MIND THE GAP: 3-day London Excursion of Turistica

Saturday, 11.1.2014

For us, students, it all starts in the classroom… the difference is how and where it ends. This time, fortunately for us and thanks to our assistant Mr. Miha Lesjak who organized the presentations, it actually ended up in London, one of the biggest metropolitan cities in Europe, where we were experiencing the inner view into some parts of one of the biggest and most successful tourism markets in the world.

The walls of “the new classroom” were getting bigger, higher and wider every day as we kept meeting highly experienced and professional people from London tourism business world. They presented a great example of a high level of hospitality in tourism with their professional yet personal approach towards us as a group of students from Slovenia. 

Our schedule throughout the excursion was quite full but we still had enough time left for ourselves to widen the perspectives in a different way by meeting different people, tasting various food and enjoying a pine or two.

Marcus Dickey Horley explaining about the extension of Tate Modern 

Saturday was the last day of our excursion. In the morning, we gathered in front of the Tate Modern. We almost came late as we first went to Tate Britain by mistake. Mornings weren't our strongest point so I guess we just went to the nearest Tate we saw on the map. There are actually four Tate galleries in the whole Great Britain; Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St. Ives, two of them situated in London. In the gallery, we were welcomed by Tate Modern’s Access Projects Curator Marcus Dickey Horley, who took us on a tour through the gallery. He focused on the managerial point of the attraction rather than on the works exhibited which gave us a view into practical activities used by their management.

After Tate Modern we went to the City Hall where we’ve met up with Barbara Jamison, Head of Business Development Europe at London&Partners (London Convention Bureau), which is the official promotional organization for London and combines business, tourism and education. She was part of the organization team of the 2012 Summer Olympic games held in London which were the main focus of the presentation and our debate. We could see another perspective of the Olympics and their purposes if they are held, prepared and organized properly. In this aspect they really did an amazing job by focusing multi annual development of business, events and housing on world’s biggest sporting event.

In conclusion, experiencing London through educational point of view gives you a different perspective of its functionality than if coming only for entertainment purposes. We took a glance at its tourism functioning that can provide us comparison with significantly smaller tourism market that is Slovenian. From the standpoint of our potential resources I realized we only need to seek comparison in the field of hospitality and level of professionalism to improve our global tourism position. Minding the gap on the underground also encouraged us to mind the gap between being an engaged tourism student, being an uncritical tourist and being a professional tourism manager. 

Our group in front of the Tower Bridge 

Neža Cerar

SAY DORCHESTER, SAY SHARD, SAY CHEESE ...

Where the word BORING can not be found in the dictionary, London, of course, is the place to be! That is where we were for the past two days. And today`s first attraction we visited, was the Dorchester hotel, to which we walked from our Phoenix hostel through the beautiful Hyde park. 

Well, Dorchester, there is a lot to say about it. It is one of ten hotels in Dorchester collection, which is superbly located in the centre of town overlooking Hyde Park. It is the favourite choice of celebrities, world leaders, royalty and high society. Their well organized system offers guests the highest service quality and makes their stay there unforgetable. We were extremely lucky, because they introduced us the whole background system they have, and we also had the chance to see the luxury rooms and interior.

In front of the Dorchester hotel

Inspiring change that makes London even more fashionable, trendy and exclusive is The Shard which in the opinion of Irvine Sellar redefined London's skyline and became a symbol for capital recognisable throughout the world. Now it offers the fantastic view of the entire city centre. In the future there will be restaurants, hotel, bureaus and apartments. Someone once said: »I am leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it is not raining.« View form the Shard depends on weather which in London is quite unstable, but in the time of our visit we were kind of blessed with sun.

The Shard

The view from Shard

So the Shard was the last guided attraction for today. And for the rest of the day, we were discovering London on our own. After we filled ourselves up with London's fast food, some of us went to see the Wembley stadium which, unfortunately, was already closed, but it still amazed us with it's amazing exterior and size.

But our list of attractions still wasn't fully checked, so we of course had to see the famous Big Ben and London Eye, with all the shiny lights around them. Then we took a night walk over the Waterloo bridge to the Trafalgar square.

The tours exhausted as so much that we decided to go to Francesca (a restaurant) for a cup of coffee, that woke us up a little.

And, of course, for the perfect end of the day, we could not miss the experience of London pubs. So we went to Globe pub, where we afforded a well-deserved delicious beer.

But exhaustion has quickly beaten us up so we returned to a hostel, took a shower and fall asleep under the warm blankets. After all, another »getting up early« was quickly approaching.

