Philippine E-Journals

Managing Domestic Educational Tour (BS Tourism Management Students Putting Theories into Practice)

Aireen B. Gedorio

Discipline: Education

 

Abstract:

Planning and implementing tour packages is one of the course requirements for every tourism student. The activity bridges the gap between learning inside the classroom and the realities of the actual world. The study aimed to describe the tourism students’ learning perspectives in managing a domestic educational tour. Qualitative research design and the narrative inquiry were used. The sources of information were from the four Bachelor of Science in Tourism Management Students who were the tour managers and were requested to write a narrative on their learning. The trustworthiness/rigor of the findings was established using thick description for credibility; purposive sampling for transferability, stepwise replication and code-recode for dependability, and audit trail for confirmability. Recurring statements in the findings revealed seven themes, namely: attributes and characteristics of tour manager; stages of developing and planning a tour package; tourism stakeholders and components; tour operator’s roles and responsibilities; tour activities and experiences; varied emotional responses; and learning domains. These themes were distinguished through the experiences shared by the tour managers during the actual implementation of their planned tour bound for Cebu – Bohol – Negros Oriental. Results of this study are useful in developing curriculum and for creating future tour packages.