An International Opportunity: 11 Students Spend 10 Days in London and Paris
For 10 days, Dr. Joseph Scarcelli and 11 students explored the rich sports history and culture of London, England, and Paris, France.
Elizabeth “Liz” Kerin ’27, a double major in Sport Management and Human Resource Management, vividly remembers her visit to Wembley Stadium in London, England. As she and her classmates marveled at the many walls containing photos of athletes and musical guests who played and performed at the stadium, the group found themselves in a tunnel.
The students were instructed to line up, and as they walked out of the tunnel and onto Wembley Stadium’s field, they were met with the roaring cheers and thundering applause of thousands of simulated fans. For a short time, Liz and her classmates got to experience what professional athletes did before they played a game.
It was an unforgettable moment. Throughout the next week and a half, the students would experience many more while traveling abroad in Europe.
A Chance at Sports and Culture
Every other year, the International Sport and Entertainment course is offered to students of all grades and majors. On a 10-day study abroad trip, the students can visit famous landmarks, experience unique food and culture, and learn how cultural differences affect how countries handle the sports and entertainment industries.
“The goal of the class is for students to develop cross-cultural competencies and start to consider their industry and career from a global perspective,” said Dr. Joseph Scarcelli, Chair of the Department of Sport, Tourism, and Hospitality Management and Associate Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management. He led the class and trip this year as well as the International Cuisine and Culture course that alternates with this trip every year.
The class and study abroad help students analyze cultural differences with each other, ultimately challenging them to reflect on how culture impacts them personally and professionally. They would focus on management and governance practices, sales and marketing strategies, and fan and attendee behaviors.
This year, Dr. Joseph Scarcelli escorted 11 students on the trip, which included five days in London, England, and five days in Paris, France, during their 2025 Spring Semester.
Information about the class and trip was shared through emails and information sessions Dr. Scarcelli held in the 2024 Fall Semester. Samantha “Sammy” Villa-Lobos, ’26, a Hospitality and Tourism Management major, was one of many students who attended the sessions and saw the trip as an opportunity to learn about other cultures while exploring more of the world.
“I’ve never been out of the country before, and I have never been away from home for longer than 10 days by myself, so that was one of the really big appeals for me,” Sammy said. “Also, getting the chance to expand my knowledge more into the sports world, because I am a Hospitality major and I don’t play any sports, was also interesting to me.”
A Time to Travel
During their travels, the students, many of whom majored in Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management, visited historic landmarks and experienced life in Europe. They also had the chance to learn about how entertainment and sport management/tourism were handled in other cultures.
Wembley Stadium, located in London, left a lasting impression on many of the students. Not only is it the home of the English national team, but it also serves as an iconic concert venue for many musical performers. The students toured the building and learned about the people invited to come and each of their guests’ photos displayed on their walls.
They also explored Lord’s Cricket Ground, a historic cricket venue in London that has remained untouched due to being a historic landmark.
“It’s covered by historic building laws, so they aren’t actually able to make that many renovations,” Liz said. “So it’s still very much true to what it was many years ago when it first started.”
Caraline Junkin ’26, a Hospitality and Tourism Management major, loved visiting Roland Garros, home to the French Open Tennis and the only venue in France with clay tennis courts. As a tennis player, she enjoyed the different venues the group visited and saw how other cultures impacted sports.
“One of the reasons I wanted to take the trip is because I’m on the tennis team,” Caraline said, “so I grew up playing a lot of sports, and I’ve always loved it.”
The students visited many other sites on their itinerary and places they chose to visit in their free time. These included Montmartre, an impressionist artist neighborhood in Paris, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Grosbois Estate for horse training, and the Eiffel Tower. They were even allowed to see where the Paris 2024 Olympic Village had been set up, where they learned the strategy behind its building so it could be easily deconstructed afterward to support the Olympics’ sustainability goal.
“Getting to know [the other students] while also getting to know a new place is a really great experience,” Sammy said.
“It was really nice because [we] had certain things that were on our itinerary, so things that were planned, but we also had free time so we could explore the cities as well,” Caraline said. “It was another great experience in something I can take back with me. It was only my second time out of the country, so for me, I feel like I always learn something new in traveling.”
