LT4056 London’s Visitor Economy
Assignment 1
Assignment 1 is an on-line wiki-guide (a tourist product) to London designed for a specific target visitor group. This group could be a socio-cultural or national group of visitors, inspired by their origin or socio-cultural background. Students in the past have chosen national groups (eg American, Japanese, Polish, Czech or Jamaican visitors), a particular age group (eg American students, European students, older European tourists), particular interest groups (film lovers, punk rockers, garden lovers).
Ideas and tasks for the wiki will be provided weekly via videos, slides, readings in daily newspapers, and seminar discussions. You should work on the wiki throughout the whole semester. The idea is to design a guide that will engage and interest your chosen target market. The Wiki Guide needs to talk to the potential visitor directly. This is meant to be a ‘real’ tourist product so you need to get the tone of voice right for your target group.
Your guide needs provide your target group with places to visit, and give ideas of how to they can spend their time in London. The places to visit should relate to the needs and interests of the group you have selected. You should base this on research – what market research from London and Partners and Visit Britain say about the variety of visitors that come to the UK and what their interests are. In weeks 1 and 2 we discuss the London visitor economy, the range of attractions, the range of visitors and what they spend their time and money on in London. Have a look at the documents in the week 1 and 2 reading lists on Weblearn. They give data on the different nationalities visiting the UK; what they like, what they think of Britain and London. In week 3 we will look more closely at these different visitor groups. This should start you thinking about providing a guide to London that will introduce your target group to attractions, places and experiences that they would actually like. You should avoid the most obvious attractions eg the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben. These are well known and visitors will know about them. Your task is to give your target audience ideas of places to visit that they do not know about – hidden gems and less well-known attractions that they will find interesting.
Your first task then, will be to select a target group; think about their needs and interests. Use the research data from Visit Britain to find out about what different nationalities do or think. Start developing content that will be useful, relevant, engaging and accessible to that group. The wiki should contain text, images, and links to relevant sites and videos.
Do not cut and paste from the websites of attractions; do not waste time giving opening hours or entrance fees (simply provide links to the relevant website for this information). Do not spend time giving advice about accommodation or transport around London – there are plenty of places visitors can find this information. You need to demonstrate to the reader what is special about the places you have chosen for the guide and why they would enjoy them.
Assignment 2
A 1000-word reflective essay on how you designed the wiki guide and your experience of the module. The word count does not include tables, bibliography, or appendices. You should cover the following in the assignment:
Part A Reflection on the wiki guide (900 words)
Here you explain how you went about designing your wiki-guide, the selection of your target audience, and what you hope your audience will get out of using your guide. It is an opportunity to show your thinking and research for this assignment.
The suggested structure Part A of the reflective essay is:
The title and theme of your guide
The selection of your target audience – which group(s) did you consider and finally select and why
What kind of visitor experiences would appeal to your target audience? Use evidence to back up your reasoning (reports, articles, newspaper or other sources have you used to tell you what your audience might enjoy?)
What are your aims and objectives in designing the guide? What do you want the visitor to get out of using your guide?
Which sites/ sights/ events did you select for your audience and why – you could set this out as a table (see table 1 below). What sources did you use to find out information about these entries to your guide?
What design features did you include in your guide and why
What are the strengths of your guide?
What are the weaknesses of your guide?
Looking back after having completed the wiki guide, would you still go about it in the same way?
Part B What you have learnt from taking this module (100 words)
How has your knowledge of London developed through developing this guide and how has your understanding of London’s visitor economy developed during this module? This includes the sessions with industry professionals in weeks 7 and 8.
Part C Bibliography
You should provide a bibliography of the sources you have used for the wiki-guide. These should be cited in section A above and the full details provided in the bibliography using the Harvard system. The bibliography does not contribute to the word length of the assignment.
