MSc International Tourism Management

This module provides students with an insight into this dynamic and fast-growing industry and its ecosystem. The module examines the influence of business environment, investigates roles of each stakeholder in the tourism value chain system, analyses characteristics of each sector/business and explores the function of management within the tourism industry. The module highlights the impacts of the tourism industry on the physical environment, society and economy using real world case studies.

Services industries are a driving force of value creation, and nowadays nearly every product incorporates a service component; as such, service businesses are increasingly dominant forces in the global economy. Services are intangible, produced and consumed simultaneously, cannot be stored, and are difficult to standardise, creating distinctive managerial and marketing challenges. This module focuses on services marketing and is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the challenges service organisations face due to service characteristics, consumer behaviour, and a dynamic and increasingly complex global environment. It introduces the core principles of services marketing and consumer behaviour within the context of service characteristics, while integrating examples from the different fields of study represented on the programme, such as events, tourism and hospitality. Students will apply relevant theories and models to analyse and interpret real-world examples from their respective sectors, learning how to use established frameworks from the academic literature to critically evaluate marketing practices and to develop practical, evidence-based recommendations that can be applied in professional contexts beyond the module. In doing so, students engage with a broad range of marketing topics, enabling them to appreciate both the complexity of services marketing and the strategic tools available to manage and enhance the service experience.

This module is designed to provide students with an understanding of how tourism and hospitality operations function systematically. The systems approach adopted will enable students to critically analyze the interrelationships between systems theory, systems design and systems analysis in tourism and hospitality businesses. This approach will facilitate a critical appraisal of the effectiveness of operational types and an evaluation of the potential for improvement, including sustainability related improvements. For those students with a background in tourism and hospitality, this module will provide a sufficiently distinct approach for them to gain new insights while offering students without any prior knowledge a framework to facilitate their understanding of new material

The Research Methods module aims to help students to develop an understanding of the research process and prepare students to undertake research leading to successful completion of their dissertation. It enables students to conduct research independently and also provides them with the knowledge, skills and understanding required to develop their proposal for their dissertation. Students are required to identify an area of research and develop research questions to be answered or hypotheses to be tested in the industry context relevant to their course of study. The module covers ideas, techniques, and methods relevant to different stages of the research process, stressing the interdependence of each stage in conducting effective, coherent and rigorous research. The module also introduces students to the ethical and responsible use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to support aspects of the research process in a transparent and academically appropriate manner.

This module is intended to explore the principles and concepts of tourism from the perspective of social science theories. The module covers a range of social science disciplines with a view to developing students’ multi-disciplinary social science approach to understanding the significance and role of tourism in contemporary society.

This module aims to develop students' ability to explore and evaluate concepts and applications of strategy and innovation in tourism management and operations. It aims to explore strategic innovation as a dimension of the overall strategic management of a firm/destination where innovation is embedded in comprehensive attempts to maintain competitiveness. It is designed to explore real world case studies of innovation as a strategic approach applied by organisations and policymakers at global, national and destination levels and at different managerial and strategic climates. The module will equip students with the critical skills to evaluate the successful/unsuccessful implementation of tourism strategy and innovation.

This module introduces students to the study of ethics and applies this to tourism, transport, hospitality and events. Within the last decade significant attention has been paid to the issue of ethics and sustainability in these industries. Issues such as: corporate social responsibility, global reporting, ethical consumption, to name but a few, are becoming increasingly central to business practice. This module will offer students the opportunity to reflect upon their own understanding of ethics and corporate responsibility. It will introduce them to a range of theoretical approaches to understanding ethics and ethical responses to business situations, as well as provide the opportunity for in-depth reflection and critique on ‘real life’ scenarios. In so doing, this module adopts the University's curriculum framework, which aims to develop learners with strong Global and Cultural capabilities, Sustainability, Resourcefulness and Resilience while enhancing their Employability and Digital capabilities.

