The aim of this product-based thesis is to discover how to create a 2-part travel-themed podcast series. The objectives are exploring theory related to podcasting, experience economy, storytelling and how podcasting affects the tourism industry as well as learning to use needed technology, devices, and platforms to create podcast episodes and share them online.

The theoretical framework is based on three main themes which are podcasting, experience economy and storytelling. The first main theme about podcasting presents the history of podcasts, how a podcast should be structured, podcast as a marketing tool as well as podcasts in tourism. The second topic, experience economy, is considered to work as an operational environment for podcasts. The third theme, storytelling in podcasts, as well as the science behind and its core ingredients, are explored in depth.

The thesis is a product-based thesis. The process of creating a podcast is discussed thoroughly. The process includes background research, planning, executing and finally reflecting on the learning process of the created product. The background research involved listening to various podcasts, as well as participating on a course for creating a podcast. Execution was mainly about putting together the theory researched and learnt skills from the podcast course.

During the research process, other podcasters were benchmarked for the purpose of determining what brings value to the listener and which aspects should be added to the podcast to create interesting and valuable content. This helped me to improve the quality of my podcast. Videos created by ‘’Pod Sound School’’ on YouTube gave applicable tips for how to start the podcast and what steps needed to be taken to make it successful. The title for the podcast series is ‘’Travel Stories From China’’ the first episode is called ‘’Hospitalized In The Mountains’’ and the second episode is called “Freaked Out By The Surveillance Cameras’’.

In conclusion, the thesis process revealed that the creation of a podcast takes a lot of dedication and time. Accordingly, numerous new skills had to be adopted in a short period of time; however, this was exciting as well as overwhelming from time to time. The theory supported the project, and it was easy to adapt to the product while creating the podcast.