Peer-to-peer capacity-building in tourism: Values and experiences of field-based education

Abstract

Taking tourism as a metaphor for the complex and unequal relationship between the Majority World and the more affluent tourist-generating countries, this paper reports research into ways in which educational tourism can facilitate mutually beneficial exchanges between ‘hosts and guests’. The empirical work is based on data collected as part of an innovative field-based education project on international tourism development and management with field-based activities conducted in The Gambia. The paper aimed to show that if the exchange, both culturally and pragmatically, was to benefit not only the visiting students but also the host country, then values, cross-cultural interaction, innovation and knowledge exchange would have to play key roles to ensure that this peer-to-peer capacity-building opportunity though educational tourism would contribute to sustainable (tourism) development in the chosen locality.

Keywords:

• educational tourism
• field trips
• field-based education
• capacity-building
• The Gambia

1. Introduction

Tourism has received a wide range of coverage in Development Southern Africa. Readers will be familiar with the arguments and paradoxes of its role in development: wealth creation, growth and redistribution on the one hand and, on the other, dystopias created through producers and consumers of different wealth levels operating in the same physical places and psychological spaces. Tourism can be seen as a metaphor for the complex and unequal relationship between the Majority World and the more affluent tourist-generating countries. Taking this inequality as a central theme in Global North to Global South tourism, this paper examines the way university student fieldwork, as a form of educational tourism, can facilitate a deeper level of learning and more meaningful exchanges between what Valene Smith (1989) has ironically termed ‘hosts and guests’.

This research paper investigates how values, perceptions and attitudes can alter as a result of knowledge exchange, cross-cultural interactions, and what the present authors refer to as peer-to-peer (P2P) capacity-building (i.e. the structured interaction between participants in an educational programme). The empirical work is based on data collected from UK-based students and Gambian participants before, during and after three field trips to The Gambia as part of a British university tourism undergraduate programme in 2007, 2008 and 2010.1 This innovative learning experience consisted of an intensive 7-day credit-bearing module, including workshops, guest lectures from local private and public sector experts, field trips and group work. Its aim was to help students and participants understand the technicalities of international tourism development and management contextualised by the live issues facing stakeholders in the destination. Such issues included product development, business planning and the application of sustainable tourism development theories.

If the field trip was to provide mutual benefits, then values, cross-cultural interaction, innovation and knowledge exchange had key roles to play in ensuring that the exchange left not just ‘footprints’ (as the Ecotourism Society suggests) but a beneficial experience for both ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’. The programme aimed to go beyond the formal ‘learning outcomes’ of the university module and to lead to behavioural and attitudinal changes that would influence the participants' professional conduct as they completed the module and later, when taking up employment in the tourism sector (in the case of the UK students) or returning to their jobs in the sector (in the case of the Gambian participants).

The initiative was developed in collaboration with local partners, the Association of Small Scale Enterprises in Tourism (ASSET) and Gamspirit, who selected the Gambian participants and helped organise field-based activities in the locality. The Gambian participants were sponsored by Brighton University to take part in the module as part of the university's corporate commitment to ‘widening participation’ through innovative teaching and learning practices. Thus the opportunity was created for cross-cultural exchange that would go beyond the normal framework of a ‘sightseeing field trip’ and become more like a P2P capacity-building experience aimed at contributing towards sustainable (tourism) development practices.

The paper also assesses some studies on the nature and value of educational field trips as a form of knowledge exchange that not only facilitates insights into the wider issues of sustainability but also makes a proactive contribution to local capacity-building. The conclusion suggests how such an approach could be used as a template for other disciplines such as environmental sciences, healthcare and education, which are also core to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals.

