bad???)

Suggested Ideas for the Seminar Format

Everyone has been a tourists so it is easy to relate to this topic. Start by asking them where they have been, who has a passport, what places did they find the most interesting - why? What impacts have they seen? How do tourist behave and why?

Ask what influences people to travel - what prevents them from traveling? See page 41 -
What are the different types of tourists out there (beach, adventure, culinary, wine, heritage, ecotourism, etc )
How do these tourist differ from one another?
After a discussion of the above, perhaps split them up into groups and assign each group a different type of tourist. Then have them answer questions such as why do they travel, what do they look for when choosing a destination, what are their needs, what kind of accommodation do they need (5 star or youth hostel), how will they spend their time, how do they behave, will they eat local food or do they need to find the nearest McDonalds, how much money will they spend, what will they buy, how will they interact with the local environment, how will they interact with the local people, what will their impact be, if you were going to try and attract this group to a destination what types of marketing would you use, what are the impacts that their accommodation form (hotels, camp sites etc. ) will have on the environment etc
You could then have each group present and you will start to see the differences between the different types of tourists
You could also hold a discussion as to whether tourist are becoming more environmentally friendly. What types of tourists are more environmentally friendly, What can be done to make them more environmentally friendly? You could put them in groups again and have them come up with ideas and present theories ideas on how to make tourists more environmentally friendly, what can the tourism industry (e.g. hotels) or governments do to make them more environmentally friendly
On page 36 there is a section on characteristics of the destination. Have then discuss how different types of tourists interact with the local environment. For example in a mass beach resort development many people are on all-inclusive packages and never leave the resort for the entire week. How do local people respond to tourists?
If time you could lead a further detailed discussion on the impacts of tourism. In groups or in an open discussion have them try and identify as many different types of impacts for the 3 corners of the sustainability triangle (economic, environment, social).
You may get other ideas from reading over Chapter 2.