Destination Development in Tourism (najaar)

This course introduces you to the top public events in Belgium that have a positive economic, reputational, and social impact. We focus on 4 main topics: festivals, sporting events, immersive exhibitions, and major musical and theatre productions. We explore the events that attract international visitors and have become brands all their own in the entertainment industry. We look at different models and apply them to real cases, and we invite guest speakers to give insight into this lively industry.

Let us whet your appetite for all the opportunities gastronomy tourism has to offer!

In the first part of the course, you learn the theory behind how destinations use gastronomy to attract more visitors and how tour operators use food experiences as a source for thematic travel programs. Flanders is a region blessed with local delicacies, so of course you get a taste of our own tourism for foodies. In the second part of the course, you put theory into practice in your own case study. In this project, you choose a region or country for which you explore and develop the possibilities for gastronomy tourism.

This course deepens your knowledge about storytelling by showing you the most characteristic stories of Belgium. Along with our international journalism students, we dive into several “typical” themes, such as heritage and remembrance, arts, European institutions, sports and, of course, chocolate and beer. We explore cutting-edge museums and the European parliament, visit various Belgian cities, be guided by experts, and reflect on Belgian and homeland culture through lectures, visits and assignments related to both tourism and journalism. Please note that this course costs between 150 and 170 euros extra for travel and tours. All excursions are required.

Surviving as a tourism professional today includes following distribution trends and building digital know-how. This course will give you basic insights into e-commerce, the role of tourism in the online world, and online customer journeys. You will learn why it is important and what the most interesting options are for different players in the tourism field. We will also teach you how to approach social media advertising by giving you practical experience using Meta Ads Manager, allowing you to discover the secrets of advertising on Facebook. You will develop an understanding of how to raise rankings on Google through SEO practices, an essential element for any tourism related business.

In this course, you dig deep into hot topics and trends in the field of tourism connected to sustainability, animal welfare, technological innovation, aviation, the future for travel agents, and more. By reading and analyzing a selection of articles, you familiarize yourself with each topic. This prepares you to take part in lively class discussions where you are confronted by your own opinions as well as those of your fellow students. This is a class where you will be doing most of the talking! You also write your own articles about the topics that you find most interesting.

In this course, you explore different branches of this media domain. Field professionals guide you through the foundations of lifestyle media, in order to develop your personal voice. You learn practical skills and work on lifestyle cases for a broader community, engaging yourself in disciplines such as publishing, advertising, public relations and media communications.

The collective is an extraordinary, interdisciplinary and co-creative project embedded in a various academic departments at Howest. Students who have developed different skills in their first years of study bring a variety of professional expertise to their respective projects. Together they apply methods of design thinking to complex and real-life case studies for a client or company. Imagine what happens when tourism experience designers meet game designers, when tourism experts meet experts in health and wellbeing, or when tourism experts meet experts in multimedia and communication technology! The possibilities are endless!

This English course provides exchange students with training in speaking, listening, reading and writing skills, all focused on their ongoing or upcoming academic experience. The lecturer will take the diversity of academic areas of the participants into account, by addressing a range of topics and choosing subjects that are relevant to the attending students wherever possible. The course aims at the B2 proficiency level. We strongly recommended it to all exchange students who have not fully achieved the B2-level in English at the moment of application for their mobility project. For the more proficient students, we still see the course as an interesting immersion experience.

This course is optional. Classes take place in the evening.

Through short, lively lesson units, you will learn basic Dutch grammar along with typical expressions and introductory vocabulary to help you during your stay in Kortrijk and Flanders. This language course is complementary to the Strong Belgium Stories lessons and gives additional insights into Flemish and Belgian society and culture.

This course is optional.