INNOVATING TOURISM THROUGH POPULAR CULTURE Erasmus Project

Project Title

INNOVATING TOURISM THROUGH POPULAR CULTURE

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship)

Project Summary

Today, many up-and-coming tourism destinations in our partner regions are experiencing rapid growth directly because of their links to popular culture: television, film and music. OUTPACE will harness the power of film induced tourism and popular culture to develop a new highly innovative pedagogy to support the acquisition of transferable, entrepreneurial and digital skills. It will provide HE educators, tourism development stakeholders and the enterprises they work with the knowledge and skills to capitalize on these contemporary growth trends. Our project represents the first time that HE institutions will move from academic research on pop culture tourism into the practical application of our work in a brand new curricula that combines market opportunity with the ENTRECOMP needs of innovation and entrepreneurship: idea generation, problem solving, critical thinking, and cross-cultural communication within the larger framework of entrepreneurial competencies. By tackling this skill gap we also stimulate regional tourism economies as key employment creators.

The overall aim of OUTPACE is to produce a rise in the number of tourism businesses which develop innovative products & services based on the opportunities afforded by pop culture tourism, thus generating more market-responsive & dynamic regional tourism economies. Film induced tourism and popular culture rely heavily on the use of digital technologies and innovative approaches through emerging mediums of augmented and virtual realities. Hence, our training methodology is immersed in digital pedagogic approaches. We will create a multitude of open education resources for teachers and lecturers that bring interactivity and advanced digital learning to the fore for the teaching community and their students. It is important for us that our educational offering responds to the way that people use technology today for learning, working and communications (digital visitors to a tourism destination). OUTPACE responds to and upskills our target groups in 3 of the 5 DigiComp competencies. Our specific objectives are to:
a) Increase awareness of pop culture tourism opportunities and provide frameworks for sustainable collaboration between HE, VET and business organizations through Alliances & Actions Plans (IO1) and OUTPACE Pop Culture Tourism Resource Pack (IO2)
b) Develop the first systematic pop-culture training programme for tourism enterprises, and make such training available for the first time in both stakeholder delivered and direct online training modalities via digitally advanced Open Education Resources (IO3) and Culture Tourism Innovators App (IO4).
c) Train the first generation of participants and explore ways to maximise the effectiveness of the training programme through two learning/teaching/training events.

TARGET GROUPS
a) HE INSTITUTIONS, who wish to leverage their research/teaching capacity for the benefit of regional economic development through partnerships in tourism.
b) TOURISM and CREATIVE SMES who require the skills to develop/market new products and services that respond to pop culture opportunities.
c) ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT AND VET ORGANISATIONS from public, private, nonprofit sectors, such as chambers of commerce, VET colleges and enterprise training organisations that can improve their services to SMEs and wider contribution to economic development by offering up-to-date training on this topic.
d) TOURISM DEVELOPMENT AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES STAKEHOLDERS from the public, private, nonprofit sector, i.e. Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs), tourism boards/ networks, creative and culture institutions who recognize the significance of the topic but need guidance on how to provide effective support.
e) STUDENTS OF TOURISM AND ENTERPRISE, the success of whose future tourism enterprises (or employment) will be influenced by the quality of the teaching they receive at university.

Film and pop culture transcends national boundaries more than any other economic niche as fans seek out visitation to sites where movies and TV programmes have been filmed. Our partners represent a mix of expertise from more advanced and emerging pop culture destinations. Our results in 4 languages are
– 50 – 60 stakeholders in Lithuania, UK-NI, Ireland, Iceland and Sweden) will be committed to contributing to a new ecosystem of support to nurture pop culture tourism businesses through IO1 Alliances & Actions Plans.
– At least 400 downloads of IO2 Pop Culture Tourism Resource Pack by economic development, HE, VET, tourism, creative industries and tourism organizations motivated to work to capitalize on pop culture tourism.
– At least 400 HE, VET and business support organizations will access IO3 OERs for Pop Culture Innovators for the benefit of thousands of training learners and a further 400 download our IO4 Pop Culture Tourism Innovators’ App
– 20 participants will benefit from our two Pop Culture Tourism Innovators learning activities.

Project Website

http://www.popculturetourism.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 263768,1 Eur

Project Coordinator

VILNIAUS GEDIMINO TECHNIKOS UNIVERSITETAS & Country: LT

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH
• MOMENTUM MARKETING SERVICES LIMITED
• HASKOLINN A AKUREYRI
• HASKOLI ISLANDS
• Swedish Tourism Innovation Center
• CANICE CONSULTING LIMITED