Tour Consumer Analysis Syllabus

Written by Peni Zulandari Suroto, Eka Ardianto
on March 18, 2019

E-Journal of Tourism Vol.6. No.1. (2019): 52-64

Tour Consumer Analysis Syllabus: Events Management Curricula Innovation in The Field of Tourism Studies

Peni Zulandari Suroto and Eka Ardianto

Undergraduate Event Program, School of Business and Economics Universitas Prasetiya Mulya

Corresponding author: [email protected]

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Received

8 January 2019

Accepted

07 February 2019

Available online 18 March 2019

Currently, there is no undergraduate program majoring Events Management in Indonesia. It is a challenge for creating the syllabus that complies with national and global uniformity and still has own characteristic. The strengths of Events Management Body of Knowledge (EMBOK) are the ‘management, administration and operations’ sides, which applied by many universities’ curricula. Adding syllabi focusing on ‘consumptions’ sides of the tour consumer (or audience in events) is relevant in the tourism studies since it is strongly connected with culture and performing arts. The aim of this paper is describing the process of innovating the “Tour Consumer Analysis” syllabus in undergraduate Events program (S1 Event) under tourism study at Universitas Prasetiya Mulya – Indonesia by applying SCAMPER technique and continued with putting it all together into 16 sessions of the course. The syllabus was implemented in one semester to 32 students. Three kinds of evaluation and feedback were designed. The students presented brilliant event ideas and audiences journey. This showed that with this syllabus, learning objectives are achieved. Second, students upload their feedback about their understanding of the topic. Lastly, in the next semester, students implemented some concepts on their theatrical performance and art By focusing on the tour consumer, students have the ability to create events that can make them re-visit or stay longer in the same destination to give a bigger impact on society. Further research to conduct integration with other courses is necessary.

Keywords: events management, syllabus innovation, SCAMPER, tourism curricula.

INTRODUCTION

Background

The Government of Indonesia, through the Ministry of Tourism, has the vision to make Indonesia a world tourism destination, with a target for 2019 to have the tourism sector contribute 15% to the GDP and provide a foreign exchange of IDR 280 trillion. In an effort to achieve the target, the government made every effort in the form of making portfolio products. The government includes events (MICE & events tourism and sports tourism) into the ‘man-made’ category, where the current percentage of contribution is still low at 5% (Thaib, 2016). Many things are done by the government to improve the tourism field, one of which is collaborating with universities that have tourism study programs. This cooperation is providing quality resources that can meet the growing market needs.

Therefore, the role of the university is crucial as a contributor to the success of the government program. Along with industry maturity, the role of higher education in providing newcomers with certain skills is important to ensure the success of both event professionals and the event industry as a whole (Arcodia & Robb, 2000). In order to provide it, the university must have strong curricula and syllabus.

Universitas Prasetiya Mulya – Indonesia, is the first university in Indonesia that provides a degree program in Events Management. Started offering the program in 2015, the management as well as the faculties should develop curricula and syllabus from scratch to comply with government rules and shows their own uniqueness.

Nelson & Goldbatt (1996) studied the International Council for Hospitality, Restaurant, and Institutional Education. They found at least 30–40 higher education institutions that organized programs related to events management. Polivka (2004) also recorded that at least 200 higher education institutions in the entire world offer the program, some of which expand to a post-graduate degree (Silvers, et al., 2006). This also indicates that it is appropriate for higher education in Indonesia to pay more attention to the development of the curriculum of the Event Management program. Some literature shows that education and curricula in universities are still growing (Chawla, 2015; Harris & Jago, 2000; Zehrer, et al., 2007), however, particularly, in Asia the degree programs that offer Event Management are still limited (Jones, 2010).

There are macro and micropressures in deciding and building the curriculum in the context of tourism e-ISSN: 2407-392X. p-ISSN: 2541-0857

management education, hospitality, and events (Dredge, et al., 2013). At the macro level, there are demands for uniformity of curriculum and pedagogy, while at the micro level it is demanded that each college should feature its own characteristics. As a way to 'uniform' the curriculum at the macro level, they are also trying to find uniqueness at the micro level.

Objectives of the study

The aim of this paper is describing the process of innovating the “Tour Consumer Analysis” syllabus in undergraduate Events program (S1 Event) under tourism studies at Universitas Prasetiya Mulya – Indonesia. The facts that events, performing arts and audience are three things that are almost impossible to separate. In addition, since the EMBOK is not suitable for analyzing the tour consumer, it is important to have at least one syllabi that emphasize tour consumer in order to make them stay longer for another experiences or re-visit to give bigger impact to society.

Secondly, this paper aims to show that SCAMPER techniques can be applied by universities in designing their syllabus.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Indonesia government release the rules about the education standard in higher education. However, this paper is not describing how the syllabi comply with the national standard. It is more focusing on what contents should be given to students to achieve the learning objectives and yet create uniqueness compared to other universities.

