David Pyke's Blog

USD business students (from left): Ryan Frary (Finance), Ashley Thomas (International Business), Jeffrey Johnson (Finance), Carlos Pelli (President of AAETAV), and Sean Yoshikawa (International Business)

You might want to put Argentina on your list of upcoming vacation destinations. USD School of Business undergraduate students completed a consulting project in Buenos Aires during the January intersession. This photo shows the students meeting with Carlos Pelli, President of AAETAV (Argentine Association of Adventure and Eco-Tourism), discussing their project of designing strategies to advance ecotourism in Argentina.

The student consultants were charged with designing the vision, strategies, objectives and operational activities to organize the first “2014 International Tourism Fair” in Argentina.  Tourism has become very important in terms of economic activity in this country. The Argentine provinces incorporate tourism in order to design and implement public policy regarding social inclusion, employment generation and socially and ecologically responsible wealth creation. Currently, in Argentina there is a need to enrich and enhance these provincial tourism activities.

The deliverables of the student consultants were to focus on how to propel Argentina into the competitive space for a destination of adventure tourism through the hosting of a major “International Tourism Fair.”  This included a benchmarking analysis, identification of potential buyers of the Argentina offer and ways to contact and persuade them to buy Argentina, as well as a business plan.

This project is one of the many success stories I’ve been hearing about since the undergraduate and graduate students returned from their intersession projects in many countries around the world. I’m excited about the many ways that the teamwork, presentations to upper management and real-world business experience prepare our students well for their careers after graduation.