Assessment Details: Essential to any entrepreneurial venture is a feasibility analysis. This assessment requires students to partner up with an existing Tourism and Hospitality business wishing to implement an innovation and complete a comprehensive feasibility analysis that will comprise the following elements:
- A detailed market analysis and identification of the key target market for the innovation
- A comprehensive competitor analysis and competitive strategy
- An analysis of the external environmental forces that are likely to influence the success or failure of the innovation
- A completed Business Model Canvas (BMC)
- Recommendations that speak to the feasibility of the idea, its implementation OR suggestions regarding potential modifications that students believe will enhance its success.
All reports must have an Executive Summary, Table of Contents and an Introduction outlining the scope of the task and the report contents. Word Count is a minimum of 4000 and a maximum of 5000 words.
Industry Partners: At the beginning of semester, a spreadsheet listing 25 to 30 Australian Tourism and Hospitality Businesses who have volunteered to participate in this live client project will be available for students. Once students have formed their teams, the team is then assigned a business and innovation to work with. Each business completes a proforma that provides students with details regarding the background of the business and the innovation they would like students to explore.
Criteria & Marking: A detailed assessment rubric is made available to students in Week 1 of Semester
Details
- CLASS SIZE
- 100-500
- CLASS LEVEL
- Second year
- ASSESSMENT SECURITY
- Medium security
- TIME REQUIREMENTS
- High time
- GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES
- In-depth knowledge in the field(s) studied, Effective communication skills
- CONDITIONS
- Work-related, Group, Sequence
- FEATURES
- Authentic, Problem based
- TAGS
- report, review, active learning, client liaising, research skills, analysis
Advantages
- Opportunity for authentic assessment
- Showcase UQ students to industry
- Forging of relationships with industry
- Students really appreciated the opportunity to work on real world projects
Challenges
Unable to control student enthusiasm or quality that is dispersed to industry - therefore there is a risk that students will fail to impress. Management of industry expectations is very important. Time in coordinating projects and managing the dissemination of business innovations to groups.Time in liaising with industry. Some industry partners were non responsive on receipt of their report which was disappointing for students.
Tips for implementation
Assign multiple groups to the one business innovation and then choose the best report to present to the industry partner - to manage quality and reputation. Ensure groups have a mechanism to evaluate their peers.
Associate Professor Gabby Walters
g.walters@uq.edu.au
ssociate Professor Gabby Walters has a substantial background in tourism marketing with an emphasis on consumer psychology. Gabby has focused much of her research towards image and reputation management and in particular tourism market recovery following crises and disastrous events. She has conducted numerous consultancies and projects with tourism destinations from different parts of the world seeking to enhance or revitalise their reputations and regain trust among the tourism market as a result one or many critical events.
Her expertise also encompasses advanced methodological approaches to the study of tourist behaviour and in particular lab based research technologies. Gabby has a well-established publication record in tourism and hospitality and currently serves on several editorial boards. She is the Assistant Editor for the Journal of Vacation Marketing and Associate Editor for the tourism track of the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research.
In 2017 Gabby was awarded the Centre of Australian Universities Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE) Fellows Award. An esteemed accolade that recognises significant contributions to the tourism and hospitality field. Find out more