2. From field-based education to capacity-building

2.1 A holistic perspective on field-based education

Field-based experiences gained specifically through field trips have a long tradition in disciplines such as geography, biology, anthropology, archaeology and literature, as well as more multidisciplinary fields of study, including tourism. Lisowski & Disinger (1987) call this ‘learning in the environment’, and they trace the literature on the topic back to the 1930s, mentioning three very early sources (Schellhammer, 1935; Fraser, 1939; Atyeo, 1939), each of which refers to significant increases in effective learning of techniques and subject knowledge. In a study in which they tested student participants about their experiences, Sorrentino & Bell describe four kinds of improvement in subject knowledge:

1. An awakening of interests and appreciation in the field of study and in related fields.

2. Provision of concrete, first-hand experiences which give direct and personal knowledge of the environment.

3. Development of keenness and accuracy in observation.

4. Longer retention of the knowledge acquired through its means than that gained under other methods of instruction. (1970:234)

However, Lisowski & Disinger (1987) present a familiar litany of reasons why field trips are not undertaken as often as they should be:

lack of planning time, lack of resource people for assistance … restrictions placed on field work by school regulations, lack of administrative leadership, support and encouragement, lack of funding, limited available transportation, too much ‘red tape’, and excessive class size … it is ‘easier’ to teach in the classroom than to plan and implement outside-the-four-walls initiatives.

In more recent times, health and safety issues also figure as a barrier to field trips. Aside from these cautions, however, the main significance of Lisowski & Disinger's (1987) review and their own empirical work is their identification of studies that demonstrated higher knowledge-retention rates. Orion & Hofstein conclude that ‘the field trip is one of the most complex and expensive activities in the education system’ (1994:1117) and note three types of variables that influence the effectiveness of such trips: teaching issues, student characteristics and field trip components. They found three student-centred variables that had a significant effect on learning: level and type of knowledge and skills, acquaintance with the field trip area, and psychological preparation, all of which resonates with the findings of our study in The Gambia. They also identified five dimensions of students' attitudes to scientific field trips: students saw a field trip as a learning tool, and as individualised learning, and they also appreciated the social, adventurous and environmental aspects of the trip. We tested these five dimensions in our study in The Gambia and our findings are described in Section 5.1 below.

Orion & Hofstein also observed the need for pre-trip preparatory briefings with students ‘to reduce the gap between their expectations and the reality they will meet’ (1991:518). Anderson et al. draw on Novak's theory of education (‘human constructivism’) to make the point that ‘meaningful learning’ requires a framework comprising the teacher, the learner, the content, the context and the evaluation and that ‘[a]t the heart of constructivism is the recognition that knowledge is not an entity transferred in toto from teacher to learner, but rather that learning requires active engagement of the student's mind’ (2003:177). While fieldwork sites provide obvious contexts, what is missing from Anderson et al.'s work is any reference to the ‘hosts’. This is possibly because their paper, like many in the literature, is to do with natural science education, which often fails to take cultural context into account. Even so, they draw some very powerful conclusions from their empirical work on learning in informal settings, arguing that the ‘human constructivist theory of learning is an empowering and fruitful perspective from which educators can analyse the learning emergent from [outside the classroom] experiences’ (Anderson et al., 2003:197).

2.2 Educational tourism, field trips and capacity-building

Travel for learning is not a new concept and can be dated back at least to the nineteenth century Grand Tour.2 However, contemporary educational tourism goes ‘beyond a curiosity, interest or fascination for a particular topic. It involves a travel experience in which there is organised learning, whether that be formal or experimental’ (Kalinowski & Weiler, 1992:17). The present paper focuses on a specific type of a formal educational experience – the credit bearing module delivered in an innovative way, which enables knowledge exchange between ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’.

In less developed countries, the general lack of community knowledge about tourism is considered a significant problem (Moscardo, 2008). This knowledge gap is manifested in three ways: limited local tourism leadership, ineffective coordination and planning, and inadequate (and often unequal) local stakeholder involvement (Reid et al., 2004). Moscardo (2008) stresses the importance of knowledge-sharing and capacity-building to help communities to understand how to build beneficial relationships with tourists. The literature on field trips generally ignores the role of the ‘Other’. The ‘hosts’ receive very little attention: trips are about what ‘we’ gain from ‘them’. There are, however, at least two exceptions. One is a 2007 study by Wright et al. which explores relationship building between groups of students and indigenous tour operators in northern Australia, focusing on an ‘interwoven learning exchange’, which they define as promoting ‘processes by which research, teaching and learning are intimately interlinked and within which all collaborators are recognised as teachers, researchers and learners’. They talk about relationships being ‘fluid’ and potentially ‘fraught’. Describing their own somewhat intense immersion in the local culture, they see no limits to what may be learnt in ‘unexpected exchanges’ and who it may be learnt from: ‘the scope of learning exchange is thus broadened to include contributors such as children, partners and research participants, often excluded or made invisible in teaching and research practice’ (Wright et al. 2007:150). They recognise that the brief exchanges that characterise fieldwork are complex because they are ‘situated in a web of power relations’; they not only acknowledge subjectivity in their work but positively celebrate it, claiming that ‘these complex relationships are central to the learning process’; they make the critical point that the boundaries between work and action are somewhat fuzzy; and they end with a plea for the elimination of the ‘colonising processes and power imbalance’ of university-framed teaching and research in the indigenous field (Wright et al. 2007:155).

