International Tourism Management (Foundation Year)

Program Overview

This four-year International Tourism Management program at the University of Central Lancashire provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the tourism industry. It equips students with transferable skills through a mix of compulsory and optional modules, covering tourism, hospitality, and event management, preparing them for careers in the dynamic tourism sector. The program features field visits, industry engagement, and accreditation from the Institute of Hospitality, ensuring graduates meet professional industry standards.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

This program is a four-year, full-time Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in International Tourism Management (Foundation Entry) offered at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in Preston. It is designed for students who do not have the necessary formal qualifications to join the first year of a degree. The program provides a broad understanding of Tourism, Hospitality, and Event management, equipping students with transferable skills to meet the demands of the dynamic tourism industry. It aims to provide a constructive and critical understanding of the global and domestic tourism industry, including its socio-cultural, political, economic, and environmental contexts.

Outline:

The program is structured over four years, with the first year being a Foundation Entry (Year 0) in Tourism. The program includes a mix of compulsory and optional modules.

Year 0 (Foundation Entry):

• Compulsory Modules:
• Tourism, Hospitality and Events Themes in Action: This module introduces key concepts and issues in Tourism, Hospitality, and Events (T.H.E) from a local, national, and global perspective.
It includes field visits to T.H.E organizations in and around Preston.
• Service Excellence in the Visitor Economy: This module focuses on customer service theory, practices, and techniques for achieving service excellence in T.H.E.
It emphasizes professionalism, personal and interpersonal abilities, and the pragmatism of customer service in dynamic and customer-centric organizations.
• Study Skills for Success: This module equips students with the necessary study skills for academic success, including academic literature review, research, and learning technology.
• Contemporary Business in Context: This module raises awareness of the impact of business in the UK, investigates business in the news, and develops an awareness of the global business context.

Year 1:

• Compulsory Modules:
• Creativity, Enterprise and Scholarship: This module develops key skills in scholarship, research, and learning technology.
It includes oral, presentation, debating, academic writing, and research skills.
• Business Landscape: This module examines the internal and external environment of business and defines key issues impacting business.
• Professional Practice in Tourism, Hospitality and Events: This module develops professional skills necessary for success in T.H.E, including confidence and competence in simulated and live industry situations.
• Tourism Today: This module focuses on the fundamentals of tourism management, including the study of tourism destinations.
It explores theoretical positions used to understand tourism phenomena and their application to industry situations.

Year 2:

• Compulsory Modules:
• Managing Experiences in Tourism, Hospitality and Events: This module provides knowledge and skills development related to delivering successful experience systems within T.H.E organizations.
It acknowledges the co-creation of experiences by managers, staff, and customers within various service contexts.
• Tourism Drivers and Trends: This module provides a theoretical grounding in tourism trends and driving factors, focusing on understanding the tourist.
It introduces theories, concepts, and approaches from a multidisciplinary perspective, leaning towards sociological and anthropological perspectives.
• Destination Management Field Work: This module involves an educational field visit to a tourism destination/region, allowing students to analyze current T.H.E provisions and examine contemporary tourism/hospitality and event management issues.
• Optional Modules:
• Professional Skills in the T.H.E Workplace: This module prepares students for working in hospitality and venue operations, covering legislation related to health and safety, food hygiene, GDPR, fire safety, first aid, human trafficking, and employment law protection.
• Learning in Action: This module explores the core features of relevant work experience, including competencies, transferable skills, reflective practice, and continuous development.
Students are required to record their work experiences in a reflective account and relate them to subject-specific theories, knowledge, and behaviors.

Year 3:

• Compulsory Modules:
• Independent Project for Tourism, Hospitality and Events: This module allows students to study a topic of their choice related to their areas of study.
It involves independent work to develop and demonstrate academic skills and abilities, including gathering and analyzing secondary data within the context of current academic theory.
• Tourism, Hospitality and Events Graduate Innovation and Creativity: This module consolidates managing oneself, managing others, and managing a business.
It evaluates students' competencies in areas associated with work in T.H.E and explores the theory and practice of business strategy through innovation and creativity within a corporate setting. It includes engagement with external organizations to develop transferable skills and abilities for managerial strategies.
• Tourism Perceptions, Places and Futures: This module engages in critical analysis of contemporary and future tourists and tourist attractions.
It examines the interrelationships between perceptions of the traveler, destinations, and wider social influences. Students are expected to observe how the broader external environment influences tourist behavior and places of tourism and leisure, currently and in the future.
• Optional Modules:
• Managing Service Quality: This module provides an in-depth and critical understanding of business management issues involved in managing quality in service organizations.
It critically analyzes tools, techniques, and approaches for achieving service quality within the contemporary business landscape.
• Global Placement: This module consolidates transferable and subject-specific skills and knowledge developed during study to the real world.
It establishes a real-world understanding of equality and diversity in the workplace while developing industry-specific skills.
• Critical Insights into Dark Tourism and Difficult Heritage: This module explores the niche but important component of global tourism known as dark tourism, which involves travel to sites or places associated with death, disaster, or difficult heritage.
It provides an opportunity for students to become well-grounded and socially responsible managers of potential local, national, or international dark tourism sites, attractions, and exhibitions.
• Applied Research in Tourism, Hospitality and Events: This module involves independent work to develop and demonstrate academic skills and abilities.
It is based on a topic related to the degree and demonstrates the use of primary and secondary data collection techniques. Students learn experientially and apply their knowledge of international destination development and the visitor economy to a particular case study.

Assessment:

Assessment methods include coursework assignments (essays, reports, presentations), examinations, multiple-choice tests, field studies, and fieldwork.

Teaching:

The program is delivered by a dynamic team of academics, many of whom have international experience and publish in journals, trade press, and the media. Teaching methods include lectures, seminars, tutorials, discussion sessions, and personal study. The School hosts the Institute of Transport and Tourism as well as The Dark Tourism Forum.

Careers:

International Tourism Management can lead to various career choices, including:

• Working for airlines and airports
• Managing theme parks and tourist attractions
• Managing heritage sites
• Cruise operations
• Market research management and consultancy
• Tour operators
• Tourism development officers
• Hospitality graduate schemes
Graduates have progressed to roles at British Airways, Blackpool FC, Co-operative Travel, Premier Inn, Marriott, Hilton, and Disney.

Other:

• The program includes local field visits in and around Preston.
• Students may participate in national and international field visits to destinations such as The Lake District, Cyprus, and Iceland (subject to change each year).
• The program has links with many Hospitality and Tourism organizations throughout the UK and overseas.
• The course has been accredited by the Institute of Hospitality, meeting recognized levels and standards of professional knowledge, skills, and understanding relevant to the needs of the industry.
• The program is based in the School of Business.

UK

First year: £9,250 for the first year Full-time: £9,250 per year

International

First year: £16,400 for the first year Full-time: £16,500 per year