PATA Wakayama University Student Chapter Activity Highlights
Wakayama University Student Chapter Introduction
Wakayama University Student Chapter was established as a group of voluntary students of the faculty of tourism in November, 2016, and the group was officially authorized by the faculty of Tourism in April 2018. The number of members is 36 as of November, 2020).
Our activities in the past had three aspects: learning, interaction and publicizing. First, we had a study meeting every week, where we give a presentation about tourism and discuss the topic such as marine tourism, pilgrimage tourism, sustainable tourism, etc. Moreover, making use of what we learn in the study meetings, we planned study tours about gastronomy tourism and Muslim. In addition, we join Tourism Expo Japan every year. Second, interaction with other student chapter was also one of our major activities. We attended PATA Annual Summit in Korea and Philippines. It is valuable to communicate and learn from students of other countries and tourism companies all over the world. Third, we send information to around the world about our activities through yearly brochure and SNS.
In 2019, our activities had been focused on study meetings, which is passive learning. However, we started active learning from 2020. The details are shown in the following.
Wakayama Student Chapter Activity in 2020
From 2020, we changed the system of the study meeting because we wanted to address tourism issues and solve problems more actively. That’s why we formed three project teams: marketing team, regional revitalization team and food culture team. Each project team aims to tackle tourism problems and bring solutions to them. Brief introduction of each team is as stated below.
Marketing team aims to sell some products at a shopping arcade, where it is priceless market. The concepts are to make communication by bargain with sellers and try to do revitalization of shopping arcade. Therefore, the team members learn not only how to sell but also how to communicate. However, the plan has been postponed because the COVID-19 have the priceless market closed.
Regional revitalization team search what problem Wakayama faces today. The team planned a research about Kumano-Kodo, a cultural world heritage in Japan and contacted to a local tourism bureau to fact-finding survey of tourists and promotion. The team willstart survey soon.
Food culture team focuses on food culture all over the world. Today, there is a tendency that people give priority to eat easy and cheap and to take Instagenic photos. Food varies according to the faith, and hosts should understand each food has each culture and the connection with some religion. To start with, the food culture team aims to send information to realize the relation between food and culture.
The food culture team act more mainly than other two ones, so we will make a report of the group here.
Activity Report of Food Culture Team
The purpose of this project is to share food culture. Tourists need to know culture in destinations and local people need to understand tourists’ customs to establish good relationships with each other. The media seeks to spread the values accepting own/other cultures through the aspect of food.
We use Instagram to disseminate information post a photo and put comments in an easy to-understand manner such as "British Tea War" "Soy Meat" and "Local Gourmet." We started posting in August this year. We currently have nearly 400 followers and would like to increase it to 500 by the end of the year.
We are planning an exchange event for all the teams and an event for international students to teach cooking under prevention measures against COVID-19 and do as much as we can.
For more information, please contact:
PATA Wakayama University Student Chapter
e-mail - pata.wusc@gmail.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pata.wusc/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pata_wut
Food Culture Team
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tabigohan_gram (Japanese)