Students create event season plan for winter tourism

Indeed, tourist destinations welcome every holidaymaker. Nevertheless, competition between resorts is fierce and unique selling points are more important than ever. But what is the best way to stand out from the competition?

As part of the "Applied Service Management in Tourism" project seminar in the 2021/22 winter semester, it was the task of the master's students of Business Administration and Sport, Business & Law to create an event season plan for winter tourism from the perspective of value co-creation for the tourism destination of Scheidegg. For this purpose, the Marketing & Service Management research group chaired by Prof. Dr. Herbert Woratschek organised a cooperation project with the tourist destination of Scheidegg in the Allgäu.

The creation of an event calendar for the winter season was intended to increase the number of visitors. In this seminar, led by Prof. Dr. Herbert Woratschek and Jan Schönberner, students were able to link theory with empiricism and practice on the basis of a concrete research question and to prepare the results for a real-world client, the municipality of Scheidegg. For this purpose, after learning the theory and defining the brief, a context analysis of Scheidegg as a tourist destination was carried out, which served as a basis for developing new event ideas. For brainstorming, best practice examples from other tourism destinations were first examined in order to be able to work creatively on students’ own ideas for events as platforms for engagement. In this way, it was possible to ensure that all events fitted in perfectly with the existing image and tourism programme of Scheidegg.

The theoretical basics of project management were taught by the experienced project manager Dr Thomas von Lingen, who also acted as project coach throughout the seminar. In order to get to know the destination better and to carry out the mission statement, a several-day excursion to Scheidegg on Lake Constance was organised at the beginning of the seminar. There, students presented results of their previous literature research and established made contact with their client. At the end of this excursion, the seminar participants were given the opportunity to explore the municipality and its sights through a guided tour of the town. With these impressions, the students were well-equipped to start the elaboration phase of the project. On the one hand, this included the infrastructure and stakeholder analysis as well as the analysis of existing events and, on the other hand, the concrete and creative elaboration of new event ideas and concepts. In all of this, the teamwork and independent commitment of the students were essential.

Through their impressions on site, the students were able to take into account local characteristics when creating the event calendar. The existing events of the municipality were therefore optimised in parts and expanded by new event ideas from the categories of sports, nature experience, and many others. In order to make the implementation of this plan as simple as possible, the client received a precise description of the procedure for each event with the required resources and its framework conditions. The feedback from the clients in Scheidegg on the results report was very positive throughout, so that the seminar must be considered a great success.

Not only did a successful event plan for the tourist destination of Scheidegg emerge from this project seminar, but the students also gained important skills and knowledge for future projects. In addition to technical and methodological skills, the students were also able to improve their personal and social skills especially when working in a team. The seminar taught the students how to successfully link theory with practice. Similarly, it has given the municipality of Scheidegg a basis of ideas that, if successfully implemented, could well bring about an increase in winter tourism.