MSc in Tourism Management

This course covers motivation, involvement, team work, leadership, emotional intelligence, cultural awareness and change management in Tourism Organizations. Each session integrates classical and modern concepts, building on key theories with a rich array of contemporary real-world examples and cases from the Tourism sector.

This introductory course outlines the main principles of writing and presenting academic and business assignments. A series of activities are used to develop, extend and enhance analytical and synthetical writing and presentation skills. The course explains the importance of knowing one’s audience, purpose and subject of written assignment or presentation. The sequence of stages and steps in the process of writing and presenting effectively is analysed. Preparing and delivering techniques are discussed.

This course analyses the nature, structure and scope of the tourism and hospitality industry, and discusses how broader business environment influences and trends affect the management of tourism and hospitality organisations in key sectors, such as accommodation, transportation, tour operating, visitor attractions, etc. Focusing on the particularities of tourism as a product and the distinctive characteristics of tourism demand and supply, the course introduces key considerations, challenges and current practices in decision-making in contemporary tourism and hospitality management. The course is complemented with a three-day visit to Costa Navarino, during which students have the opportunity to gain practical knowledge on several aspects of hospitality management.

This course focuses on the unique aspects involved in the design and delivery of service operations. In Tourism and Hospitality the objective is to introduce students to the basic issues and main challenges that most successful service operations face today.  Students completing this course will acquire the tools to identify and apply appropriate management processes to ensure efficient, effective and quality oriented service operations.

This course is designed to provide students with a good command of the key elements of marketing management across tourism organizations. During this course students will be encouraged to develop an analytical perspective and a critical understanding of the marketing concepts, models, and tools as they are applied across tourism organizations. Through case studies and contemporary examples from the tourism industry, the practical relevance of marketing theories for tourism managers will be highlighted and students will be expected to apply the theoretical concepts discussed onto real-life marketing examples from the tourism industry.

This course aims to enhance business problem solving through the use of technological tools and data analytics. The discussion evolves around the importance of the customer journey and the significance of technology in designing a unique and customized customer experience. Participants will be exposed to real life case studies and experience hands-on workshops with leading executives of the Hospitality and IT market.

The classes conclude with Team-based presentations based on a given scenario aiming to create a real-life strategic plan based on the learning objectives set at the beginning of this course.

Hospitality and tourism is one of the industries that is most affected by digital development. Moreover, the travel industry stands as one of the first successful adopters of digital marketing. But as tech’s effect on travellers behavior continues to evolve, travel companies need to adopt and reshape the way they operate.
This course focuses on providing a general overview of the vast digital marketing ecosystems by presenting its main channels. The course analyses three channels (Channel #1 Website / Landing page architecture, Channel #2 Social media strategy, Channel #3 Social media campaigns) in more detail, in order to place students in a position to gain rich insights through case studies and real life scenarios.

For every channel, a practical workshop will be carried out, during which students will be asked to implement a specific deliverable, integrating information, concepts and models, discussed in class.

The objective of the course is to introduce students to a way of thinking and working on digital marketing projects as the constant change and development of the current and future platforms, solutions, applications requires this approach and handling.

This course aims to provide the knowledge and skills required for the understanding and use of financial and accounting information for decision-making.

Some of the topics covered during the course include: the meaning and role of accounting, branches of accounting, and users of accounting information, the accounting cycle, and the financial statements, ways of analyzing, interpreting and evaluating financial statements, the meaning and role of management accounting, branches of management accounting, costing terms and purposes, cost-volume-profit analysis, cost allocation, the Net Present Value and the Internal Rate of Return) and financing decisions.

Throughout the course emphasis is given on related issues in the hotel and tourism industry, with the use of relevant examples and case studies.

This course is an introduction to the theory, principles and practices of revenue management (RM) and how these can be particularly applied to the growing tourism industry. More specifically the course focuses on the application and evaluation of revenue management strategies and is intended for individuals with a specific interest in the tourism industry.

The course covers supply chain coordination, supplier selection, purchasing methodologies and contracting, material forecasting and safety stock, and design of services for supply chain efficiency. It also focuses on the best practices that lead to efficient, effective, and customer-responsive SCM processes that transform ideas into high quality services, delivered at competitive prices while simultaneously providing superior financial returns within environmental, ethical, and legal constraints.

The course provides an integrative framework for the whole program. It will explain basic planning principles of business strategy and the process through which strategic decisions are made in tourism organizations at both destination and organizational level. Students will become familiar with key strategy elements, such as how tourism organizations select the market, product, and areas in which they compete, how they position themselves in these areas, how they interact with their external environments, how they adjust to changes, and how they decide and implement structure and policies that enable them to achieve their overall goals. The role of the HR professionals in the process of corporate strategy formulation and implementation will also be outlined.

This course builds on the Introduction to Tourism Management course and delves more deeply into the positive and negative economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts that the tourism industry is responsible for. The course places particular emphasis on the inability to isolate the positive from the negative impacts of tourism, and therefore the necessity for identifying strategies for optimizing tourism’s impacts, i.e. maximizing the benefits while minimizing the costs. After defining key sustainability principles and potential challenges, as well as management tools and methods, the course will encourage students to reflect on the role, and responsibility, of various stakeholder groups in applying sustainability principles in practice in the tourism and hospitality industry.  The concepts covered are illustrated with a detailed case study of the Ninki Nanka Trail in The Gambia.

The Entrepreneurship in Tourism course takes students through the process of creative thinking, idea generation and problem-solving, and all these for the purpose of creating a business plan for a new venture. The course begins by enhancing participants' creative skills and idea generation competencies and strengthens their ability to recognize dynamic and promising opportunities. During this course, the students will also have the opportunity to attend an Event Management workshop where they will learn concepts such as: Basic Characteristics of Events, Event Classifications, Pitching for Events, Useful Tools for Event Management. The will also be taught of case studies of different types of events. Last but not least, the students will be given the opportunity to set up their own event in order to “pitch” their entrepreneurial idea.

This course brings together the academic with the business world, providing a unique opportunity to students to advance their career and professional development in the tourism industry. It has the status of a course, hence it carries credits and it is graded. The benefits for students include the opportunity for: the blending of academic and on-the-job learning; the integration of academic knowledge with practical experience; the development of relevant skills and understanding of diverse operations; the identification and/or refinement of career goals; strengthening employability skills. Career development may take the form of an internship in a tourism organization for those students who are currently not working or the form of professional development for those students who work in a tourism organization.

Internship: The expected duration is three (3) months, between May and September.  The benefits for students include the opportunity for the blending of academic and on-the-job learning; the use of the explicit knowledge gained during the program, the attainment of tacit knowledge, the development and diversification of skills, the acquisition of work experience, the identification and/or refinement of career goals, the creation and/or development of a professional network.  The benefits for companies include the opportunity to meet some company needs with highly qualified and motivated students, the identification of talent for potential future employment, the enrichment of current perspectives and practices with the intern’s novel ideas, the enhancement of social responsibility activities.
Professional development: The opportunity is given to students to reflect on their work practices and experiences and apply the academic knowledge acquired through the program on a real tourism organization. A reflective report needs to be produced, which represents the culmination of the program’s intensive learning. Students are expected to test what they have learned in class in a real setting, identify areas for professional development, set career goals and generate a concrete action plan.  

The Dissertation is a research project of a student’s special interest in a faculty member’s area of expertise. The students will have the opportunity to construct a detailed plan of a research and write a report covering a review of the relevant literature, the research questions, an explanation and justification of the design, a description of the conduct and analysis of the research, and a discussion of the findings in relation to the literature and methodological issues.