Hard days are almost over!

Some relieved greetings from Lithuania!

Today we have been working only with the final report, and guite surprisingly  we got it done and even early! We were expecting that we will be working with the report still in the night, but actually the only part we are still missing is the easiest, tomorrow's presentation:)

It starts to be the reality that tomorrow this awesome project of 25 students will be over:'( It's nice to go home, but we just started to get to know eachother better and the last couple days have been a lot of fun, although also tough work!

We have spent almost two weeks here in Kaunas, Lithuania and it all comes together tomorrow when we present our outcomes in the closing ceremony. We will be presenting the highlights of our report to the Kauno Kolegija's 1st and 2nd year hospitality management students, to the teachers, to the director of Kaunas Region Tourism Information Center and of course to our 20 awesome participant buddies!

After our official closing day we are going bowling with the other teams and probably have a slight competition then as well! We'll see who strikes the most!(we do ;) ) Bowling will lead us to a restaurant where we are going to have the last dinner together:'( Early on saturday morning we're going to leave Kaunas and Lithuania, and be headed to home with 10,5 hours of pitstop at Riga.

From Kaunas with Loooove
Team Finland

Excursion day vol. 3!

Team members ready for today's adventure

Today we had a great study trip to Kaunas open-air museum in Rumšiškės. Museum was already interesting as it self but as we had a guide, we got to know a lot more about the buildings and lifestyles of different epochs and social strata. After a couple hours' guided tour at the museum we had an excursion about Lithuanian Easter-festivities, where we got to decorate our own easter-palms and taste typical Easter-food. Last but not least at Rumšiškės everyone got the opportunity to ride in a horse wagon which was unexpected and nice ending for a great day - a cherry on top of a cake! 

Three daughters in the house?

Christian artifact hand made by locals

Veera and Jenna playing with Martynas from Lithuania

Great views down from the tower

Every country presenting their easterpalms
(Spain, Belgium, Finland, Lithuania, The Netherlands)

Waiting for the "easter breakfast" 

After the open-air museum we went to Park Inn Hotel Kaunas, where we got to experience a culinary show. We got to learn how Lithuania's traditional dishes beetroot soup and Cepelinai (potato-meat dumplings) are prepared. Experience of the local dishes was fulfilled when we got to taste the dishes. 

Beetroot soup

Cepelinai with sauce

The team's feelings after a sunny day are a bit blue for the fact that this project is about to end in a couple of days - but there's no time to feel sad since in this short period of time we still have a lot to do: Gathering and modifying all the results the teams have produced into the final report and making the power point presentation which will we presented on Friday in the closing ceremony. And what comes to tommorow's division of labour: the teams will come together to the national teams like in the beginning and work on their original dimensions.


Anxious and a bit stressed about tommorow's work load,


Greetings from the Finnish team,

ZzZz...

Social aspect in responsible tourism

Yet again it is time for our daily post!

Today we had a lecture of social aspect given by Carine Colson, Belgium, in responsible tourism. Because of the subject we "went" also social in our class, and had a great discussion within the participants regarding to the socially responsible tourism. For example we were thinking about how the tour operators among others could enhance ethical travelling and how they could interact with the locals and benefit from each others, because tour operators are the key figures to influence on the customers' choice.

Suvi, Edita & Veeras "being social"!

The class was fixed up to be a circle so that we could be "social"

When implementing sustainability into a company, the company should form a team which has a manager with strong knowledge about the sustainability issues. The team should stimulate knowledge and experiences through different kinds of trainings and courses, which are provided for example by Travelife. After implementing the sustainable culture (to the company) there should be measurements done both for the determined and indicated impacts and through these points the company can create sustainability management. Company also has to do an action plan and after executing these plans the company should evaluate and report their findings so that knowledge about the matters would be similar within the whole company.

Lisää kuvateksti

Today we also finished our last workshops in the international groups, and from now on we are going to work with the national group again! Our part from the final report is our topic, the environmental aspect. We will be gathering all the information brought out from the questionnaire and the recommendations which we've been working with in the international groups.

Some more workin' with the pies!

 We are going to start working with our part of the final report now so there's a lot of writing ahead, again!

We'll be back!

The Finnish Team

Feelings after weekend

On Saturday we went to another study trip, Pažaislis monastery and though the sun was shining, the weather was really cold. Hrrr... We also visited the old town of Kaunas and saw for example the castle of Kaunas, Kaunas City Hall and few churches. After the tour we had a lunch with Belgians and then we did some shopping. In the evening we spent time together with all of the teams.

