Eight Destinations, Three Rollouts, One 'Brilliant' TRIP - Lessons from the Tourism Regional Internship Program

Tourism destinations rely on collaboration from numerous stakeholders, including universities. A common arrangement between industry and tourism education providers is the 'internship'. This paper reflects on three iterations of the Tourism Regional Internship Program (TRIP), an initiative of the School of Tourism at The University of Queensland. TRIP aims to provide a 'destination immersion experience' for students to live, work and interact with the broader community in a regional tourism destination. Key developments of the program relate to the rise in the number of students, the spread across additional destinations, embedding the program in the professional development course, an increasing focus on the research project, and building the TRIP brand to engage destinations. It remains to be seen whether these changes improved or diminished the TRIP experience for the various stakeholders.