Three key components for successful learning plan are (1) objectives for student learning, (2) teaching/learning activities, (3) strategies to check student understanding (Milkova, 2017). The selection of content is one of element for a course designer to work through to develop a subject (Taba, 1962).

Once the ’tour consumer’ attending the events, they become an audience. It is important for students in events management program have an understanding that the audience’s experience is the key of a successful event. UNESCO Creative Cities Network definition of creative tourism underlying the engagement, authenticity, experience and participative learning (UNESCO Creative Cities Network, 2006). Active participation also mentioned by Richards and Raymond (2000). The authenticity can be lies on the cultures.

Indonesia is a country with an abundance of cultural ethnic groups. Central Bureau of Statistics in 2010 recorded more than 1,300 ethnic groups in Indonesia that grouped into 63 generic ethnic groups. The diversity of these tribes will bring cultural events that could potentially to design as tourism destinations.

Jago and Shaw (1998) suggested that to design a special event, an event designer should involve an audience analysis from a tourism perspective. Not only achieving a large number of audiences, Tara-Lunga (2012) pointed out that Jago and Shaw’s (1998) suggestion was that the audience should be examined in ‘the quality matters’, in which that manager should concentrate on how he or she can design attractive events. Quality index helps organizer to measure the performing arts audience experience (Radbourne, et al., 2009). It necessarily needs a multidisciplinary approach to get the best event design. Additionally, tourism is a multidisciplinary study that uses other fields such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, geography, and economics (Singh & Bhatia, 2013).

The attractiveness of an event is divided into two categories: natural attractions and human-made attractions (Swarbrooke, 2002). A special event is categorized into human-made attractions, http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot 55

where the cultural issue is an essential matter (Getz, 2005, in Tara Lunga, 2012). Moreover, Getz argued that special events are opportunities for a leisure social or cultural experience outside the normal range of choices or beyond everyday experience.

A cultural event should be managed by two elements: presenting and interpretation (Roche, 2000). Ritual, drama, theater, festival, carnival, and performance are examples of

interpretation. Performance studies explain that although the word 'performance' is synonymous with performing arts, words like 'play', 'role', and 'show' are not only about performing arts because all human activities are actually based on theatrical dimensions. Therefore, any event, even just an action or human behavior, can be studied as a performance.

That is why, events, performing arts, and audiences are three things that are almost impossible to separate. The performers unite with the audience at a certain time in a certain place to share experiences (Thompson & Jaque, 2017). The performances of arts perceived by UNESCO are broad, including vocals and instrumental music, dance, theatrical performances, pantomime, and more.

Moreover, all cultural expressions that reflect creativity can be said to be performing arts, even under certain e-ISSN: 2407-392X. p-ISSN: 2541-0857

conditions, as well as other intangible cultural heritage. This cultural expression is also often sought after by cultural tourists. Dolnicar (2002) divided tourists, based on their participation, into nine types: (1) standard culture tour participant, (2) super active culture freak, (3) inactive cultural tourist, (4) organized excursion explorers, (5) event-focused, (6) individual culture explorer, (7) super lean culture tour participant, (8) theater musical and opera lovers, and (9) organized culture tourists.

The performing arts are rich in roles closely related to dramaturgy - the theory introduced by Erving Goffman (1978) in his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman described the equations of daily social interaction with theater performances. Individuals can be seen as performers, viewers, and outsiders in a similar 'stage'. Goffman also described impression management, where a script can be played to give the desired impression. A front stage concept is a place for actors to play their part and interact with the audience, and the backstage concept is where private places can be enjoyed by actors because they can be themselves, untouched by the audience. Drama and theatrical performances have existed since the 5th century BC in Athens when the Dionysius Festival, a festival with the goal of giving a goat to the God of wine, was held. Several dramas of http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot 56

tragedy and satire were performed during the festival days. The location of this festival is called the Theater of Dionysisus Eleuthereus and can accommodate approximately 1,700 people.

The structure of the theater shows the influence of the Roman Empire. There is the Orchestra, where actors perform their roles by dancing and singing in the front stage, is associated with Goffman dramaturgy. Theatron is where the audience sits enjoying the show and interacting with the actor. Skene is a back stage building that can serve as a backstage setting with the pillars of the palace or other decorations. This section can be used as the entrance from backstage to the front stage. Parodos is the side of the stage and can be used by actors as the entrance and exit to the stage, but can also be used by the audience before or after the show. An illustration of this structure can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Dramaturgy in Greek Theatre

Performance has many roles: (1) to entertain, (2) to make something that is beautiful, (3) to mark or change identity, e-ISSN: 2407-392X. p-ISSN: 2541-0857

(4) to make or foster community, (5) to heal, (6) to teach, persuade, or convince, and (7) to deal with the sacred and/or the demonic (Schechner, 2013). Those roles relate to audience motives to attend a performing art. Currently, the audience is no longer passive as before. Engagement of the audience is even demonstrated long before the show is held or in the 'build-up' and 'intense preparation' phases. There are also audiences that show more involvement in the phases of 'postprocessing' and 'impact echo' (Brown & Ratzkin, 2011). Brown studied dance performances, drama/theater, and classical music to see the engagement of the audience at the time of the show selection.

