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“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana,” was how I started my very first weekly discussion contribution back in module 1 of my Glion Online MBA in International Hospitality and Service Industries Management, and yes, tempus fugit…

Module 3 is done and dusted and my course-mates and I have already completed the first week of module 4, “Human Resources Management”. We’re rapidly approaching the halfway mark of the MBA program.

The article on the left here, by the way, appeared in August edition of Travel & Tourism News Middle East and follows in the wake of Fabienne Rollandin’s visit to Dubai back in March during ATM. You can read the original article here.

Back to module 3: “Hospitality, Services, and E-Marketing” promised great things – not only was it I the first actual marketing-based module, but it also featured lessons on E-Marketing, brand strategies, and that the role of people in the service process.

I started the module thinking I would enjoy the E-Marketing topics in the second half more than the other topics, but I actually ended up enjoying the earlier weeks of the module, which dealt with more traditional marketing theories & practises, much more.

As a hospitality professional without a traditional marketing or sales background, I found the introduction to the different elements of Borden’s original marketing mix very useful, and I also learned a lot more about positioning of services, the way consumers search for and evaluate services, and service pricing.

The main course textbook (Lovelock, C. H. & Wirtz, J. (2010). Services marketing (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall) was, like all the textbooks I received so far, very readable and featured a lot of useful examples and case studies.

Some of the questions we were asked to discuss during the first few weeks of the module were: How can service managers overcome consumers’ perceived risk? What marketing mix framework applies particularly well to the hospitality business? How do ethical issues impact Internet-based dynamic pricing and what about privacy and intrusion?
There was also a case study on a beach hotel in Barbados, which focused on price setting, revenue management, and balancing demand and productivity.

I often get asked what the weekly online discussions are like. Essentially, they’re a series of bulletin board posts, which start off with the teacher setting the topic or asking a question and each student posting his/her answer. You’re supposed to post your initial contribution by Wednesday, which makes sense, because the class then has until Sunday to discuss the various posts and opinions. You can reply to each posting, agree or disagree, argue new points, contribute additional facts or examples – so long as you can back up your arguments and reference your sources. Make no mistake, this is not some virtual afternoon tea chat. It’s online academic arguing. Often, I learn more from the arguments which ensue from the initial postings than from the actual postings.

Module 3, like module 2, featured 3 assignments. I almost tanked the first one, probably because I was surfing a bit too close to the deadline, but also because I thought the topic was somewhat dry: “Prepare an executive report on the topic of “Marketing Communication Trends.” Yawn.

The second assignment was much more to my liking: “Prepare an executive report on the topic of ‘The Starbucks Experience’. Specifically, debate whether the ‘Starbucks experience’ is really a ‘postmodernism phenomenon,’ and how this changes, if at all, the public notion of consumers’ expectations, perceived risk, and moments of truth. Make reference to how your response applies to single- or multiple- national cultures.”

Postmodernism, yay! I rock postmodernism. Postmodernism rocks me. I had a ball writing the report and it scored 92% – my best grade yet. One of the reasons I love postmodernism, situationist ideas and neoism, is a gentleman in the United Kingdom. A motorbike riding, ex-Waldorf Hotel Chef Garde Manger, ex-university lecturer, PhD holder, rambler, and writer: Dr. Martin Peacock. I will never agree with your tastes in motorbikes, Martin, but I wouldn’t be where I am now and, quite possibly, who I am now, if it wasn’t for my time at UNL and in and around the North and East London wilderness. My thanks are as sincere as they are belated.

The second half of the module is probably best forgotten. Learning, whether in a traditional classroom or in an online MBA, only happens if the environment is right. In this case it wasn’t. We suffered. We struggled. The Dean got involved. We spent more time in Skype conference chats than composing our weekly discussion contributions. Have you ever been in a Skype online chat with more than six upset people? It’s a messy affair. In the end, we got there. To celebrate, somebody changed the topic of the Skype chat to something like “Going for a walk in the park and feeding ducks in Russia”.

Mind you, good things came out of it, too – we got to know each other much better, helped each other out, and spend a lot more time talking to each other and just “hanging out” (albeit it virtually).

Luckily, the new module appears to have started off on a far more optimistic note. Engagement is high, discussion quality is very good and, as a result, useful arguments develop, which provide us with new ideas and knowledge outside the pages of the textbook. Let’s see where the path leads us…