The summer school -Academic sessions

Schedule : 7-8 Breakfast, Ist Session 8.30 to 10, break, next session 10.15 to 11.45  break for coffee, re-cap by the group, lunch break 1 pm -2.30 pm sessions 2.30 to 4 pm, 4.30 pm to 6 pm  Dinner at 8 Later dinner time changed to 7.30 as some of the participants wanted to have a walk after the dinner. 

Groups were created to have in-depth look in to the topics and also to do a project work.

My group included Mr. Wojciech (Poland), Dr. Rafel (Mexico), Dr. Catalin (Hungary) and Dr. Aysegul (Turkey). Prof. Cantoni very well synthesised the concept of etourism communication in ABCDE i.e. Access, Better, Connect, Dis-intermediate and Educate, and rightly we got the title of the group as connect---connect the world….

The sessions were focused on the role of ICT in intercultural communications. For me, all the sessions were really useful as the topics discussed provided insight to the new dimension of tourism industry. All deliberations were followed by discussions and sum up by participating groups. While many preferred Capuchino (Short and large) still I remember the taste and aroma of the coffee prepared in the machine at the dining space. Our break time also gave enough space to explore ideas like Palm reading and Yoga. Mengo prepared a wonderful poster in face book and it was an instant hit. Shri really got lot of queries as I slowly moved out because I was not knowing much about it. At the evening Cataline (Hungary) used to do jogging which was a regular activity.

Tea (lemon and honey), some herbal flavours were also available. My habit of taking milk tea (the way we have it in India) slowly replaced by expresso coffee and plain tea.

Prof. Cantoni (USI), Prof. Suttinan (University of Turku, Finland,  Prof. Danismo, University of Toronto, Canada, Prof. Aeshele, USA and Prof. Seele (USI) engaged very interesting sessions which mainly focused on intercultural communication.

Dr. Silvia deliberated on user generated content, research etc. Dr. Nadeza take a class on elearning for tourism. 

In the first week of our session Dr. Elena conducted hands on workshops on Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. Every day she used to present on a new platform and make every participant involve in using the tools in the selected platform. I never thought before that there is a huge opportunity exists in the use of ICT in communication exclusively through AR and VR. Ms. Elena allowed me to use her laptop as I forgot to carry it in to the summer school. 

At the end of the workshops, we were instructed to prepare a project based on our study and taking up a local place as example. For the project our team consisted of Emanuel (USI), Anna (Spain), Muhammet (USA), Tonia (Canada). In the first week we just passed time by general discussions, but by second week Immanuel and Muhammet prepared the outline of the project. As Anna left on Sunday we were left with only four members. But the brain storming sessions of the four gave a conceptual outline and on the theme. Tonia had to leave on Friday morning and during presentations we were three. Emanuel presented the topic with the project, Muhammet explained the core service concept behind the theme and I did a brief summary of how we reached this theme.