There are six types of audiences: (1) readers, (2) critical reviews, (3) casual talkers, (4) technology-based processors, (5) insight seekers, and (6) active learners. Furthermore, they examined the characteristics and dimensions of the audience in their involvement in the show. Their study intended to provide direction for artists and managers to design programs that match the typology of the audience. The dimension is social vs. solitary, active vs. passive, peer-based vs. expert-led, and community vs. audience. Those dimensions relate to Goffman’s Dramaturgy that the cultural tourist who comes to performance becomes an audience. Moreover, after the http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot

performance, he or she could turn into an actor. In the passive-active spectrum, the range of audience engagement from the passive 'just' sitting to hear and see the very active ones so that they can perform together (jamming) with the viewer (for example in a music concert).

Audiences can contemplate a painting without reading the description of painting at all until the audience is involved in the interactive game of an installation. Other types, such as casual talkers and technology-based processors, the audiences can become actors when they return to the public sphere to tell stories, and give opinions or criticism, either face-to-face with colleagues or relatives or through social media. Based on those phenomena, the authors modified Fig. 1 into Figure 2.

Figure 2. The Role of Audience in Dramaturgy

In the context of tourism, tourists -in the event- are considered as an audience where she or he can act as an actor. This is because the performing arts become key in an event, so it is not an event if there are

no performing arts. Through the performing arts, the audience can be 'cured'. The use of the word "Analysis" in the naming of subjects is aimed at understanding the audience deeper. In the end, in achieving the goal of glory, the students were able to design an audience journey from the results of the simple research they did.

METHOD

The first step of this research was benchmarking and analyzing curricula and syllabus from other universities who have an Events Management degree program and also Event Management Body of Knowledge to see the strengths and weaknesses.

After the learning goals were set, the next step was designing the content of the course by applying SCAMPER. The syllabi were implemented in 2016 to 32 students in the 3rd semester of Events Management under tourism program study in Universitas Prasetiya Mulya, Indonesia by giving lectures, conducts discussion, written quiz, and examination, idea presentation, inviting guest lectures. Lastly, evaluation from the syllabi design was seen from student’s works and inputs.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Twelve Event Management undergraduate program curricula and clustering in EMBOK have been reviewed, it can be concluded that all of the universities emphasize administration and operations in their curricula. Only two universities have geography, and psychology approach. Moreover, none of them state “audience” as a title of the course. From this point, there is still no universal agreement about what should be or not in events management curricula. In addition, MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) Program Study Forum in Indonesia, was focusing on competencies standard of vocational graduates.

As the audience is not discussed in EMBOK’s domains, processes, core values, and phases, the course syllabus must be designed creatively from scratch. To achieve that, a systematic technique is needed. SCAMPER developed by Eberle (1996) is a procedural program that helps the development of creative thinking through the imagination, using the method of divergent thinking. SCAMPER has been applied for a different field. Hussain & Carignan (2016) using SCAMPER to help the fourth graders to generate creative ideas. While (Mijares & Masten, 1993) applied on creative thinking of

intellectually gifted students. SCAMPER is a unique technique used to design an innovative product because it engages the user to think divergently (Ozyaprak, 2015). Tabby (2011) shared his slides how SCAMPER can apply to Toyota IQ, the world’s smallest 4-seat car. The analogy of applying SCAMPER on the car is used to elaborate it on the syllabus as showed in Table 1.

Table 1. SCAMPER application on syllabi

SCAMP

ER

Element

Descript ion

Analogy on Car

Applied on Syllabi

Substitute

Think about replacin g it with somethi ng else

Substitut e steel with carbon fiber, create a lighter car

Substitute management perspective with an anthropologica l perspective (Matthew, 2008). Bowdin et al., (2001, in Tara-Lunga, 2012) argued that the anthropologica l approach should be involved in special events, such as rituals, offerings, performances, or celebrations

Combine

Combin

e some things to create somethi

ng new

Combine moveme nt and emotion, create a fresh and contemp orary design

Combine an anthropologica l perspective with a philosophical perspective. Both perspectives are known as the human being analysis approach. The Philosophy of Human Nature could be categorized into five studies: metaphysics, epistemology, logic, aesthetics, and ethics (Landauer & Rowlands, 2001)

Adapt

Make an adjustme nt to suit a purpose or conditio n

Adjust the fuel tank capacity, put it under the front seat, create space and enough

Adjust the syllabus into the Indonesian tourism context.

