A practical education - Interning with MODUL Research

Temple University in Philadelphia, U.S.A, is one of MODUL University’s major partners in academic collaboration, both on the faculty and student level. This semester we are hosting one of Temple’s young scholars who is working directly with the faculty of the Department of Tourism and Service Management at MU.

Elizabeth Shanaman joined the MODUL Research team as an intern during her final semester at Temple’s School of Tourism & Hospitality Management. At the close of her internship in May, she will be receiving her Bachelor of Science degree in Tourism & Hospitality Management with a concentration in destination management.

‘’A strong interest in tourism marketing research brought me to MU where I work under the guidance of Dr. Irem Önder, ‘’ she says. ‘’Since starting in January, I have made contributions to MODUL Research project proposals, press releases, and data collection and analysis initiatives.’’

Elizabeth’s main focus during her time at MU is the ECM City Break Shopping Barometer on TourMIS, the MU-developed Marketing Information System for tourism managers which provides on-line tourism survey data, as well as various tools to transform data into valuable management information.

She describes the tool she’s been working on: ‘’The purpose of the Shopping Barometer is to benchmark the general cost of a city holiday across individual cities in Europe. Recent studies show that cost is a factor which travelers manipulate in order to make travel possible, meaning that travelers with financial constraints actively search for ways to save money while traveling.

In addition, consumers tend to fall back on price to “break a tie” between destinations they perceive to meet their needs equally well. This makes insight into cost differentials among cities an important factor in understanding tourist decision-making behaviour.

In the first weeks of my internship, I implemented strategies to encourage more ECM members to enter price data into the Shopping Barometer. Currently, I am using visitor survey data to develop a formula which will transform the Shopping Barometer raw data into useful output for destination management professionals.’’

Elizabeth has made a valuable contribution to the university’s projects during her stay, and also had the opportunity to expand her own horizons.

‘’Highlights of my internship experience thus far include attending the ECM meeting in Nice, France and working closely with the faculty at MU. I hope to continue on a tourism research path after receiving my Bachelor of Science degree. My experience in Vienna has been so fantastic, I’m considering pursuing the Master of Science in International Tourism Management at MU.’’