The second piece of work that acknowledges the indigenous context is Riggs (2004), a study of a collaborative educational approach between local universities and Native American indigenous communities in field-based geosciences that emphasises ‘outdoor education, place and problem based structure, and the explicit inclusion of indigenous knowledge’ (2004:296). Riggs readily acknowledges the difficulties of learning in the field, especially when resources and facilities are scarce. More importantly, Riggs reveals some important cultural issues not normally addressed, noting that ‘[m]any ethnic and cultural groups are persistently underrepresented in Earth science’, which is a problem (in the context of Native Americans and First Nations people) because of ‘the large land base managed by tribal authorities, coupled with a simultaneous lack of professional scientific expertise within reservation communities’ (2004:297). The parallels with tourism studies are obvious.

The few papers that deal with interactions between insiders and outsiders (the hosts and guests) are of considerable importance. However, apart from Wright et al. (2007) and Pence & Macgillivray, who refer to international field experiences as cross-cultural exchanges leading ‘to an expanded worldview’ (2008:15), none of the literature engages with the complexities of field trip benefits being enjoyed by parties other than the students (and perhaps their teachers), or with the cross-cultural experiences of participants from the global North visiting communities from the global South. Drawing on Freire's (1972, 1973) view that ‘education for liberation’ must be not only linked to problem-solving but also framed by dialogue between equals, the present paper attempts to forge a link between the positive outcomes and expectations of a specific form of educational tourism – field trips, and the creation of more meaningful ways that tourism could benefit a wide range of people in the Majority World. The knowledge gap identified by Moscardo (2008) is addressed by focused analysis and empirical evidence on how micro-level initiatives, such as this type of field trip and the P2P capacity-building experience that framed it, can effectively foster community awareness and engagement in tourism development.

3. The research context and question

Most travel and tourism students studying in the UK see destinations in Africa through the eyes of the media. Poverty, desertification, famine, diseases and death are typical media images that overshadow the continent's multifaceted cultural and natural assets. This research therefore considered how educational tourism can make exchanges between ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’ more equitable and contribute more effectively to capacity-building in the locality. Specific aims of the study were: to challenge the students' preconceived ideas about culturally diverse ‘Others’ in the host destination, to give participants a chance to engage in activities in what Riggs (2004:302) calls ‘novelty space’, to assess the participants' personal and professional development as a result of their experience, and finally to test some theories and field research methods mentioned in the literature review above.

Table 1 illustrates the innovative nature of the 7-day field trip. This initiative gave the UK students an experiential learning opportunity by exposing them to the realities of a developing country, and the Gambian participants an educational and capacity-building experience rarely available in the locality (e.g. on sustainable tourism practices, product development, business planning). Field trips generally benefit the visitors, but the P2P exchange here benefited the local participants as well: the vocational training enabled mutually beneficial capacity-building in the form of knowledge exchange about technical tourism matters, and skills development in the form of cross-cultural collaboration, teamwork and group presentations. The UK students were able to apply their university classroom-based learning and get to grips with the complexities of tourism development and management in the developing world. The Gambian participants were selected by ASSET through its local network of members. The course is advertised each year and participants are selected through interviews, and demand for it has been increasing yearly as it is seen as an opportunity to acquire knowledge strongly linked to the sector where the participants work and to learn immediately applicable skills such as information technology and public speaking. On the social side, both groups gained by an exchange not dominated by commercial activities or framed by tourist-type host–guest relationships.

