Year 13 Geographers take to Queenstown
By Kate Hope | Posted: Thursday March 21, 2024
The year 13 Geographers have been learning about Tourism as a cultural process.
As part of their assessment, they spent the first few weeks in class learning about tourism, the different types of tourists, how tourist ventures operate, and the social, economic, and political impact tourism has on a place. Our case study is Queenstown and it was easy to see that tourism is back to pre covid pace. The first part of their assessment was to design a survey to work out what type of tourist uses the different spaces in the Wakatipu region. Designing the survey was the easy part; asking the tourist wasn’t so easy. A good first day in Arrowtown with receptive tourists left the students positive for the following day where they conducted their surveys in different parts of Queenstown, from the Kawarau Bungy to the waterfront. Tasked with a minimum of 100 surveys, students took to the challenge. Shaking off the inevitable rejections, each group managed to get close to their targets which now leaves them with a large sample size to reach their conclusions.
As part of understanding tourism, students need to understand that different types of tourists demand different services, including activities. We were very fortunate to be able to partake in the ever-changing tourist market, including the gondola and luge, Shotover jet boating, and the Fear Factory. 4 brave students (Ollie, Zak, Oscar and Kade) took on the challenge of the bungy jump, and left the rest of us entertained by their surprisingly quiet jumps! Students will link their tourist experiences to their analysis of their findings - who are the target audiences and does their experience link to their surveys?
Whilst in Queenstown we took the opportunity to hear from the QLDC on the different events they run and what planning and policies need to be covered to ensure that a contemporary event runs smoothly. Later in Term 2 students will apply this first hand experience from Alana (senior planner) to the context of the Rhythm and Alps festival.
Now, back in class, students are busy collating their data. What will they find out, do you think? How do different tourists use different spaces in the Wakatipu Basin?
A huge thank you to the students who were a great group to take away, Ben Sinnamon, Ms. Moore who stepped up last minute (the day before) to accompany us so the field trip could still run, the Arrowtown museum for their presentation on tourism changes over time and Alana Standish at QLDC for her presentation. Without you all these field trips aren’t possible.
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