May 2013

•  A very big welcome to our new Tourism Lecturer, Dr. Gareth Butler! Gareth joins us this month from the University of Johannesburg. We welcome Gareth and his partner, Zureka, and we are looking forward to introducing them to Australia, Adelaide and our campus.

April 2013

• Our international postgrad students had an Australian experience this weekend, visiting Cleland Wildlife Park in the Adelaide Hills and getting up close and personal with koalas, kangaroos, Tassie Devils and a wide and wild range of Australian fauna. After Cleland the students went on to Mt. Lofty for some spectacular views over the city of Adelaide.

• Congratulations to all of our graduating students from both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. It is always a bitter-sweet experience watching you cross the stage to receive your parchments. We are happy for and proud of you but just a little sad that you are leaving our ‘family’.
  
  
  
  Another great night was had by all who attended the Tourism Graduation Dinner last Tuesday. Postgraduate Tourism Alumnus, Andrew Kneebone, who has been working in the UK and now at the Adelaide City Council in the events area, was our keynote and spoke eloquently about his journey to his current position and the impact that his studies at Flinders had on his career. Head of Tourism, Dr. Steve Brown, in his address to the graduating class said:
  
  “Honouring our graduates and celebrating their achievements is in stark contrast to a day when the global psyche is infected again by the tragedy of terrorism. In the contemporary event industry a great deal of planning goes into trying to ensure public safety and yet, as the appalling events in Boston this morning demonstrate, there are never any guarantees no matter how hard we train and work and learn and commit to preventing harm to our audiences and participants. One could become disillusioned, even depressed about the future of events in such circumstance, but I am of the very firm belief that it is the work that our graduates will do over their careers that is part of the solution to this issue. Every tourist that travels to another land and meets and communicates and becomes immersed in the culture of others, every participant and every audience member of every event contributes to the globalization not of market economies but of an understanding of people, culture and society, enabling greater understanding, greater tolerance and greater acceptance and this is the work that our graduates do. For that future effort on behalf of all of us, we thank them.”
  
  
  Photos by Ellen McPharlin

March 2013

• Surveying at the Adelaide Festival’s late night venue, Barrio, took a slightly different turn when the Barrio team decided to provide a purpose built survey site – a ‘room’ of bunk beds! In an attempt to de-bunk (sorry!) the myths about the Festival your surveyors dressed appropriately (pyjamas!) to do the surveying. In the photo we have (from left to right): Laura Elson, Bobae Kim, Nat Atkins, Lisa Zielke, Tully Barnett and Anders Nordvall.
  
  Photograph: Mick Vovers
  
  
• Everyone is welcome along to the Tourism Research Seminar on Thursday 28 March, 3 - 5pm, North Lecture Theatre 1

Presentations include:

- Engaging with Cultural Heritage Sites through a Camera Lens: The Impact of Photography on Tourist Experiences: Daria Tikhonova
- Constructing and Shaping Tourist Experiences via Travel Blog Engagement: Alia Rahman
- Children’s Engagement with Interpretation at Cultural Heritage Sites: Katherine Sutcliffe
- The Role of Food Heritage in Regional Tourism in Gunma Prefecture, Japan: Dr Sean Kim

• Looking forward to the 2013 Tourism Graduation Dinner (for the 2012 graduating class) which will be held at Ayer’s House on Tuesday 16th April 2013. Full details are available here on the invitation. (PDF 854KB)
  
  
• Congratulations to Dr. Sangkyun (Sean) Kim whose strong Tourism research performance has been acknowledged with the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Early Career Researchers. The Award was presented by the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Michael Barber, at a ceremony on March 4th
  
  
  
  

• Great to welcome on campus the new first year Tourism students and their second and third year student mentors!  Also exciting meeting all the new Masters students from Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Ecuador, Australia, China and Suriname at the postgraduate induction session in Orientation Week.
  
  
• As part of their stay with us at Flinders, visiting researchers Don Getz (Canada) and Tommy Andersson (Sweden) spent a day in McLaren Vale experiencing the region. Starting at the McLaren Vale Visitor Information Centre (which Don wrote about in his wine tourism text) there was a winery tour and structured tasting at Wirra Wirra, lunch at Red Poles and a hands on wine blending master class at D’Arenberg.
  

The Cultural Value Research Project team (from left): Dr. Tully Barnett, Prof. Don Getz, Prof. Tommy Andersson, Dr. Steve Brown

Blending master class at D’Arenberg

       Anette and Anders Nordvall with an Australian colleague

• Also with us in Adelaide this month are Prof. Don Getz for the Universities of Calgary (Canada() and Stavanger (Norway), and Prof. Tommy Andersson from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) who will also be working on the CVRP project. Wonderful to have such eminent event researchers working with us.
  
  
• Interesting article on festival at this link Roll Up, Roll Up: There's No Business Like Festival Business Head of Tourism, Steve Brown, also gets a mention.
  
  
• Planning is now well under way for the 2014 Global Events Congress VI which will be held in Adelaide and hosted by Flinders. Check out the website at: www.flinders.edu.au/gec

January 2013

• Happy New Year! We hope you are all refreshed and ready to fly in 2013. Looking forward to meeting all our new students and to welcome back our new second and third year students. We are also well under way with planning for the Graduation Dinner which will be held at Ayers House on the night of Tuesday 16th April 2013. All welcome (not just graduating students). More details soon.
  
