G. Michael McGrath, College of Business, Victoria University

Maddy McWha,Faculty of Higher Education, William Angliss Institute

Leonie Lockstone-Binney, Faculty of Higher Education, William Angliss Institute

Faith Ong, Faculty of Higher Education, William Angliss Institute

Paul Whitelaw, Faculty of Higher Education, William Angliss Institute

Elisabeth Wilson-Evered, College of Business, Victoria University

Coping with Severe Shocks in Regional Tourism Destinations: A

Teaching and Learning Simulation

Computer Game Simulations: Business Education

Business game simulations:

Markstrat, BPG etc.

Long history of use

But – often final year PG units

Softer factors?

2

Previous Work

Greta: Power and politics in MIS implementation

The ‘Beer Game’

Leadership: Vroom-Yetton-Jago model

TEPS (Tourism Enterprise Planning System)

3

Pedagogical setting

• Learning objective for ‘Destination and Attractions’ unit, WAI

• Learning Objective No. 4: • Examine current economic, environmental and socio-cultural issues

that impact national and international tourism destination and attraction markets.

Pilot aims:

• basic familiarity with system dynamics (SD) in messy problems;

• basic competence with causal-loop diagrams (Maani and Cavana, 2000) and use of the classic SD archetypes (Wolstenholme, 2003)

• understanding how computer-based simulations can assist with destination planning and policy development; and

• basic familiarity with the SD tools, Vensim and Powersim.

Pilot cohort and subject context

• A 12 Week, introductory core subject was selected

• Cornerstone subject which all students commencing the course must take, including those with Advance Standing

• 103 students enrolled in the subject in Semester 2, 2015

• Weekly delivery comprised of 1 hour lecture, 1 hour seminar, 2 hour tutorials (4 groups)

• The overall objective of the subject is to provide students with a holistic view of tourism as a system with particular focus on the interrelationships at a global, national, regional and local level and the role of significant stakeholder groups including governments, enterprises, industry, visitors and hosts.

• Students were introduced to some of the theoretical underpinnings relating to sustainability and planning immediately prior to the simulation taking place.

Implementation

• Introduced in weeks 9 & 10 of the 12 delivery weeks

• Students used computer labs for these sessions where the software was loaded prior to sessions

• Introduced to the parameters and variables

1. Familiarising exercise – students asked to set the variables of the simulator to mirror the individual destinations they had selected for their assessable reports

2. Simulation – students then ran the simulation over a 20 year period in 4 x5 year segments

The Game

Manage GG and tourism development investment decisions:

GG and development investment

Land rezoning

20 years in total

4 by 5-year segments

Performance determined by:

Total tourism revenue and profit

Environmental health

Overall destination attractiveness

Etc.

7

GG Domain: CLD View

8

User Interface

9

Annual GE Expenditure ($millions)

0 2 4 6 8 10

Annual TD Expenditure ($Millions)

0 2 4 6 8 10

1 Jan 2021 1 Jan 2026 1 Jan 2031 1 Jan 2036

0

50

100

150

200

Tourism Development

Tourism Development Quality

Destination Attractiveness

Non-commercial use only!

1 Jan 2021 1 Jan 2026 1 Jan 2031 1 Jan 2036

0

50,000,000

100,000,000

150,000,000

200,000,000

250,000,000

300,000,000

Annual Tourism Revenue

Total TD Expenditure

Total GE Expenditure

Non-commercial use only!

Annual Visitors

1 Jan 2021 1 Jan 2026 1 Jan 2031 1 Jan 2036

0

1,000,000

2,000,000

3,000,000

4,000,000

An

nu

al V

isit

ors

Non-commercial use only!

% Protected/Rural Land to Rezone

0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0

1 Jan 2021 1 Jan 2026 1 Jan 2031 1 Jan 2036

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

Protected and Rural Land

Available Land

Tourism Land Development

Land Development for Locals

Non-commercial use only!

Tutorial: Underlying Models

Land Rezoning: ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ SD Archetype

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protected and rural land land affordability

land development for locals affordable housing

land rezoning

tourism development act ivity tourism p rofits

deatinat ion at tractiveness

+

+

- +

+

++

-

+

visitors+

+

-

Model Evaluation

To what extent have students met learning objectives?

The ‘Simulation Learning Barometer’ of Benkendorff et al. (2015):

The ‘Online Business Simulation’ project

Pre- and post-simulation surveys

Measures:

Attitudes, self-efficacy and cognition (pre-simulation)

Engagement and team dynamics (during simulation)

Objective outcomes (post-simulation)

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STUDENT GAME PERFORMANCE: ANNUAL

REVENUE BY GROUP

Student Game Performance: Annual Revenue by Group

Game designed to penalise non-optimum strategies:

Insufficient Capacity (IC) penalty: too little land is rezoned in a period of high growth

Over-development (OD) penalty: too much land rezoned, exceeding the carrying capacity of the land

Most groups incurred OD penalties, but not IC penalties

Capacity & development penalties

Measured in lost visitors due to over-development

Higher losses suffered by groups with better annual visitor numbers, with the exception of G402

Over-development penalties incurred

• Hard to justify differing results for similarly conservative strategies

• Maximum OD penalty = 50,000 visitors or $3 million • Penalty is small in relation to annual revenue • Fine-tuning of this component required

Fine-tuning the program for a better classroom experience

Conclusion

• Students responded to the simulation with enthusiasm

• Displayed a sound understanding of the sustainable tourism system

• Further refinement will be made to the program to more realistically represent the outcomes of sustainable destination management

• Next phase: Analysis of student and staff feedback to improve the simulation as a learning tool and aid students’ understanding of key concepts.

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