B-bye :)

Živa Pečar and Iris Hribar

Why does Brane Kastelic feel good in London?

“Iz Londona, za 24 ur, Brane Kastelic...”

(“From London for 24 ur show, Brane Kastelic...”)

... and this goes on for many years now! Why, Brane?

We asked ourselves this question when we, as ambitious tourism students, took of from the Italian airport (unfortunately not from Slovenian due to lack of international air-lines with other countries). What is holding Brane in London for so long? Whether it's Big Ben, the Buckingham Palace, London Eye or maybe the tense matches of England's Premier League ?

If we think about the most of Brane's reports in the Slovenian media we firstly get to his “extensive and informative” articles about the Royal Family, Adele, Paul McCartney, Susan Boyle... Yes, London is the city of glamour and entertainment. Our experience on the first day of our visit of London was exactly like this. On the brief visit of the Leicester Square we came across a pompous premiere of the film The Wolf of Wall Street where a large crowd had the opportunity to meet Leonardo Di Caprio and all the other creators of this notable film. Such events take place in London very often, which makes the city much different from the environment where we live (Slovenia) and where otherwise for more time used to live Brane Kastelic. 

Metropolis of London (yes, it is really huuuge) because of this enjoys the reputation of the place where something is always happening. During our exploring, we came to a metaphor that says London is like a giant amusement park, where visitors wander from attraction to attraction to enjoy and have fun. It can certainly be attributed one of the top tourist destinations. In general, the city breathes with tourism what tourist can notice at every step. Information boards, markings, helpful officials (all with pure excellency of English language :)) and the set of tourist attractions which are every year updated. People responsible for the development of tourism in London, are ensuring that the tourists will return.

Although London has more than 8 million inhabitants, we hope, that in the coming days, we somewhere meet Brane Kastelic to be able to confirm or rule out (or partially confirm) our hypothesis.

“Iz Londona, za Turistico, Anamarija Jukic, Sasa Levstik in Luka Gregoric (UNI 3).”
(“From London to Turistica, Anamarija Jukic, Sasa Levstik and Luka Gregoric ( UNI 3 ).”)

That's why we felt good in London:

(All photos are taken by Sasa Levstik)

Beyond the secrets of London

A day couldn't start any better as it did. With a morning breakfast and coffee we felt refreshed and ready to start our third day. After a short trip in the underground, we arrived to the Tate Britain museum. But we have also realised it was the wrong one (we were supposed to meet in Tate modern, which is located on the other side of the city). We went back to Waterloo station by the river Themes. It was quite a walk, because our group was already 25 minutes late. Nothing was going according to the plan and as if that wasn't enough we got stuck on a pedestrian zone because of construction work.

Finally we've arrived at Tate modern, where the rest of our group was waiting for us. Mr Marcus was our guide through the gallery. We had gathered a lot of information about Tate Modern, which is the largest modern art gallery in Europe. The entrance is free, that is why it is the second largest free visitor's attraction in London (by the number of visitors). Artworks are situated in former power plant factory and in my opinion it is one of the ugliest building in central London. Although the building was designed to host maximum of 2 million visitors per year, 5 million is actually visiting. You can imagine it is very crowded and that is why the new part is being built for next year’s season. There is also a membership club for donators. It is one of the largest one in Europe. They have more than 100 000 members and each of them gets different perks. Club membership costs about 90 euros. The visit concluded with a gift to our guest. He got our traditional salt from Sečovlje and he looked very impressed.

Our journey continued near mayor's office. Our schedule was to visit organisation called London and partner, which is financed by the government and private partners. We were welcomed by Barbara Jamison, the Head of Business Development Europe in Convention Bureau. Olympic Games was the main subject of our meeting, London as a tourist destination had to plan the Olympic park so that it would be long-term sustainable, especially for the local population. Slovenia’s promotion was one of the topics in our meeting. We are “the secret gem” in the eyes of British partners and especially British tourists.

The fun started in the evening. We had our own version of “pub crawling”. A visit to Porterhouse was a right decision. They have so many different beer we almost couldn't decide which one we should take. We’ve tried Guinness, Foster’s and a special Cabbies ginger beer, which has a sweet and spicy flavour. We have also visited Globe pub on Baker Street but our journey ended in a pub of our hostel. After a few pints, we went to bed.

