Besides the Old Town which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, Lübeck has a number of sights to offer. There are several churches to be discovered, which give the city the title ‘City of the Seven Spires’. Furthermore, there are not only a great deal of interesting buildings such as the Town Hall and the Holsten Gate but also various museums that can be explored in the city of Brick Gothic architecture. Moreover, Lübeck also provides culinary delights - in fact, the triumphal procession of marzipan around the world originated in Lübeck.
Since the Coronavirus has not only prevented our physical study week to Lübeck, but also had a strong impact on the entire tourism industry, we decided to base our research question on the Coronavirus. We concentrated on questions such as to what extent various tourism companies in Lübeck are affected by the Coronavirus, how they are dealing with the crisis, what measures have been taken, how the marketing departments are dealing with the changed conditions and which conclusions and considerations were drawn by the interviewed companies with regard to the emergency situation caused by the Coronavirus.
Conducting the study week virtually had its challenges. Holding a meeting online is a different experience, since the counterpart is not physically present. This meant, that during the conversation, the interaction was completely different, as important aspects such as body language or personal contact were missing. Despite the advanced technology we have today, problems occurred at times that we could not have an influence on.
But there were also advantages of holding the study week online, such as the increased efficiency and timesaving of process of the meetings, as no travel time had to be calculated. Even though we did not visit Lübeck personally, the study week gave us a chance to learn about the city and get an interesting insight into various organisations within tourism. We all fell in love with the city of Brick Gothic architecture and therefore, we are definitely planning on going to Lübeck one day.
We are very thankful that all our business partners took the time to show us how they experienced the crisis, since we understand that this time was not easy for them.
Robin Trochsler
Robin studies in the Bachelor's Degree Programme in Tourism at the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons.
During the project ‘Study Week’, which takes place during the fourth semester in the module ‘Project Management: Practice’, Robin was responsible for the group’s marketing and communication.