The Office of Regional Engagement encourages and celebrates teaching staff that seeks opportunities to integrate regional engagement activity with their students coursework. Regionally, the community represents a vast resource of knowledge and experience that may be accessed for the benefit of students and equally, the University can offer much to the community.

Elisa Backer who lectures in tourism marketing subjects through the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management understands the potential for enhanced teaching and learning for her students through the development of mutually beneficial relationships with the community.

Rik Dillon, owner of Amaze ‘n’ Place’s at Alstonville speaks with students after his presentation

Tourism and Hospitality students are getting first-hand knowledge of the industry through a series of guest lectures involving regional business owners and operators. Recently Rik Dillon, the owner of the 2007 Business Excellence Awards Best New Business, Alstonville’s Amaze ‘n’ Place’s and Russell Eldridge, Editor of The Northern Star, shared their knowledge and experience with tourism students as part of their Tourism and Hospitality Sales and Promotions subject.

Students learned from Rik Dillon about what types of advertising mechanisms he employs in the Amaze ‘n’ Place’s promotional strategy and how each can be effective in communicating with different markets. Russell Eldridge spoke about the importance of understanding the newspaper’s “two distinct and separate arms – the advertising side and the news side” and how these relate to the successful promotion of a business.

Russell Eldridge, chatting to Matthew Rocholl and Jessica Hughes about some finer points of editorial decision-making

Elisa Backer, unit assessor and lecturer, said students were taught that in order to do effective advertising, they needed to match their advertising to their audience and to allocate resources appropriately to both advertising and public relations. “Seeing how this applies to a real-life local tourism business such as Amaze ‘n’ Place aids student understanding,” she said.  “Many businesses realise that half the advertising they do is wasted - the trick is to know which half.”

Both Mr Dillon and Mr Eldridge felt it was important to be involved in the community and that is was a great pleasure to speak to the students and pass on some industry based knowledge.

Return to ORE's Latest ORE news