Table 1: The field trip initiative template

	am	pm
Day 1	Depart for Banjul (UK students)	Arrival in The Gambia
Day 2	Local visits aimed at situation analysis of tourism and its potential for sustainable development	Local visits
	• Katchikali Pool	• Sandele Eco-retreat and Learning Centre site (talk + guidelines for project work)
	• Kololi Beach market/fruit sellers and juice pressers	• Sandele Beach
	• Kartong Village and Folonko Pool + Museum
Day 3	Class activities with local experts' input	Class activities
	• Introduction – Discuss tutor's and participants' expectations	• Mass versus niche tourism: Perspectives on the ‘new tourism era’
	• Video – Looking beyond the brochure of the Gambia	• Volunteer tourism
	• Local experts' input to identify key issues in the Gambia tourism sector, i.e.:	• Adventure tourism
	– Tourism concern – The Gambia	• Culinary tourism
	– Gambia Tourism Authority	• Festivals & events (music/dance)
	– ASSET	• Educational tourism
	– Responsible Tourism Partnership	• Holistic/spiritual/health tourism
	– KART	• Nature/wilderness tourism
		• Groups formed (seven groups of five students – each three UK + two Gambians)
Day 4	Local visits to assess specific themes (nature, culture and society)	Local visits
	Makasutu Cultural Forest with canoe trip – environmental management issues	• Tumani Tenda – The challenges of a community-based tourism project
Day 5	Class activities with tutors' input	Class activities
	• Business planning & development of new niche tourism product	• Guided group work on niche tourism product development
	• Guided group work/Brainstorming and feasibility assessment	• Tutorials by tutors on identified niche products & feedback
		• Independent group work
Day 6	Group work/assessment	Group work/assessment
	Guided group work, Preparation of final project work and tutorials	Guided group work, Preparation of final project work and tutorials
Day 7	Group work/assessment	9.30–13.00: Group work/assessment
	Group final project presentations	Feedback and conclusion of the course
Day 8	Free time	Transfer to airport

4. Methods, data collection and analysis

Data were collected in three phases: before, during and after the field activities (see Table 2), with three data sets collected over 6 months in 2007, 2008 and 2010, each phase including a 7-day field trip. A total of 54 UK participants (19 in 2007, 21 in 2008 and 14 in 2010) and 27 Gambians (eight in 2007, eight in 2008 and 11 in 2010) took part in the study. The nationality of the UK-based students was not considered a variable in the study as over the period of their UK university programme they formed a homogeneous student group culture that overrode national differences. The research focus was on the experiences and value gained by both groups, as they operated out of their normal environments. There were nine different nationalities in the 2008 UK group and seven in the 2009 group, while the 2010 group was predominantly German (11 out of 14); but the differences did not affect either the participants' overall experience or the outcome of the study.

Table 2: Three field activities research phases

Phase 1	Phase 2	Phase 3
Pre-field activities – anticipation	During field activities – on-site behaviour	Post-field activities – recollection
Preliminary desk research	Participant information sheet distributed to Gambian participants	Post-visit open-ended questionnaire with all participants
Introductory session including 30 minutes presentation with UK participants	Gambian participant introductory meeting	Reflective statements by UK participants
Participant information sheet distributed to UK participants	Consent form distributed to Gambian participants	Informal interviews with Gambian participants
Consent form distributed to UK participants	Pre-visits' open-ended questionnaire with Gambian participants	Focus groups facilitated by a (peer) participant with UK participants
UK participant meeting	Observations during field-based activities
Pre-visit open-ended questionnaire with UK participants	Groups and individual tutorials
	Collection of photographic and filmed material

We sought rich qualitative data that would provide insights into cognitive and attitudinal aspects (including dissonance). We therefore used a variety of methods. To gather preliminary perceptions about what the experience would offer to each individual in both sets of participants, we administered open-ended questionnaires, asking what had motivated them to take the course and what they expected it would do for them. We made observations to monitor the progress of cross-cultural interaction and collaboration. We held informal interviews and focus groups with both sets of participants (in the field and on return to the UK), to collect specific information about the five dimensions of their attitudes towards the field trip. These data were organised according to Orion and Hofstein's five dimensions: (1) Learning tool, (2) Individualised learning, (3) Social aspect, (4) Adventurous aspect, and (5) Environmental aspect (see Section 2.1 above). Finally, we completed the post-field trip assessment by thoroughly analysing the content of the participants' reflective statements.

