Intercultural Tourism Management

3-Day Seminar Lecture
at the University Bad Honnef

The Private University of Applied Sciences Bad Honnef - Bonn ranks amongst Germany’s most renowned institutes for higher education in the service sector. In the field of tourism management, the institute achieves special recognition through its bachelor, graduate and master programmes. The strong focus on preparing the students for an international career is reflected by a world-wide network of partner universities and English as the exclusive teaching language.

FH Bad Honnef Tourism Management

The Department of Tourism Management, headed since the first days in 1998 by Prof. Dr. Helmut Wachowiak, emphasizes a well-kept balance between theory and practice within the different curricula. During the “Special Week”, students are offered the opportunity to attend seminars to off-curriculum topics that further enhance their competence.

This year, I had the pleasure of being invited to give a 3-day seminar at the campus in Bad Honnef – with the topic of “Intercultural Tourism Projects”.

Cover Page of the Presentation

Within the three days, I took the liberty of offering a kaleidoscope of different topics combined into a common theme: business ethics and sustainable tourism; international destination development in the Arab World and Latin America; and intercultural management.

An overview of the three days is provided by the agenda:

Day 1: Sustainable Tourism

• Introduction to sustainable tourism
• Business ethics in tourism
• Worldwide tourism destinations
• Corporate social responsibility CSR
  
• Sustainable destination development

Day 2: Destination Development

• Sustainable tourism development: Qatar
• Tourism planning
• Tourism area life cycle
• Resort development in Cancún/Mexico
• Introduction to interculturality

Day 3: Intercultural Management

• Definition of intercultural management
• Germany and the Germans
• Cultural dimensions and models
• Intercultural project management
• International business etiquette

The group of 18 students was highly motivated and participating actively in the seminar and the various exercises. On the basis of my experience, I focused on strongly interactive methods such as moderated discussions, group work, critical incidents, film presentation, case studies, audio clips and even role plays.

The response from the students was highly positive, which is also reflected in the qualitative feedback that they gave at the end of the lecture.

Student Feedback FH Bad Honnef Part 1

Student Feedback FH Bad Honnef Part 2

All in all I can say it was also for me a great experience to interact with the students in an atmosphere away from the pressure of grades and evaluations. And the feedback showed that some new thoughts found their way into the heads of the students.

And this is what in the end actually makes the difference in the future.


Andreas Hauser