Managers in the service industry need to be able to measure and analyse the financial, social and environmental performance of the business to underpin decisions in the management and investment setting. In this module, students will learn how to critically evaluate financial information and data available in annual reports, financial analysts’ reports and other relevant sources. Using the principles and practices of financial analysis offered in this module, professionals in the service industry will be able to continuously optimise their firm's performance and enhance the profitability of investment decisions.

Visitor attractions are a key element of the tourist experience and a major element of a tourist destination. This module explores types of visitor attractions, identifying key attributes of each type and the management of visitor attractions worldwide using extensive real-world case studies. This module also investigates the functional management of visitor attractions, managing impacts of visitor attraction management on local environment, society and economy and taking into consideration ethical issues in visitor attraction management and risk management and the application of technology and innovation in visitor attraction management.

Sustainability has become a major issue in contemporary service operations, including in the hospitality, tourism, transport, events, and related sectors. However, managers do not necessarily understand the specific aspects of sustainability which their business has an impact upon or is impacted by. Further, managers are not always familiar with the tools of sustainability assessment and have limited comprehension of how a robust sustainability audit can aid in reducing operational costs, improving corporate image, and increasing customer patronage. This module will introduce students into the array of sustainability-related issues that a business in hospitality, tourism, transport, or events may face and explain how these issues can be identified and assessed. The module will provide students with an opportunity to undertake a sustainability audit of a business and reflect upon the challenges of such audit's undertaking.

This module aims to provide you with a number of service design techniques and models by which current and cutting-edge digital technologies can be designed into existing and new service journeys, therefore delivering service innovation through design and technology to create business value. You will be exposed to research-informed, practice-relevant teaching and a series of innovative design workshops using emerging service science and service logic thinking to help develop innovative digital solutions or improve current ones to address current managerial and sustainability issues.

Corporations, governments, entrepreneurs, and various organisations around the world are using data to extract patterns and generate insights to support strategic decision-making and create innovative solutions to business problems. This module will equip you with the fundamental concepts and tools needed to understand the emerging role of visual analytics in service organisations, will show you how to use a leading business intelligence platform -Tableau-, and will inform you how to best communicate your data with industry professionals for making better business decisions. Emphasis will be placed on applications, concepts, visualisation, interpretation, and communication of results, rather than theory and calculations.

The dissertation is optional for all MSc programmes and is the final element of the programme, providing an opportunity for a sustained period of independent study and research. It allows students to concentrate on topics that are of particular interest to them and it draws upon a range of different aspects of the taught programme particularly the Research Methods module (MANM386). Students can build upon their knowledge and topics learnt from programme-specific modules studies in semester 1 to develop and define their research idea and questions. It also gives an opportunity for students to work independently with an individual supervisor. There are two forms of dissertations: An academic dissertation. This form of dissertation follows the standard academic pattern of identifying a topic arising from a gap in the literature and developing a methodology to explore this area in-depth. A business or applied dissertation. This form of dissertation starts with an emerging business problem, either provided by an industrial partner or with their co-operation in the process, and seeks to provide a research-based solution to or exploration of the problem. All forms of the dissertation seek to develop the same learning outcomes and follow the same assessment criteria. In some cases, taught modules, in addition to Research Methods, may be pre-requisites of taking a particular form of dissertation so that students are adequately prepared.

Students will have the opportunity to learn about the different approaches that aim to answer the question: how do I plan, assess and implement a new business venture? Business plans are essential not just for the successful implementation of start-up ventures, but also for continued business growth, including strategic competitiveness. A good business plan underpins business success on all levels and becomes a major guideline to sound management practices. All students will find much value in the business principles inherent to the planning process, which will lead to an enhanced commercial understanding. This module's content and outcomes build solidly upon undergraduate business-related courses from level 4, 5 and 6, as well as any accumulated business experience. Proper use of AI- and digital tools, together with technology where appropriate, are encouraged to complement the students' understanding in the business planning process. It doesn't just reiterate much of the theory previously learnt, but also applies it in a create and innovate way to emphasise creative business development, profitability, growth, and sustainability. It holistically addresses preferred business outcomes and brings all its components together. This module is also designed to give students an entrepreneurial- and industry-focused alternative to the traditional academic dissertation.