5. Results and discussion

5.1 Before the field activities: ‘Anticipation phase’

The anticipation phase of the data collection (reported in Table 3) was aimed at answering two questions: ‘What are the main reasons for taking part in this module?’ and ‘What do you expect to gain?’ The range of participants' responses and perspectives may be attributed to their different backgrounds. For instance, while the UK participants were equipped with a wider academic and theoretical knowledge of tourism, the Gambians benefited from practical understanding and experience of the sector in the field. The latter had little or no academic training or qualifications and saw the module as a way to gain some academic input and strengthen their knowledge.

Table 3: Anticipation phase findings – UK and Gambian participants

Motivations		Expectations
UK	Gambian	UK	Gambian
The specific topic
Interest in specific topic & content of module	Interest in specific topic & unique training opportunity	Apply knowledge about other subjects (e.g. marketing, human resources) in practice	In-depth learning about the subject
The opportunity to travel
Opportunity to travel & visit a developing country	Local site visits and educational experience	Field trip adds value to learning, learn more about destination	Visit locations which would not otherwise have been able to visit
Combine study & travel	Exposure to Gambian tourism product	See the real country, not just commercial touristic viewpoint
Experience the unknown	Identify ways to improve Gambian tourism product	Very safe first contact with real Africa
Adventure
The novel learning environment
Innovative and original learning setting	Broaden horizon in area of tourism	Enhanced learning in novel environment. First-hand, hands-on, real life experience	First-hand experience better than classroom learning
‘Out of the ordinary’ programme, e.g. experiential learning, case study approach	Share own practical experience with international participants	Exposure to different reality, e.g. poverty, disease, crime	Improve communication skills through collaboration with international participants and coping strategies skills necessary when working under pressure
Learning through practice a more effective way to remember things than reading books	Interactive study	Mix of academic and leisure activities. Learning through ‘play’	The cross-cultural exchange
	Learn about own country ‘through the eyes of non-Gambians’
	Adventure
Appreciate another culture, different values, lifestyle, customs, environment	Meet and interact with ‘Others’ from other parts of the world and share experiences	Experience different culture, learn through locals' knowledge	Knowledge exchange, cross-cultural collaboration
Integration and cross-cultural collaboration with local and international participants	Help tourism development in own country	Bridge cultural gaps – i.e. understand Muslim culture	Useful results from group collaboration
		Benefit from working with Gambian participants	Guide UK participants through the visit
			Better understanding of own culture
			Personal development and career prospects
Innovative way to gain credits towards degree	Obtain certificate of attendance	Assessment strategy – see first and then assess	Learn and share knowledge with members of own community
Gain understanding of the developing world	Gain knowledge essential for career in tourism	Possible path to career in sustainable development	Learn to communicate and work in mixed culture groups
Appreciate value of education and help locals to get training otherwise not available

5.2 During the field activities: ‘On-site behaviour’ phase

The ‘on-site behaviour’ assessment phase included overt observations from the start of the field trip to the end, with the departure of the UK students. The main objective was to assess the participants' ability to adapt to a novel learning environment (e.g. culture shock for the UK students; being in a classroom for long hours for the Gambians), their individual interactions with others and their level of engagement in group dynamics. Overall, the UK participants fairly quickly became accustomed to the novel environment, and the Gambians' varied levels of academic knowledge and practical experience evolved into a dynamic set of encounters whereby the strength of some compensated for weaknesses of others. All the Gambian participants were visibly excited about participating in the project, and in each of the 3 years two or three of them played the role of local guides during the field visits. The willingness to learn and make the most of the field activities became the main motivating factor enabling each individual to engage in dialogue with the other and accommodate each other, with a self-managed and informal P2P support system quickly emerging.

Tensions arose during the final stage of the group work as the deadline for the group assignment (presentation of a feasibility study for a new tourism product) came closer. The general group dynamics worked well, although on some occasions members distanced themselves as the level of tension rose. Individual and group tutorials were held to address such issues but this quickly evolved into a more practical mechanism for checking task progress. The final outcome and work presented by each group exceeded tutors' expectations in terms of both the quality of ideas produced in such a short period and what each group (generally three UK and two Gambian participants) had been able to create by merging academic inputs and practical knowledge about the destination – a meaningful learning experience produced through the ‘active engagement of [their] minds’ (Anderson et al., 2003:177), or what Anderson et al. refer to as a ‘constructivist approach’.

