Program Objectives
The International Destination Marketing track provides an overview of destination marketing and a framework for participants to develop a marketing strategy for their destination (to help them build and learn how to create and sustain customer and stakeholder value in their organizations.) The learning objectives of this track are:
- to understand current and anticipate future consumer markets and buying beyhaviors
- to capture created value for the marketing organization
- to structure leadership roles in a fully integrated strategic marketing plan
- to learn the nature of travel distribution channels
- to gain insight on the growth and purpose of sales promotion
- to learn how to forecast market demand and use tourism research for planning
- to learn how participation in joint marketing schemes create synergies
The Innovation in Product Development track provides an in depth interdisciplinary overview of core, facilitating and supporting products that satisfy the wants and needs of the consumer. The learning objectives of this track are:
- to understand the product lifecycles
- to learn the process of designing, positioning and managing the product
- to study current destination product trends and niche products
- to learn how product screening is done
- to consider new product development and market testing options
- to understand the process of developing, designing and introducing a new product brand
The Tourism Administration track looks at management and cooperative efforts of government offices at the destination using examples from the Hawaii state government. Besides learning how government tourism offices are managed, operated and run, this track covers cooperative managerial business models through affiliate relationships in government departments like Hawaii's Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. the learning objectives in this track are:
- to understand how government tourism offices are organized and managed
- to learn how affiliate relationships are developed an how they run within government offices
- to learn how National Tourism Offices develop joint efforts and organize workshops and trade shows
- to gain insight on consumer assistance and protection programs
The International Tourism Policy track recognizes the interdependence of policy issues and the need to work collaboratively towards the development of integrated policy initiatives. The learning objectives of this track are:
- to gain an understanding of the benefits of policy coordination
- to learn how tourism policies emerge from within organizations
- to develop an understanding of the potential gains from integrated policy development
- to draw on the creativity and expertise of departmental inputs
- to jointly develop policy with stakeholder and community input