Course description
MSc
Accredited by the European Foundation for Management Development Accreditation System (EPAS) and by the Institute of Hospitality.
This MSc in International Tourism Marketing provides an opportunity for honours graduates in hotel, tourism, marketing and management subjects, and with a minimum of one year’s relevant work experience, to study at the master’s level. The focus of your studies will be on sustainable marketing management in the international hospitality and tourism industry from both the private and the public sector perspectives. We recruit students from all around the world, and this creates an exciting multicultural study atmosphere. This programme has three flexible study modes: full-time and sandwich for all students and part-time for British and European Union students.
Our aim is to provide you with intellectual and professional development, and to develop your awareness of culture from a marketing viewpoint; these are essential qualities for effective international hotel and tourism marketing management and public sector tourism management. You will learn about approaches to strategic marketing management decision making, critical evaluation, reflective practice, and strategic and tactical analysis to solve international marketing problems in the tourism industry.
Hospitality and tourism education at Oxford Brookes University Business School has an excellent international reputation for quality and innovation in learning and teaching. Leading hospitality and tourism organisations visit the campus to recruit students; and our dedicated careers service and master’s sandwich mode of study provide graduates with accelerated career opportunities.
Course content
The following compulsory modules build on your previous learning and work experience to enable you to develop a deeper understanding of the complexity of international hotel and tourism marketing management:
Tourist Consumer Behaviour investigates the theoretical frameworks derived primarily from the marketing discipline that underpins patterns of consumer demand and usage. It incorporates models and concepts drawn from mainstream marketing, tourism marketing, and the social sciences - so forming a comprehensive understanding of tourist consumer demand. While the theoretical contribution is generic and applicable to any tourism-specific situation, an appreciation of the current global trends in tourist consumer behaviour is also included. The main focus of the module is the tourist decision process, but the inseparable nature of the product as an extended experience necessitates consideration of on-site consumption and post-experience behaviour.
Marketing for Sustainability in Tourism and Hospitality focuses on the environmental issues that are now capturing public, media and government attention, and examines the marketing response to these challenges in a tourism and hospitality context. Consumer behaviour in relation to green issues, and a wide range of management tools used by different tourism and hospitality sub-sectors (including the public sector), provides ideas to take an organisation forward. Cutting-edge case studies, drawn from consultancy and research carried out by our Centre for Environmental Studies, and external speakers will provide a focal point for discussion and debate. You will learn how to critique a tourism or hospitality organisation’s existing practice in respect of sustainable marketing and the environment.
Marketing Across Cultures introduces you to the concept of marketing within an international hotel and resort context. It provides you with conceptual frameworks to analyse the strategies of international hotel and resort companies. A key feature of the module is the emphasis on the cultural differences and similarities that international hospitality/resort operators have to understand if they are to develop effective global marketing strategies. Working in groups, you will carry out a non-assessed comparative research exercise into a country and market sector from a hotel/restaurant/resort marketing perspective. Your individual assignment involves a country market analysis and market entry strategy for a British hospitality brand's international expansion programme - and you design your own brand!
Tourism Industry Dynamics and Strategy - this module aims to integrate the knowledge you have gained about the management of hotel and tourism products/services from modules taken in the first semester. The module introduces students to complexity science thinking and the concept that organisations are living complex adaptive and co-evolving systems. In a team you will research the historic and current business context of one sector of the international tourism industry and then individually you will build a case study for one of the leading companies in your sector. Finally, you will make recommendations for future strategy at executive board level. It is now widely recognised that an international manager must be more than operationally driven; indeed today's international manager must also be a strategic thinker in order to achieve the best performance results for an organisation on a worldwide basis. This module helps you to develop the ability to think strategically.
Contemporary Issues in International Hospitality and Tourism Management provides you with the opportunity to develop a research specialism in marketing as applied to the international hospitality or tourism sector. In this module you will research a contemporary thematic area, critically analyse the literature and theory, and write an article suitable for publication in an academic journal. In undertaking this module you will work on your own with the support of an expert marketing tutor.
One elective You can choose one elective from a choice of hospitality, tourism or business modules including Destination and Event Development, Interactive Skills in a Cross-Cultural Context, and Internet Strategies for Tourism Distribution. Other electives may also be available.
Research Methods and Dissertation provides you with an introduction to research methods so that you are aware of the approaches, methodologies and resources available for your dissertation. The module enables you to design a research project that will ensure that you generate the information required to write the dissertation. You will develop the ability to critically review literature, to identify the gaps in knowledge and develop relevant research skills to facilitate data collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation and writing. The 20,000 word dissertation provides you with the opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned, what you can do and shows whether you have the ability to work independently. You choose the marketing management topic which you wish to study - this can be the same topic as your Contemporary Issues module or a different subject area.
The sandwich mode comprises one year of full-time MSc taught study and one year of full-time, supervised work experience. You have two options:
* You can join the programme in January and take the Introduction to Work module. This provides 24 weeks of supervised work experience at an operative level in Oxford before starting the MSc taught component in September. You would then complete your year's work experience by taking the Manager in Development module after finishing the taught part of the programme.
* You can take all of your work experience after studying on the MSc taught component. The sandwich mode of study provides paid, supervised work experience to support your academic studies with a suitable international hospitality and tourism employer, and you carry out an assessed project for the company.
Teaching, learning and assessment
The “Oxford Brookes innovative learning experience” on this MSc includes the use of cutting-edge case studies, drawn from consultancy and research carried out by our Centre for Environmental Studies in Sustainable Tourism Marketing; working on creativity in hotel and resort brand design in Marketing Across Cultures; building your own live-case study on a hospitality or tourism company in Tourism Industry Dynamics and Strategy; and researching/writing an academic journal article in a marketing topic in the Contemporary Issues module. Tutors involved in the programme are internationally renowned for their research and consultancy activities, and their excellent links with the hotel and tourism industry. They bring this expertise into the classroom to inform you of contemporary developments taking place in hospitality. Learning and teaching is very much student-centred, participative and interactive. You will take part in workshops, seminars, lectures, case study analysis and one-to-one tutorials.
The full-time mode involves approximately 15 hours of staff contact time per week, but in addition there is a significant amount of independent and group study time. You will therefore be expected to take a great deal of responsibility for your own learning and to manage your time effectively. Assessment is based predominantly on individual coursework and the dissertation.
Quality
The reputation of the Business School is underpinned through membership of and programme accreditations received from the Association of MBAs, the Association of Business Schools, and professional associations such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and the European Foundation for Management Development. The Business School is, therefore, widely regarded as one of the best within its peer group.
The Business School’s programmes benefit from rigorous quality assurance procedures and regularly receive excellent feedback from external examiners, employers, students and professional bodies. In 2005 Business and Management achieved ‘Broad Confidence’, the best possible result, in the discipline audit trail as part of the Quality Assurance Agency Institutional Audit.
Many students who graduate from Business School programmes go on to achieve high status in the industry of their choice.
Our research interests focus on the hospitality and tourism industry and we were recognised in the most recent research assessment exercise (RAE) as ‘one of the leading hospitality research groups in the UK’. Our hospitality and tourism research areas include:
* consumer satisfaction
* education, careers and development
* environmental management and food studies
* entrepreneurship and small business management
* internationalisation and branding
* performance measurement and financial management decision
All our lecturers have considerable industry experience and are active consultants/researchers. We publish our research in generic, hospitality and tourism academic journals and we author specialist marketing textbooks. We enjoy supervising PhD students, many of whom were students on this master’s programme before embarking on their own academic career.