The outsiders' immersion in the local culture through interacting with the insiders entailed a number of ‘unexpected exchanges’ (Wright et al., 2007:155), and the characteristics of the locality (e.g. its poverty, simplicity of lifestyle, street children) contributed. As Wright et al. observe, the fieldwork was ‘situated in a web of power relations’ (2007:155), which took both groups of participants out of their comfort zone.

5.3 After the field activities: ‘Recollection’ phase

The recollection phase included a post-visit open-ended questionnaire distributed on the last day of the field trip. Participants were invited to answer seven questions: ‘What were your main expectations from the field activities?’ ‘Have they been met?’ ‘What were the best aspects of this experience?’ ‘And the worst aspects?’ ‘What are the main things you have learnt from this experience?’ ‘What were the benefits of having students from the UK and from The Gambia?’ ‘What were the challenges you encountered?’ The Gambian participants' answers were enriched by short interviews on the last day of the field trip and the UK participants' answers by content analysis of reflective statements submitted one week after returning home.

In addition, after the 2007 and 2008 trips a UK participant ran a focus group with field trip colleagues 2 weeks after returning to the UK. This was used to further enrich the data and probe findings. It was felt that having a peer conducting this phase of the research enabled respondents to feel free to fully reflect and openly express thoughts about their experiences, without the undue pressure or influence of a tutor or researcher, who would be marking their work. This served to verify previously collected data and limit bias which might be associated with the researcher being the module leader. Objectivity of assessment and triangulation of data were deemed essential. The data from this recollection phase were organised according to three themes associated with the study's aims: (a) learning in a novel environment, (b) cross-cultural exchange, and (c) values implications. To maintain anonymity, responses were coded UK1 to UK54 and G1 to G27.

5.3.1 Learning in a novel environment

Consensus about the innovative nature of this learning experience emerged in relation to ‘the specific topic’ and ‘the opportunity to travel’ to the destination, a ‘novel environment’ which contributed significantly to the participants' experiential learning and enhanced their understanding of how theory works in practice:

Before leaving the UK, I felt a mixture of feelings, anticipations and eagerness in particular, as I knew the experience of travelling to another continent would be very exciting and beneficial to me. Now I can say that this has put my personal and professional life in perspective … now I know what I want to do next … it has been a massive eye opener. (UK3)

To me, this provided a unique opportunity to learn about the specific subject and travel within my own country [The Gambia]. (G8)

This was more than a sight-seeing trip. The participants were exposed to unfamiliar issues: the UK participants were confronted with poverty and encountered a different cultural setting, such as the Muslim extended family system, and the Gambians discovered the challenges of the imported and demanding teaching and learning style and the pleasure of visiting their own country:

It was a culture shock to me, walking through the village, small children hanging off my arm asking for sweets and pens. I had never experienced anything like it. I gained great insight in that short walk to the [Katchikali] pool on how they live, their overall friendliness and the simplicity of their life. (UK22)

It was a bit of a challenge at times, as these English students can go on for hours … study, study, study … I really learnt a lot from this as this helped me maintaining my attention span alerted for a longer time. (G12)

The Gambians took us to their places, not to the touristy places, so you sort of thought … Oh, this is what it must be like living here, not just the tourist side of it … and Kartong and the sacred pool with the women giving the blessing, where you possibly wouldn't go to otherwise. (UK31)

One of the best things was seeing the different eco-projects: Sandele and then Tumani Tenda … two different extremes, but sitting with the Alkalo in the circle, made me feel like a special guest, being a Gambian, thanks to this course I have been exposed to so many different realities of my own country. (G2)

Participants also thought about their enhanced learning through experience, and made clear reference to its long-term personal and professional implications:

I have seen all the things we have learnt in the first two years at Uni, first-hand in real life … the impacts of tourism, how to develop tourism products and the developing country context … so different from our reality back in Europe, and from the so many stereotyped images we have in our minds about Africa. (UK47)

We learnt a lot in a very short period of time. I had no idea of how to make a business plan … in such a short time I have learnt how to design a tourism product, promote it and what is required to manage it in the locality … and what's best is that my country [The Gambia] is in need of such skills. (G25)

This trip made me feel ready to go back to Burundi and do what these guys are doing. I never thought that my country could develop tourism, but after seeing this, I am determined to go back and work on it. (UK10)

The response from student UK10 highlighted a very personal but significant learning achievement. Through this exposure, she identified the possibility of returning to her country of origin to engage in tourism, which she later did.

