A guide on Sparks Lake in the Oregon Cascade Range explains the geologic history and ecology of the area to tourists, in the shadow of the South Sister volcano.
Learning-based tourism an opportunity for industry expansion
“You’re already seeing many tour operators and travel agencies offer educational opportunities, things like whale watching, ecotourism,” said John Falk, a professor of science education at OSU and author of the paper, “Travel and Learning: A Neglected Tourism Research Area” in January.
“We’re convinced this is just the beginning of a major shift in how people want to spend their leisure time, and one that could have important implications for the intellectual and cultural growth around the world.”
Allowing groups to hear, see, feel, smell and taste their travel experience is one major selling point of the experiential tourism offerings of Experience Columbus, the destination marketing organization in Columbus, Ohio. Cooking lessons, bottling and corking wine, creating your own butterfly garden and eating breakfast with the animals at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium are just some of the new offerings available to tour goers.
“Tourism managers and researchers need to better understand the nature of learning in tourism and leisure contexts; explore ways in which learning can be incorporated in tourism and leisure experiences; and develop methods to measure the educational impact of such experiences,” the researchers wrote.
While advent of mass tourism and the industrial revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries provided opportunities for the middle class to participate in leisure travel, often seen as a way of escaping the physical and mental exhaustion of work, by the end of the 20th century, leisure patterns changed and tourists increasingly sought experiences that were intellectually engaging.
With more time on their hands and money in their pockets, the immersion of new ideas, spaces and activities are attractive to the new traveler who now has access to more information about their desired destination and widened individual interests. Travelers are no longer looking for tropical resorts, amusement lands and theme parks, they want “to acquire knowledge, develop ideas and construct new visions for themselves and their society,” the researchers wrote.
“Customer satisfaction remains an important outcome of the tourism experience, but what is needed is a broader understanding of what satisfaction entails.”
While previously tour operators and owners may have been able to make unsubstantiated claims about the educational impact of tours, those seeking to supplement their revenue through support from local, regional and national governments and private foundations will now need new ways of assessing and tracking visitor learning outcomes, they cautioned.
“The changing nature of tourism demands an increasing focus on understanding the ways in which tourism experiences are supporting the public good, and in particular the impact they are having on tourist learning outcomes. The benefits of such an approach transcend issues of accountability, and include the ability to customize experiences to the needs, interests and motivations of tourists at different stages of their travel careers, to craft marketing messages that appeal to the individual needs and desires of visitors and ultimately to insure that tourists perceive the experience as having been significant and valuable.”
Here’s a video of an OSU program that trains people to become naturalist guides:
