By Julia Hess '15
You probably don’t think about it while you are on vacation, enjoying your favorite museum exhibits or traveling through a foreign country, but those experiences are all business initiatives in the travel and tourism industry.
Professor Kevin Jack is now helping Siena students understand the inner workings of this sector of the economy through his new class titled, “The Economics of Travel and Tourism.”
Jack aims to help his students understand the experience of travel through an economic and marketing framework. Many of his students have traveled themselves, either on their own or through an international exchange program, so they are eager to look at their experiences through a different lens.
“It is something that I have wanted to do for many years and I have been planning it in the back of my head,” explained Jack, who had taught courses in public finance before launching this course.
Jack is the Chief of the Bureau of Labor Market Information with the New York State Department of Labor and a spirited traveler. He combines his professional experiences and passion for exploring new places to give students a unique and eye-opening experience they won’t find in any textbook.
Jack and his students recently visited the Albany Institute of History and Art to learn how the Institute marketed one of its previous exhibitions titled “GE Presents: The Mystery of the Albany Mummies.” It brought together a mummy and coffin that had been separated in the early 1900s.
Jack’s students learned how, as a non-profit organization, the AIHA manages budget limitations and the different types of print and digital marketing it employed to increase interest in the mummy display, such as brochures, bus displays, social media and radio ads, and direct interaction.
“One of the more interactive marketing things they utilized was hiring an actor to be a mummy that showed up at different events,” said accounting major Dena Leonelli ’15.
Along with field trips, Jack brings in local experts to share their experiences and help his students apply what they are learning in class to real world scenarios.
They have presented their work to a panel of industry experts who provided feedback in a format similar to what you see on the television show “Shark Tank.” For their final projects, Jack’s students will work closely with Albany County Convention and Visitors Bureau Director of Sales Gina Mintzer to analyze how Albany markets itself as a tourist destination and to see how it stacks up against other select tourist hotspots.
Through engaging classroom discussions with professionals, industry-specific coursework and trips to local sites, students in Jack’s class are gaining a deeper understanding of what it takes to succeed in the travel and tourism industry and uncovering the potential for rewarding career opportunities the world over.
