Approach and Cultural Stories

The main objective of the learning quest at Urbino is to create a valuable “real life” learning experience to engage the participant’s interests and skills and yield usable concepts and information for the city. The key participants are students who will develop a plan for leveraging the city’s potential to attract and host cultural tourists. In developing the promotional plan the students are asked to identify the city’s needs (Objective) their audience (Target), and the relevant key messages that most appeal to this audience (Positioning) as well as the most effective ways to convey them.

In order to acquire the necessary background knowledge, the students will carry out research on the city’s heritage and other interest points, Urbino’s UNESCO World Heritage status and the benefits/responsibilities this entails, the city’s capacity to welcome visitors, successful promotional activities of comparable cities, etc.

The larger group of students will be split into teams taking on the roles of three stakeholders or interest groups – the Citizens, the University and the Chamber of Commerce of Urbino. The goal is to negotiate interests and develop a single promotional plan that will address all – or most – of the city’s needs. Once the Objective, Target and Positioning are clearly defined, the students will form an advertising agency responsible for planning the rollout of the promotional campaign. In a final client presentation the results will be presented and discussed regarding which innovative suggestions are particularly convincing, and might eventually be implemented. The students’ results will be made accessible on the Web to inspire similar learning quests in other cultural heritage cities.

Link back to the Learning Quest Page