Learning While Abroad
While the students were visiting many different landmarks, they were also learning about other cultures as well.
In the five weeks leading up to their traveling in Europe, Dr. Scarcelli held classes so students could understand the course’s purpose more clearly - to better understand cross-cultural management in the sport and entertainment industries.
“Students not only need to learn about cultural differences and the influence those have on particular industries; they need to experience them firsthand to gain a more thorough understanding of the unique opportunities for personal and professional growth that exist when you engage with and immerse yourself in other cultures,” Dr. Scarcelli said.
Along with learning about the historical context of the venues and locations they visited, the students also attended lectures about different topics, ranging from exploring how cultures define us to how sports have changed over time due to rule changes in sport media to how sport management can affect a country’s economy.
Ultimately, all this was to build up to the students picking a research topic they would learn more about while on their trip abroad. The topics could be about anything the students wanted, but they had to focus on sports and something related to their interests.
Ben Solomon ’28, a Sport Management major and Human Resources minor, did his research on comparing stadiums in Europe to those in the United States. A baseball player interested in sports business and operations, Ben wanted to take a closer look at factors such as how its citizens perceive stadiums, what taxing to build them is like, and why they are built in specific locations.
“Wembley is a multi-use stadium and has a lot of historical background, so I was thinking about comparing Wembley to other stadiums over here,” Ben said. “All of it coming together, the uniqueness of every single facility and stadium we were in, really made a difference for me.”
Liz decided to focus on how women’s participation in sports has changed over the years. As a female athlete considering sports operations and event planning, Liz wanted to examine how women have become involved in sports and how culture has affected their perception of it.
“My project is all about women in sport and how religion, psychology, tradition, all of that can play a role and how women see their opportunities in sport, both from a very young age all the way up to professional athletes and even in the professional workplace as well,” Liz said.
“At the Horse Training Center, I was talking to one of the representatives that was helping us, and she mentioned that the center itself has a more predominant female driver population over male, [but] the vast majority of paid drivers and rider jockeys on the circuit is still very predominantly male and is still very focused on the tradition of that side of things as well. So learning about that stuff definitely stood out to me as far as my project goes.”
In the last week of March, the students had the opportunity to present their capstone projects to the entire class, showing their hard work and everything they had learned since the beginning of the semester.
Lasting Impact
Overall, the students had an incredibly positive experience going to London and Paris. For some, this was their first time traveling abroad, while others were excited about visiting historic sites and their favorite sports.
“It’s just such a cool experience to see a different part of the world than I ever had before,” Liz said. “It’s built up my adventurous spirit a little bit more and makes me want to keep traveling and experiencing those things. And I got a ton out of it, both as a student and as a person.”
“I feel like there’s so much you can learn from traveling and viewing how people do things differently,” Caraline said. “I feel like here, we’re constantly 'go, go go,’ and in other countries, it’s more laid back, and they’re more relaxed. It’s also really nice to see that and compare and bring stuff back.”
Many students highlighted that one of their favorite parts of the experience was forging close friendships. They even compiled a “Quote Book” with funny sayings and inside jokes they developed during their classes and while abroad.
“It was educational but fun at the same time,” Ben said. “It was hanging out with all of your Sport Management friends, and then we met a bunch of Hospitality Management friends that we ended up making. It was just, all in all, one of the greatest things I’ve ever done.”
Ben also shared that part of the reason the trip was such a success was the tour guide, Andy Lock, who accompanied the group for the entire duration of the trip.
“He was more than a tour guide; he stayed with us the whole entire trip,” Ben said. “He studied abroad when he was a student in France when he was a kid, and he knew how to work the trains in both London and France, and that helped us so much. Honestly, he couldn’t have been more of a presence, and we learned so much from him, between culturally or just being a translator at a site in France.”
Some students even saw the trip as a chance to either explore or solidify what they want to do for their future careers after college.
“I would definitely look into employment opportunities in Europe or overseas or somewhere not necessarily in the United States,” Sammy said. “I think it would be a great opportunity to get my foot in the door. Especially in hospitality, you’ll work with people from all around the world, especially if you’re working in high-travel hotspots. So I think it would be a great cultural opportunity to move abroad and also continue to learn more about different cultures, which will help strengthen service skills as well as customer service.”
