Montana Tourism Research and Practice

Instructor: Norma Nickerson
See also Institute for Travel and Tourism Research

This course uses Montana as the case study to understand tourism research and the tourism industry. The course has five sections:

1. Overview of Montana tourism trends, tourism research, and tourism stakeholders
   • History of MT tourism and where it is today
   • ITRR set-up, TAC, research approval and discussion, consultants vs university research
   • Tourism regions, CVB’s, politics of statewide tourism
2. Visitor behavior
   • What research tells us about MT visitors and what we don’t know
   • Visitor education
3. Tourism marketing and research
   • Examples of past and current marketing campaigns – what does and doesn’t work
   • Research and marketing….who drives what train?
4. Community tourism development
   • Economic development of rural communities – where tourism plays a part
   • Mistakes and successes in rural tourism
   • Resident attitudes about tourism
5. Politics and policy
   • Political realities of tourism
   • The affect of the accommodation tax law and other policies related to MT tourism