Wednesday, 25 January 2012

E-Learning for Tour Operators: Ticino Switzerland’s Lessons

The DMO Ticino Switzerland has developed a highly interactive platform for tour operators and wholesalers to get acquainted with their destination. Ticino, Switzerland’s southernmost region, is known as a symbiosis of Italian lifestyle and Swiss quality. Scenic mountains, gleaming lakes, charming stone-house villages and palm trees: this and much more is what intermediaries have to know to sell the region.

The recently published eLearning tool on http://ticino.elearninglab.org/ is composed of 5 interactive and brief modules to learn about Ticino in an enjoyable way. While the first module aims at giving a detailed overview of the region, the 4 further topics support the planning and the selling process (“Discover Ticino”, “Selling Tips”, “Culture and Events”, “Excursions and Nature”, “Rivers and Lakes”). Each module lasts for approximately 10 minutes. After an intermediate test and the final exam, the Ticino Switzerland Travel Specialist certificate is issued. It can be downloaded, and it enables to become eligible for the annual study trip to Ticino.

Not only is this interactive and memorable way of learning effective by the variety of tools such as quizzes, testimonial videos by professionals, virtual tours and a user-friendly display of information. It further contains a trade corner, which gives additional support for the timesaving research of appropriate information and the right offer for each tourist segment. The access to a web library with a wide range of high quality pictures, presentations, videos and brochures facilitates the tour operators’ tour organization.

Besides being free of charge, it is an enjoyable and quick course to complete. After registration, the profile can be saved and used for further trade requests. From the client’s perspective, the issue of a certificate is a good means to transmit trust and reliability, and thus to gain the credit for it.

This eLearning platform is a model that fulfills the conditions required for a well performed knowledge transfer: to transfer knowledge which exceeds the user’s existing knowledge, the accessibility to a wide range of recipients (such as project managers, directors, tour operators, etc.), and the easy application to immediate action as well as for long-term purposes (Optimizing Knowledge Transfer and Use;
William Seidman, Ph.D. Michael McCauley). It thus illustrates a well elaborated model to build on when it comes to attracting new intermediaries for destination marketing and the attraction of new clients.


 Swissminatur - discovering Switzerland in one day



Sources:
 William Seidman & Ph.D. Michael McCauley, 2005. Optimizing Knowledge Transfer and Use, Cerebyte.
http://ticino.elearninglab.org/

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