Contact person: Contact person:
Gunn Elin Fedreheim
Title: Higher executive officer
Address: Follums vei 9, 9511
Fax: +47 78 43 44 38
Email: gunnef@hifm.no
Advanced Emphasis Description:
Finnmark County is the largest, most northern and eastern county in Norway. With North Cape as the main tourist attraction and with varied and breathtaking nature, Finnmark characterizes itself as a special county. In addition, Finnmark is a meeting place for several cultures; Sami people is the indigenous people of Finnmark, borders to Russia and Finland give great possibilities for communication with these two countries and Finnish-speaking immigrants, the Kvens, have status as a national minority in Norway. All these factors put together give a variety of cultures, and in addition many places have a sizeable population of immigrants from continents all over the world. This contributes to the multicultural character of the region.
Recent studies show that tourism is the largest industry in Finnmark County. The area is well known for its tourist attractions and a new development has evolved where there is a stronger focus on outdoor life activities as tourist attractions. In Finnmark, this has given rise to an even greater focus on developing businesses, places and the region as a tourism destination.
On this basis, Finnmark University College will offer Destination development and Autumn Outdoor Life activities as an Advanced Emphasis course. This combination will give the students a unique knowledge about developing sustainable tourist destinations based on outdoor life activities and indigenous people’s rights and knowledge.
Advanced Emphasis Details:
The Advanced Emphasis will be taught during autumn semester (Mid August – Mid December) and will consist of two modules:
Destination development (15 ECTS)Destination Development
This subject provides students with knowledge on how to develop a business, a place or a region as a tourism destination. This will give students insight into different bases for product development, as well as working methods, stakeholders and market participants. The course aims to establish an understanding for the nature of tourism products and their influence upon society and nature. The course will have a practical approach based on market strategy theories.
The content of the course is:
The mode of delivery is based upon lectures, seminars and presentations, field work, group work and excursions. Each student will work on a destination development and should contribute to collect and analyze data and write a report which includes a plan regarding destination development.
The exam consists of one individual written exam and a paper/report. These two parts will each count as 50 % of the exam. Prerequisites for taking the exam are two obligatory term papers; one group based paper/report and one individual paper for presentation in class.
Autumn outdoor life activities
The course gives an introduction to various models of teaching, guiding and learning models connected to outdoor activities.
Through this study, the students shall acquire basic knowledge about basic outdoor life activities and experience skills connected with these activities such as canoeing and traditional Sami ways of keeping reindeer. The students shall develop their ability to work together, their joint responsibility and their critical self-evaluation connected to the practical exercise of outdoor life. In addition, the course shall contribute to developing attitudes where trackless traffic and care in connection with nature become basic rules for activities in the outdoors and develop attitudes where each person takes responsibility for himself, for every person in the group and for the group in its entirety; tolerance, joint responsibility and initiative.
The mode of delivery is based upon practical activities, lectures, discussions, field work, excursions and case-work. This involves several practical outdoor activities spread over approximately ten days, where six of these are night stops.
Before taking the exam the students need to finish one obligatory term paper. The exam consists of an individual paper/project work on approximately 12 to 15 pages. The students will choose a project assignment with an interdisciplinary orientation aimed at shedding light on some topics that have been focused in the course. The project description must be approved by the teacher. Supervisors for the individual students will be appointed once the description is approved. By working with the project assignment, it is an aim that the student will develop skills in planning and carrying through developmental work with one autumn activity dealt with in the course.