Abstract:

The evolution of tourism activity, and the growing demand for authentic experiences, challenges organisations in the sector to develop products and services that meet the expectations of increasingly demanding tourists. Skills such as innovation and creativity are increasingly valued in tourism professionals, forcing educational institutions to rethink their teaching methodologies, creating the necessary conditions for students to develop these types of competencies, along with technical ones.

This paper aims at describing an interdisciplinary work (IW) carried out at the School of Hospitality and Tourism (Polytechnic Institute of Porto) using the Project-based Learning (PbL) methodology. The IW involved two different courses (Tourism Planning and Tourism Marketing), 52 students and counted with the collaboration of ATA - Village Tourism Association, responsible for the management and promotion of the Portuguese Villages Network.

The students were challenged to develop a specific tourism product, under the theme "Holidays at the Village", and the definition of its marketing and communication strategy, with a view to its subsequent implementation by the ATA, involving the different phases associated with the planning and development processes.

The methodology adopted was the PbL considered a student-centred and student-driven approach facilitated by the teacher (Bell, 2010). The development of projects/products/services in a real context, in which students are challenged to respond to problems and/or needs of concrete entities, also has the advantage of favoring the development of transversal skills, such as teamwork and communication and not only the acquisition of knowledge (Lipson et al., 2007). In parallel, PbL also creates a favorable environment for an interdisciplinary approach in tourism education, which is also of utmost importance given the transversality of the industry and its broad framework of relationships with other social, cultural, environmental, and economic activities/dimensions (Afifi et al., 2019).

Students were provided with the necessary guidance documents for the correct and efficient completion of the project and carried out field visits and working meetings with interlocutors from the villages, accompanied by the group of teachers and ATA representatives.

Considering the importance of evaluating the initial and final perceptions of students, regarding a set of topics related to the IW development, two questionnaires (initial and final) were applied. The same was done to ATA representatives/members involved in the project, to assess their initial and final perceptions, regarding the collaboration with ESHT/Students, and the proposals presented by the working groups.

This paper will address the rationale of the project and the implementation methodology, and present the results obtained, thus expecting to contribute to the discussion of the potential of interdisciplinarity and PbL methodology in tourism higher education.

Keywords:

Rural/village tourism, Project-based Methodology, Tourism Education, Portugal.