DERTOUR Innovation Pitch: Congratulations to the winning teams!

Students from the Master's programmes in Digital and International Marketing and People Management presented innovative concepts for the travel industry as part of the "Innovation and Change Management" module.

Working in teams, they applied Design Thinking methods, developed tangible prototypes and created change management approaches for implementing their ideas at DERTOUR one of the leading European tourism company. All teams worked hard for the entire summer semester to create innovative ideas and to recommend a strong implementation strategy to DERTOUR. Although two teams won the final pitch, all other teams impressed our project sponsor so strongly that they were jointly awarded second place as runners-up.

The following two teams particularly impressed the jury with the creativity, practical relevance and persuasiveness of their concepts:

MyDERTOUR Journey

Monika Behrami, Yasmine Kassem, Hannah Köhler, Sana Paria Shahabi and Adristi Alfa Talita

DERTOUR Match

Nadja Breyer, Maike Larché, Rebecca Leskow, Priyanka Malhotra, Ali Soleimanpour, Bruno Steup and Xheneta Sufa

Congratulations to all members of both teams on this outstanding achievement! You successfully demonstrated how academic knowledge, teamwork and creativity can be transformed into innovative ideas with direct practical value.

A sincere thank-you to my fellow jury members Uta Martens, Tim Tilhard, Anna Kliewer, Anne Dächer, Marcel-Sinan Altinkum and my colleague Prof. Dr. Raphaël Johannknecht for contributing their expertise, time and constructive feedback. It was a pleasure serving on the jury with you.

The collaboration with DERTOUR provided a perfect opportunity to transfer classroom concepts to real-world challenges.

Prof. Dr. Jan Freidank