On Sunday we had a day-off and used it as well as we could because today it is hard work again!

New week, new teachers. As the teachers after last week have changed we started the day with teachers' introductions. The support for Finnish team will this week be given by Inna Levanto, our lecturer in Tourism. After seeing the new teachers we had a lecture from Natalie Aldous, Rotterdam, regarding to the economic aspect of sustainability. We were discussing about the findings of a tourism survey data she showed us and afterwards in the national groups we did some problem solving considering the initiatives governments should take. Also we were thinking how to affect on the consumers' attitudes and behavior from the sustainable point of view.

Now we are going to work in the international teams again within the workshops. Today we are going to finish the cultural and ICT aspects and do some prework for tomorrows economic and social workshops.

Some working with "the pies"

We'll keep in touch!

Team Finland

Study trip to Kernave and Trakai!

Today we had a study trip to Kernave and Trakai, which are about one hour away from Kaunas. At Kernavė we visited Kernavė Archaeological Site (Cultural Reserve of Kernavė), which belongs to the World Heritage List of UNESCO, to experience among others the five impressive hill forts. As Susanna mentioned an issue about the importance of sustainability management in these kind of attractions, we tried to observe our experiences of Karnavė also from that point of view. We noticed that already some of the hills are suffering from erosion for example in the way of landslides. 

Map of Karnave sight

Noticeable landslide

These were the only kind of guidance signs 

Suvi climbing the steps to the top of the hill

Jenna and Veera on top of the hill

Team Finland experiencing natural sights of Karnave

"Local transportation"

IPF 3 participators in sunny Karnave

After tasting a traditional dish of Kibinines and "buljong" soup we went to the Trakai Castle. First we got to experience some exhibitions of historical artifacts by our selves and after that we got a guided tour around the main parts of the castle. We thought it was quite sad that only few parts of the castle were original, and rest was renovated.

Kibinine & soup

IPF 3 in front of the Trakai Castle 

Inside the Trakai Castle

We had a great and fun day which culminated in the evening when we had a great dinner near the city center with Susanna. We went to a local restaurant called Zalias Ratas which serves typical local dishes. Food was great and the experience was very pleasant partly because of the way how the food was prepared in a fireplace next to us. 

Tomorrow we are going to another cultural tour which this time heads to Pazaislis monastery in Kaunas. 

To be continued...

Team Finland

P.S. Special thanks to the taxi driver for excellent service and getting us safe and sound back to the hostel. Keep up the good work, You made our day!

Use of sustainable information tools

Today our topic was information tools and Web 2.0, particularly in sustainable tourism. First we had a lecture from Adrian Broz Lofiego, Florida. We were taught the main principles and services of the Web 2.0, such as focusing on service-based solutions, developing continuously and turning from mass markets to more individual level in blogs, social networks, content communities etc. We also discussed about  the Tourism 2.0. which gives the tourists an opportunity to see maps and direction pages, blogs, tourist corporation pages and social networks online when needed. After the lecture, we had to analyze other countries' blogs and the interaction between the channels in the Internet and give recommendations how to improve those to be even better.

In the workshop we finally got to do what we came to do: we compared the national results from the environmental dimension to the international ones and did recommendations out of them to the environmental part of final report, which Jenna is going to collect in the end of this project. Some groups started also analyzing the cultural dimension results.

Tomorrow we are going to have a study trip to Kernavé and Trakai castle to learn the theory in practice. We are also going to do a task given to us for the cultural aspects of sustainability. Hopefully, the weather will be better than fore casted!

But now, we are going to the hostel's kitchen to have a good time together with the whole group,
"see you later, alligator"!

The Finnish team

Experiences over the Internet..

After listening to Adrian from Florida University today I once again started to think about the tourism customers, marketing and the meaning of experiences. There is a little blog post about experiences over the internet at my own blog (eSuski).

Cultural aspect in sustainable tourism

Hello again !

Topic of the second day was cultural dimension. The country resposinble for this aspect was Lithuania and the lecturer was Asta Valaityte-Brish.

The main topics that came up:
- Culture is a major asset for tourism development
- Benefits and disadvantages of cultural tourism:

• Many jobs at businesses
• Growth of economy
• Changing of the cultural identity 
• Cheapening of the culture 
• Damages to attractions and facilities

The lectures also included a task for the national groups. The task included planning a tourist route with the typical accomodation options, festivals, attractions, museums and food for the country. Then we heard short presentations from all of the countries and discussed about them.