  
• We also welcome back Dr. Sangkyun (Sean) Kim who has been on study leave researching food tourism and having adventures in Japan and Korea with udon noodle tourists – yes, they do exist! Sean is now the king of noodles and we expect exquisite udon dishes for lunches soon :-)

December 2012

• Season’s greetings to all our students and industry partners! It has been an exciting an challenging year and we look forward to working with all of you again in 2013.

November 2012

• Congratulations to Will Overall who has just finished assignments and exams and still managed to find the time to pick up a job on Hamilton Island. Can we come and visit?

• Tourism Masters graduate, Katherine Sutcliffe and Tourism lecturers Chris Fanning and Steve Brown all presented at the Regional Food Cultures and Networks Conference in the Barossa Valley at Maggie Beer’s Conference Centre recently. All the papers were well received as was the conference luncheon – a deconstructed steak sandwich prepared by Elli Beer. Katherine, Chris and Steve then travelled to Seppeltsfield to meet with the team there to discuss the new food, event and tourism developments proposed for the extensive site.

• Good luck to all the Tourism students who are taking exams this month!
  
  
• Congratulations to Dr. Steve Brown who won the Career Achievement Award for his contribution to the event industry at the 2012 South Australian Community Achievement Awards this month. Steve, who has been with the university for 13 years, has worked in the event industry in South Australia for over 30 years, working on a wide range of events here, nationally and internationally. Steve was also recently awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching for his work in establishing and developing the festival and event design and management programs at Flinders.
  

October 2012

• Steve Brown is working with colleagues in the School of Nursing and Midwifery and Computer Sciences on a conference paper entitled: Distributed Sensor Logging: As Easy As A Mesh of Yoyos. The first person who can email tourism@flinders.edu.au with what that means wins a prize (Maybe a packet of yo-yo biscuits?). Entries close 1st December 2012 (it might take that long!).

September 2012

• Dr Sangkyun (Sean) Kim recently presented a guest lecture entitled 'Five Keywords To Understand the Tourism Phenomenon' at Dong-Eui University in Korea. The lecture focused on the close relationships amongst place, people, culture, interaction and mobility in order to better understand the tourism phenomenon and tourism studies.
  
  
  
• How does your audience behave? Have a look at the MaGDAA project at: http://magdaaproject.org/ Interesting research on audience behaviour at events led by Head of Tourism, Dr. Steve Brown, and Dr. Alison Hutton from the School of Nursing and Midwifery.
  
  
• Steve recently consulted on the design and management of three events at the Educate Plus 2012 Conference in Sydney. The first event, the Welcome Reception for the delegates, featured some interpretive signage developed by third year Tourism student, Sarah Paynter and supervised by Dr. Jo Ankor. Sarah provided interpretation of three Sydney ‘icons’: Harry’s Café de Wheels, Chinatown and the Sydney Fish Markets. Steve then worked on the Cocktail Party at Wildfire Restaurant overlooking Sydney Harbour. Finally he presented on ‘Capturing and Engaging Your Audience’ to the delegates in an extended two hour session.

August 2012

• For a behind the scenes look at the formation of the very successful Womadelaide event, have a look at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gf-r_QabYE . Students at MAPS have created a short film looking at Womadelaide’s 20 year history. Head of Tourism, Steve Brown, who was one of the originators of the event in Adelaide and worked on each event from 1992 until 2001 has a cameo appearance as does Teena Munn, one of our award winning  Graduate Diploma of Tourism (Festival and Event Design and Management) graduates.

July 2012

•  Congratulations to Dr. Sangkyun (Sean) Kim who was promoted to Senior Lecturer this month. Well done, Sean!
  

• Congratulations to Flinders Tourism graduate Kym Sara who has just been appointed a Prospective Student Advisor with the University’s Admissions/Prospective Students Office. Well done, Kym!
  
  

June 2012

• Congratulations to past Head of Tourism Jane James who has been made a Professor Emeritus of Flinders University for her services to the university and particularly her contribution to the Tourism programs and the Tourism industry generally. Congratulations Emeritus Professor Jane James!
  

 

• Steve Brown gave a keynote address at Global Events Congress V in Stavanger, Norway this week. Titled Creating and Staging the Event Experience: A New Research Paradigm, the keynote was well received and generated a great deal of discussion amongst delegates. One of the delegates at the Congress, Kristin Helgerud, is a past graduate of the Tourism degree at Flinders and is now working for Uvdal Tourism in northern Norway. Kristin travelled more than 6 hours overnight to hear Steve’s keynote and was a surprise, but very welcome, member of the audience.

Steve’s keynote was followed by the Congress discussing the establishment of an International Academy of Event Studies. There was unanimous support and the academy (yet to be formally named) hopes to be up and running within a few months. Prof. Don Getz (Canada), Prof. Reidar Mykletun (Norway), Assoc. Prof. Charles Arcodia (Australia) and Dr. Steve Brown (Australia) are the Founding Board Members for the initial stages of the establishment of the Academy.

Global Events Congress VI  dates and host city were also announced in Stavanger and the next Congress will be held in Adelaide, 9-11 July 2014 hosted by Flinders University. A remarkable opportunity for events studies students here and across Australia to hear and to connect with the leading event practitioners and academic researchers. A chance to meet the people you are citing in your assignments!

Flinders University recently hosted a function to thank those organisations who had supported our students through Work Integrated Learning placements. Tourism lecturer Chris Fanning was pleased to present a gift to thank Lyn Cooper from the City of Holdfast Bay. L-R: Chris Fanning, Lyn Cooper

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