5.3.2 Cross-cultural exchange

The steep learning curve experienced by participants was enhanced by the cross-cultural interactions, the tight time frame to address tasks and the P2P exchanges, which contributed greatly towards their personal and professional development:

It was extremely beneficial to have a mixture of participants from different countries as we could combine our knowledge and work towards our common final goal – the presentation. This was a truly valuable cross-cultural experience which ended up in much more than a good mark for our assignment. (G18)

The Gambian students acted as our guides and helped us to gain an inside view of the culture and surroundings. Before coming to The Gambia, I had some pre-conceived ideas and I was a little apprehensive about what I would see … working with the Gambians helped me ease my fears. We all learnt a lot about the subject also through the genuine cultural exchange that took place. (UK30)

The enhanced worldview provided by the cross-cultural exchange also became apparent in cognitive and psychological terms (learning about the unknown and how to relate to people from a different culture):

We come from completely different contexts, and this course gave us a view of the world, and has made me ‘travel’ as far as Russia, Lithuania and the Faeroe Islands. Without it we would have been stuck in our little Gambian world. (G15)

To see the peaceful setting of this country where Christian, Muslims and other religious groups live, I got the chance to really understand them and put aside what they say on TV about Islam. (UK12)

The setting and format of the field trip exposed both groups of participants to a dynamic and demanding learning environment where collaboration, teamwork and diplomacy were key skills for achieving the agreed common goals:

This has been a truly fruitful cross-cultural experience, using tourism as a common theme and learning from your peers from outside The Gambia and so many other parts of the world. (G21)

I do believe that the [Gambian] students benefited from working with us. I know for a fact that the [Gambian] students we had in our group, although a little overwhelmed by the speed at which we were working, were fascinated by the development process of our common ideas surrounding the projects. They also learnt to use the PowerPoint program … I learnt a lot from them and I was inspired by their ambition to achieve, succeed and make a difference. (UK37)

In addition, a Gambian sense of pride emerged, with the UK students fully acknowledging the value of having local participants on the course:

The peer interaction that we've had is not the kind of things … they [the visitors] would do when they come here on a package holiday … it was really an educational first-hand experience for them and for us. (G22)

Having people from different backgrounds encouraged us to share our views and knowledge, share good times… in my group we had different types of personalities, and sometimes for that reason we had arguments, which were later resolved. (UK19)

As an African native studying in the UK, I was really amazed by how much knowledge they [the Gambians] have about their country and about tourism in practice. (UK13)

5.3.3 Values implications

Exposure to a different set of values contributed to enhanced experiential learning that went beyond the tourism disciplinary context and the novelty of being in a foreign land. Working in this new environment forged cross-cultural understanding and appreciation of each other's life settings:

The most memorable encounter was the meeting with the Tumani Tenda Chief's brother. The feeling of strong family bonds, community, children's respect for the elders and serenity was so strong there and made me rethink about the perceptions the ‘Western World’ has about Africa and their way of life … [in general] the people made the biggest impression. Their friendliness is just incomparable to ours, and their happiness even in those poor conditions is inspiring. (UK21)

This field trip gave us a real life lesson. Besides the improvement of our general skills – communication, teamwork, work under pressure – I feel it contributed to change our personal views of the world and what is truly important in life … whether you come from the developed or the developing one you need to find your role in society and make the most of it. (G18)

Overall, the experience and perceived value of the experiential learning (from the perspective of both technical tourism and personal enrichment) for both groups was positive. Consensus about the innovative nature of this experience was evident from responses from both the UK and the Gambian participants. They understood the fieldwork approach as a key tool to facilitate learning for those with limited access to training resources (the Gambians) and those willing to engage in applying theory in the field (the UK students).

