2 credit bus trip to the American South
Come with us on a bus as we tour the BMW and Nissan factories in the American South, along with other notable attractions such as the Grand Ol Oe Opry, Hendrick Motorsports complex, and the Country Music Hall of Fame. You'll have your nights free to explore the classic American cities of Charlotte and Nashville.
The theme of the trip is below:
"Inward Foreign Direct Investment: Made in the American South experience"
The central theme of this trip is America’s global intercultural influence, and a core outcome is to learn about how that phenomenon has attracted international industry investment and consumer spending from all around the world. We will tour various organizations which are the products of many years of successful international outreach of quintessentially American concepts, products, processes, or cultural attributes that originated in the United States, were embraced domestically, and ultimately became attractive globally.
America’s inward foreign direct investment is appealing to global industrialists in part due to laws and policies that give power to consumers, whether those consumers be domestic or global. America offers a distinct culture and influence to successfully attract global consumers. Truly, America sells its culture to a global market, raising not only our economic status but potentially more importantly our cultural status. The jobs that are associated with these industries have been negatively affected by the global pandemic. However, internationally-owned companies have withstood the pandemic better than most. This trip will focus on organizations which successfully appeal to the global consumer and/or the international industrialist. For instance, America’s “Music City”, Nashville, Tennessee, is thriving in part because of its massive appeal to international tourists. In addition, a Nissan factory is located there due to Nashville’s proximity to American supply chains and access to a skilled tech-savvy workforce.
The trip includes tours of a German-owned BMW factory in South Carolina that employs about 11,000 workers and manufactures more than 450,000 vehicles annually and a Japanese-owned Nissan factory in Nashville that employs about 8,000 workers and manufactures more than 600,000 vehicles annually. Beyond the factory tours, aspects of this trip that align with the central theme (included in the itinerary and price) include visits to the Grand Ole Opry, Belle Meade Plantation, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Hendrick Motorsports Complex as well as a General Jackson showboat tour.
The over-arching theme of America’s global intercultural influence will be reflected in the tours/excursions and curriculum related to American-made manufactured exports, America’s inward foreign direct investment, and economic injections via visits by international citizens (i.e., selling our culture to tourists, as in the Grand Ole Opry). America’s global intercultural influence ?is advanced by not only the quality of our exports but also what we attract into the country via inward foreign direct investment; it truly ?advances our own domestic economy as well as promoting and advancing our cultural values.
Contact Information:
Jim Tanoos
jtanoos@purdue.edu
317 989 7726
