Green tourism project as part of smart urban growth class

Abstract

The Strategies for Smart Urban Growth and Redevelopment class under took a class project for the fall 2009 semester to assist the Arlington County Convention and Visitors service in developing a green tourism program for Arlington. The project was guided by the instructor and involved a collaborative partnership with the county. A number of information exchange meetings were held during the semester including an In-progress-Review the end of October and Final Recommendations Briefing at the end of November as well as a special meeting with the Director of the County's Department of Economic Development. This project was closely aligned with the course class material but did require extensive literature review and analysis of the green tourism experience in other parts of the county. The class was divided into three teams for the first part of the project to develop strategies for; 1) transportation, 2) hotels and restaurants and 3) special destinations. The teams than came together in the development and presentation of the final recommendations to the county. The county was very pleased with the effort and the students felt they got more value out of the course with are real world project which represented 30% of their grade. The paper describes the process used in the project, an assessment of its effectiveness and the specific recommendation outcomes. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2010.