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Boukas, Nikolaos
Investigating islands' visitor experiences in cultural heritage museums: The case of Cyprus
1/1/2017, Boukas, Nikolaos, Ioannou, Myria C., Sourouklis, Christakis
The consumption of the tourist product relates to a series of visitor experiences that shape overall visitor evaluation. Such experiences pertain to how visitors sense, relate and act when consuming these products. Museums, safeguarding cultural heritage, contribute significantly to this experience by providing exclusive insights and interaction with (in) authentic exhibits of many areas, such as islands. Nonetheless, in many islands, museums have not been fully developed as destination features and thus, significant opportunities to utilise museums' visitor experience to enrich the tourist offering, are lost. In this respect, the paper examines the experiences of tourists with cultural museums in the island of Cyprus, from the policy makers and museums' managers' perspective. Specifically, through face to face interviews with 13 representatives of tourism policy/museums, the study indicates that the role of museums is important for the formation of visitor/tourist experiences while certain elements appeal to visitors' engagement in museum settings. The paper concludes that museums could provide holistic memorable experience that can help actively diversify the tourism products of islands. In this respect, emphasis must be given upon how experiences are created having in mind also that visitors are increasingly becoming value co-creators in this experience.
The Use of Virtual Reality Roleplay to Improve Communicative and Digital Skills in a Transnational Collaborative Learning Environment: Implications for Teaching and Learning in Social Work Management Education
2023, Boukas, Nikolaos, Efstathiou, Andreas, Maik Arnold, Stefan Jung, Helge Fischer, Jazmin Zaraik, Pierre Chevallier, Sourouklis, Christakis
Virtual collaborative learning and teaching benefits from using immersive technologies to develop key competences, such as collaboration, virtual communication, and problem-solving skills, as well as social and digital skills. Based on the formative evaluation of the skills in the Hotel Academy project, which aimed at the development and implementation of a transnational desktop/VR-based roleplay, this chapter will draw attention to both the potential of virtual reality and the learners’ experiences of presence and immersion during its experimentation. Additionally, findings from the summative validation of the underlying didactical framework to develop transnational and cross-institutional blueprints for the implementation of this specific VR environment in higher education institutions will be presented. Finally, conclusions will be drawn regarding the future use of such roleplaying in social work management education.