Exposing Indonesian folklore as an intangible cultural heritage.

(International

		fuel for small car	Round Table UNESCO, 2001)
SCAMP ER Element	Descript ion	Analogy on Car	Applied on Syllabi
Modify, Minify, Magnify	Take the original item and alter it to change the form, enlarge it and make it greater in form or quantity, or make it smaller, lighter, or less frequent	Reduce AC unit size, creates space for leg and knee. Modify dashboar d into the asymmet ric design, creates more room for front passenge r	Modify EMBOK’s attendee management that develop admittance credential and control system (Silvers, 2001) into audience journey, that suitable for tourism context.
Put to another use	Plan for using the item for purposes beyond those originall y intended	Put a mirror, create rear view mirror	Put tourism as participative learning for the tourist (du Cross & Jolliffe, 2014). Using performing arts and dramaturgy concepts to see the audience should be

			active (Brown & Ratzkin, 2011).
Eliminate	Think about omitting all or part of the quality	Eliminat e the thinking car should be big, create the smallest car in the world	Choose only related subjects from philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and psychology,
Rearrange , Reverse	Think of a different plan, scheme, or layout	Rearrang e the steering gear and connects it to the center of the steering rack, create more cabin space	Arrange the philosophical topic at the beginning, not ‘a lighter’ topic. By using ‘the mother’ of many studies, will give the rationale of the audience motivation involved in the event

The process continued with putting it all together into 16 sessions of the course; by mixing lecturing, discussion, written quiz, and examination, idea presentation, inviting guest lectures, depicted in Table 2. The name of the course was given, which was “Tour Consumer Analysis”. The learning

objectives of this course are: (1) Understand the concepts of performing arts, dramaturgy, philosophy human nature, folklore, and ritual, and the relations with events, (2) implement the concepts into event idea, (3) design the travel itinerary as tour consumer journey.

Table 2.“Tour Consumer Analysis” syllabi

Session	Topic
1	Introduction to event & performing arts
2	Dramaturgy
3	The philosophy of human nature
4	Field trip to traditional performing arts
5	Narrative
6	Folklore
7	Ritual
8	Mid Examination
9	Event idea presentation
10	Qualitative Research
11	Tour consumer journey
12	Guest Lecture
13	Independent study
14	Guest Lecture
15	Final exam - Presentation 1st batch
16	Final exam - Presentation 2nd batch

The syllabus was implemented in one semester to 32 students. For improvement, three kinds of evaluation and feedback were designed. First, the

learning objectives evaluation. The students presented brilliant event ideas and audiences journey. This showed that with this syllabus, learning objectives are achieved. Second, students upload their feedback about their understanding of the topics. From a scale of seven, 27 students gave an overall score of 5.48 to performing arts, dramaturgy, narrative, and philosophy of human nature topics. For qualitative research, audience experience, and workshops the score was 5.61. Lastly, in the next semester, students implemented some concepts on their theatrical performance and art exhibition. They applied epistemology approach to making the audience understand the meaning of installation arts exhibited at the event.

The event audiences were actively uploaded their experience visiting the event, and actively involved in one of the scenes of the story. The liminality concept was applied; with only one person, he could be a narrator, and transformed to be the main actor and back again as a narrator at the end of the story.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR EVENT MANAGER

As the first university that offers four-year Events Management program in Indonesia, Universitas Prasetiya Mulya e-ISSN: 2407-392X. p-ISSN: 2541-0857

must design an innovative curriculum that complies with global standards and uniformity and also has own uniqueness. One of the uniqueness is on the learning process and or in the course syllabi. Although this paper only describes one syllabus, it can differentiate from other universities, since EMBOK and other universities that have been reviewed did not put “audience” or “tour consumer” on their curricula.

Understanding the performing arts and the audience has become crucial for event managers in the tourism context. Through Tour Consumer Analysis, managers can design an audience journey based on the human being perspective and not just from a management perspective. Tour Consumer Analysis is a multidiscipline study consisting of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and psychology as one human being approach.

SCAMPER technique can be used to innovate a syllabus. It helps faculty members creativity to design a syllabus from scratch. The analogy of applying SCAMPER on products also helps in visualization.

This research has limitations. The Tour Consumer Analysis course is a multidiscipline study that should be linked to other courses in the Event Management program. As the output from Tour Consumer Analysis is event ideas and http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot 62

audience journey, practitioners from industry should be involved in the learning process. Not only students receive valuable feedback from practitioners, but also the industry gets fresh ideas from the students. For further research, it will be interesting this syllabus applied to the exchange students from other countries to see how ‘folklore’ and ‘rituals’ can be used as design materials for innovative consumer journey. Furthermore,

collaboration with practitioners from the tourism industry can be built to commercialized the consumer journey design.

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