We were shown a video of Lithuanian traditions and festivities. While watching the video we reflected it to our own traditions. We also had a conversation how to save the old traditions while enhancing tourism.

In the afternoon we continued with the environmental aspects working in the international groups.

Now we are heading to the City center of Kaunas and get to know the local culture!(Maybe we'll do some shopping too..;) )

B.R.B.
IPF3 Finland

Finns and Dutch

Culture as part of tourism thoughts from Susanna

I have to say, that as a lecturer I was really intersted in the key note Asta from Kaunas gave today. She pointed out many interesting things that connects tourism to culture. If culture is not part of tourism then what is? Can they even be separated? I think that in many case they can't.

Did you know that Turku is currently the European Capital of Culture together with Tallinn, Estonia? This has already created a tourism buzz to the city. Apparently the occupancy rates of January were very high compared to the normal low season.

The foundation "Turku 2011" is involved in developing the operating conditions for culture. But as the people in Turku say: Turku is a Capital of Culture for more than one year - always! And as a result of that, the foundations aim is that all activities are planned with long-term effects.

Turku is on fire

Fire is a common factor for all old European cities, The city of Turku has experienced over 30 fires of different sizes during its history. The Great Fire of Turku in 1827 remains the most devastating fire in the Nordic Countries. Fire has been the thematic dimension for the 2011 year. We all hope that also tourism will catch "fire" during this year!

Pictures by from the first and second IP day

The Finnish team getting ready to introduce themselves to the other students.. Looking happy and relaxed after a long trip via Riga to Kaunas and a night at the hostel.

Of course they did need some technical help as their power points were too advenced (!) for this computer.. Luckily the Lithuanian team was there to help!

After the presentations followed the "Cocktail party" (with coffee & tea)for getting to know one another

finally the "Speed dating" in which the team leaders had to interview all the participants - this is was a tough job but the team leaders managed to finally sort out their teams for the coming weeks!

                                          

While the students were working hard the teacher team was also catching up!

On Tuesday Susanna was "on stage" to give a key note lecture about the environmental dimesion. The very first thing she did was to take a picture of the (yet) alert audience!

First team work day: environmental aspect

Today we had our first lectures of the project from Susanna Saari (TUAS). The topic of the day was the environmental dimension of sustainable tourism. The themes she lectured were sustainability, tourist routes, tourism policies, etc. After having a lunch of three kinds of potato courses in the canteen we started working in the international groups.

As usual when starting a new project, some difficulties arouse and the work shop didn't go as planned. After noticing there were more to do than we had time for, we agreed to continue with the same subject tomorrow before proceeding to the next one.

In the evening the team leaders are gathering the data from all the countries and the rest of the group members are making pie charts of the national results according to the instructions given today.

After a hard day's work the whole IP FORTE group will reward themselves with kick off -party in the form of karaoke in the city centre.

C U 2morrow !

-Finnish team

IPF3 Finland has Arrived!!!

Sveiki!

After a long travel day we had had yesterday we finally arrived to Kaunas just before 9pm. We had a nice 10 hours "pit-stop" at Riga, which we spent shopping, eating and experiencing the city of Riga.  This morning we woke up being a bit tired and hungry but after we got to Kauno Kolegija the day started to run. The First day was an Opening day and it included e.g. presentations of the institutions and participants, and summaries of the work carried out before the days in Kaunas. We also had a speed-dating for creating the teams and from now on IPF3 Finland does no longer exist as a "working team". Here at Kaunas we will be working with the dimensions and outputs of the questionnaire in international groups. Every group has a member from every participating country:)
We are very much looking forward to tomorrow as we get to start working with these new groups and we also heard from the grapevine that we're going to sing some karaoke tomorrow;)

t.t.y.s.
IPF3 Finland

IPF3 Finland working @ the Riga airport 

Kaunas is calling soon

Dear all,
Only six more days until we will arrive at Kaunas, Lithuania. I'm excited to meet all the IP Forte 3 students and European colleagues. The topic Turku University of Applied Sciences TUAS will cover is environment or the ecological dimension. This dimension is easy to understand as it is a very basic area of sustainability and very visible to us everywhere.

We will also look into the consept of a tourist route. Our student team has chosen "Saaristonrengastie" (The Archipelago Trail) as the tourist route to look into.

See you soon in Kaunas!