6. Policy implications

The policy environment for field trips to destinations in the developing world is formed primarily by the policies of the university that sends the students. There needs to be buy-in on the part of the sending institution, with human resources and financial investment. Given the philanthropic tenet of universities (most UK universities are registered charities) there should be mechanisms for this. However, the students should also be asked to contribute, as a marker of their commitment to the ideals of the project. Curricular policy will also need to be addressed and room made for the flexible delivery of programmes, given their proven value in terms of the holistic and wide ranging experience they provide. Given the time spent on preparing and arranging such trips, policy for time allocation to academics who choose to commit to this type of project must be generous, to match the goodwill of staff members. Finally, and the most contentious, is the policy area for health and safety and institutional liability in case of accident – an aspect tending to stifle innovation. In the UK for example, a strong, bureaucratic risk averse culture has emerged (manifesting itself as Health and Safety protocols) which repeats Lisowski & Disinger's (1987) litany of why such trips should not take place, though British Standards (BS8848/07), the specification for the provision of visits, fieldwork, expeditions and adventurous activities outside the UK, is providing some policy and strategic guidelines.

The second area of policy implication is in the host country. Given the undeniable value of these trips, education ministries or individual institutions in Africa might well want to put policies in place that actively encourage them so as to engender more knowledge exchange in areas outside the topic of this paper such as agriculture, entrepreneurship, the arts, and so on. Policies would in some respects mirror those of local formal and informal training organisations (e.g. local colleges and foundations such as the restructured Gambia Hotel School and the Pathway Foundation at Sandele – www.sandele.com/pathways.html) and of the sending institutions, with a focus on flexibility and ensuring that these encounters can be credit bearing and lead to formal awards (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. P2P capacity-building institutional framework

The tourism sector's development practices often ignore the value of innovative ways of facilitating knowledge exchange and capacity-building between peers from different backgrounds. Since the P2P capacity-building initiative analysed in this paper proved beneficial at human (knowledge about sustainable tourism development in practice, business planning and presentation skills, cross-cultural collaboration experience), social (mutual trust and reciprocity; values, attitudes and behaviour; commitment; motivation and expectation; sense of place; relationships) and professional levels, the institutional (governance arrangements) and economic (infrastructure and financial resources) dimensions play a key role in enabling the exchange.

7. Conclusions

At a micro or case study level, the main lesson learnt proved to be the way field trips can provide experiential learning opportunities for achieving a much wider set of goals, including capacity-building for sustainable (tourism) development. Capacity-building initiatives that aim for long-term and macro-level sustainability are recommended by the Commission for Africa, the G8 Summit and the Millennium Development Summit.

While the study was limited by its small sample size and specific nature, the research provided sufficient evidence that this initiative is worth developing into a capacity-building delivery model. This would facilitate relevant training at additional levels (e.g. managerial), in other fields and in other locations in sub-Saharan Africa. There is potential to use this as a South–South capacity-building strategy, whereby the partnership between educational institutions (i.e. universities and colleges) in collaboration with local organisations at a destination could be facilitated with support by supranational and national government (e.g. the European Union and the Commonwealth Foundation) and local non-governmental organisations.

The collaboration between a British university and ASSET and other Gambian operators enabled the realisation of a step change in the strategic implementation of a curriculum aimed at enhancing students' professional and practice-based learning by offering an innovative programme which facilitated access to resources, knowledge exchange, capacity-building, cross-cultural and philanthropic collaborations and, as part of the university corporate commitment to sustainability, a contribution towards sustainable development practices in the wider community. The vision is to replicate the experience with other institutions in other sub-Saharan countries in an attempt to develop credible implementation plans and actions to be rolled out through the genuine and equitable South–North and South–South partnerships to capitalise on these opportunities.

Acknowledgements

Part of the research for this paper was funded through the University of Brighton Centre for Learning and Teaching Fellowship Award. The authors wish to express gratitude to members of ASSET and Gamspirit for facilitating the field-based activities, to Migle Jarasiunaite who conducted the focus groups with her peers, and to all the participants in the study.

Notes

¹‘UK students’ is used as an inclusive term in this paper to identify this group as the ‘guest’. However, it must be clarified that this group included students from Austria, Burundi, the Faroe Islands, Germany, Ghana, Italy, Lithuania, Nigeria, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Uganda and the UK.

²The Grand Tour is a term given to the cultural travels of young English aristocrats in the seventeenth and eigteenth centuries as part of socialising them into classical art and architecture. The tours typically lasted 2 years and included Paris, Rome, Venice, Florence and Naples. Black (2003) provides an excellent account of this social phenomenon.