RECENT ASSIGNMENT

Weight: 40%
Type of Collaboration: Individual
Due: By 11.59pm 27/10/19 (Week 14)
Submission: This assignment must be submitted online via Turnitin only (i.e. no hard copies). Assignments will be marked online in Grademark and returned to students via Grademark and vUWS My Grades. Do not submit a Cover Sheet with your assignment.
Format: REPORT (1500 words) Students are to write a report based on their observations of an Australian tourism destination.
Length: 1,500 words
Curriculum Mode: Report
Having undertaken a real and/or virtual field-trip to a key tourism destination, students will be asked to write a report outlining their observations and provide a detailed analysis of these with respect to key concepts/theories covered in the unit. In particular, students will be asked to consider 3 of the following points:
1. How the destination has been constructed (socio-culturally) as a tourism attraction.
2. How the tourist gaze operates within the destination and what effect it has.
3. What elements of embodiment might be promoted or encouraged at the tourism destination.
4. How the destination is situated within the tourist imaginary.
5. Whether there is any evidence of sustainable tourism operations within the destination and what the implications of this are.
6. Whether there is any evidence of cultural commodification within the destination and what impact this seems to have.
7. Whether there is any evidence of alternative tourism within the destination and if so, who this appears to be targeted at.
8. What tourism impacts (if any) are evident within the destination and what the implications of these are for the destination.
This task is designed to assist students achieve a more thorough understanding of key concepts/theoretical issues as they relate to tourist behaviour and tourism industry operations in the 'real world'. The task should also aid critical thinking and analysis and test written expression. More specifically, in completing the fieldwork report students should be able to demonstrate that they have achieved the following learning outcomes. That they can:
— Examine the tourist experience and/or tourist behaviours and motives from a social sciences perspective
— Apply theoretical understandings of contemporary tourism issues to industry-based case studies.
In completing this task students should also ensure that they follow the academic protocols for report writing. In particular, the report should contain:
— An introduction outlining the report content and providing a brief overview of the chosen tourism destination
— A literature review
— Discussion of the observations that were carried out and subsequent findings (i.e. what you observed)
— Analysis of the observation findings (i.e. application of the relevant academic concepts and theories to what you saw and recorded).
— Conclusion summarising the report
— Where relevant, an appendix for images (e.g. photos, copies of tourist brochures/advertising material etc).
Students also need to:
— Refer to AT LEAST 5 academic sources (AT LEAST two of which should fall outside the scope of the set readings) to develop their argument.