Filip Matjaž, Pia Strahovnik and Santin Sodin

London, 11.1.2014

Rocking on 300 meters

We startet our journey in London on thursday evening after exausting flight very tastefully in one of Jamie Olivers restaurants. You probably all know him, especially his lovely healthy dishes. If you dont know him, he is one of most known and successful chefs in the world who has five restaurants in London. We went to his famous Fifteen restaurant in central London, where we had the opportunity to taste his extraodinary dishes, with one eye closed looking at the prices, it was delicious and worth of every penny.

And the next day, on friday, the 10th of january was the first official day of our Mind the gap excursion. We had two guided tours of Londons attractions. Those were the mainstream five star Dorchester hotel and The Shard, which is the Europe tallest building, that opened last year and has the best view you could imagine.

Lets start slowly, at the beginning...Sleeping in different hostels we all met at the Achilles statue at the corner of Hyde park, known for its size and beauty. It is also situated next to the Dorchester hotel, whre we were warmly welcomed by the ambassador who took us on lovely tour throuought the hotel. By that we mean everything, from kitchen up to their restaurant, by which one has three michellin stars. One one more restaurant has it. We also saw three rooms, where we noticed the luxury that they offer. That is not surprising, because prices rate from 500£ up to 25.000 £ per night. Their services are produced by almost 1300 employees with perfect hospitallity knowledge. Our guide from Hungary was very nice and really knew what she was talking about. Everyone can be at my position in a few years. Ass tourism students that really gave us the motivation.

After our breathtaking experience at the hotel we contiuned our trip in The Shard, ass we sad the tallest building in Western Europe. At the highest point we were 400 meters above ground. Luckuly we had great weather and could saw the view that ranged tens of kilometres away. 

Aproximatelly at two o clock our ways separated and we decided to visit one off biggest markets in London, but unfortunatelly is is open only on weekends. So then our main goal was to find the food. With our bellys full and a lot of time left we went to the Wembley stadion and do a bit of shopping on famous meka of fashion, Oxford street.

Still not satisfied with our attraction discovery we went to the Big Ben, the best part of parliament, right next to river Themes and the walk by London eye on the other side. We were very sad that it was not functioning.The the walk led us to the Picadilly area, which is like Las Vegas of London, the area that never sleps. The are many casions, musicals, cinemas and M&M s world. We all know those delicious chocolate candies. 

Still not tired, the evening led us to one off pubs, next to our hostel,where we celebrated our successful exploring day.

We started our journey very well, with a bit of rain, and we really look forwars seeing what is waiting for us in day that are coming.

Greetings to Slovenia!! :)

Pia Strahovnik, Filip Matjaz, Santin Sodin

London, 10.1.2013

Our first step over the gap

"Bibip bibip bibip".....8 in the morning! When we all got up, got dressed and washed our half closed eyes, we went to eat breakfast. About 9 we got outside hostel, bought our Oyester card and jumped on the bus to Victoria station. Once we got there, we went towards Buckingham palace. Standing in front of the palace, a nice man came out of nowhere and told us details about the Switch of the guards. We decided to wait half an hour and meanwhile look at some handsome policeman on horses. Around 11 the ``old guard`` (as we named them) came with the band, entering the side gate to the palace. Some minutes later, the ``new guard`` and their band came and entered the principal gate to the palace. we decided to go to see Big Ben. we were kind of lost and a nice priest helped us on our way. When we got there, we saw beautiful Big Ben and on the bridge we were looking for a perfect place to take some pictures. eventually we found it, but Tjasa was more interested in street lights. 

She also managed to take some pictures of non-working London eye. While we were walking towards Picadilly circus, we accidentally bumped into Sherlock Holmes - the restaurant of course! * We were surprised that on the menu vegetarian dishes and dishes that contained bones were specially marked. On Trafalgar square we were greeted by a huge blue cock, but Tjasa found lions far more charming.

While searching for Picadilly circus, Mateja was guided by the red Chinese lanterns. Eventually we found what we were looking for - Picadilly. we took a lot of pictures with interesting people and cars. Next stop was the Ripley, where we saw ``weird Bobby`` and Tjasa and Katja soon connected with him and became BBF and took some selfies.

After all tthe photoshooting we needed a break so we went to Starbucks. We were happy to drink some coffie, but Mateja and Katja weren`t impressed, while Tjasa and Vera were very satisfied with their black coffie. Filled with caffeine and energy we went shopping. Let`s just say that we did a shopping marathon and did our best to spend the money. It was a difficult job, so there aren`t any pictures of that time. Eventually we the caffeine stopped working and started to look like shopohillic zombies and went to hostel. Good night! :)

Mateja, Vera & Tjasa