MODULES
Foundation Year
CORE MODULES
Developing Academic Skills
The main aim of this module is to equip you and develop the academic skills necessary to study at an HEI. This includes an introduction to the structure of higher education and also the learning and study skills necessary to produce quality pieces of work.
Developing Academic Literacy
The aim of this module is for you to develop confidence and autonomy through ‘learning by doing’ process. It will help you develop your academic literacy, appropriate academic voice and skills and to express argument(s) by using credible academic sources. Additionally, it helps you to apply theoretical concepts/positions in their coursework and also to demonstrate these properly in written form. It is also designed to ensure you understand the concept of academic integrity and associated protocols and the use of Word and referencing tools such as Endnote.
Introduction to the Experience and Visitor Economy
The aim of this module is to introduce you to the size, structure and characteristics of three of the major 'Experience Industries' - Hospitality, Events and Tourism - and raise awareness of the career opportunities within each industry. This module forms a foundation of knowledge that is further developed in the successive academic years in a more detailed analysis. Hospitality, Events and Tourism are distinct industries within the experience and visitor economy and are thus inextricably linked. This module seeks to examine the links between these industries and analyse their interdependent nature. For example, an international event will attract in-bound tourists who will seek local accommodation, food and drink during their stay. It is important that you can identify and understand the characteristics and interdependence of these industries in order to prepare for you future employability.
Communication Management in Hospitality, Events and Tourism
It is crucial for service and experience centred businesses to be able to effectively communicate what they do to a range of stakeholders, including their potential audiences and customers. This module will – after first introducing you to basic marketing theory – focus on communications in relation to hospitality, events and tourism. The module will give you a solid understanding of various communication strategies and approaches – including a wide selection of promotional tools. The module will further emphasise the importance of understanding the needs and wants of the audience, so that appropriate content can be generated, and so that suitable messages are communicated using the most appropriate channels and platforms. By completing this module, you will gain a deeper understanding of communications, and the central role marketing communications play in the experience economy.
The Customer Experience
This module will introduce you to the role and importance of customer service and experience within hospitality, events and tourism. You will have a broad introduction to customer care and service quality within these industries and explore the relationship between customer care, service quality, customer satisfaction and financial success.
Employability in Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth)
The main aim of this module is to familiarise you with the qualities required to identify, secure and retain graduate employment in the dynamic and customer centric industries of Hospitality, Events and Tourism Management. You will gain an understanding of the skills essential to working in the HET Industries to impact positively on the customer, ways of building relationships with customers and influencing positive experiences for the customer and business. This seeks to identify and meet the "soft-skills" and work readiness skills that most employers demand.
Year 1
CORE MODULES
Personal Skills for Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth)
The aim of this module is to equip you with an understanding of the importance of continual self-evaluation, personal development and skills necessary to progress in your professional life to ensure a minimal gap in the academia and industry skills requirements. It sets the base for personal skills audit and SWOT analysis of skills essential for and transferable to the HET Industries thus increasing one’s future saleability through a strong skills base for the experience industry.
The Business Environment for Hospitality, Events and Tourism
The aim of this module is for you to investigate the business environment in which the events, hospitality and tourism industries operate in. It considers and evaluates appropriate elements of policy, law and practice within each of these service-based industries, including commercial, public and voluntary sectors. The module will detail how providers respond to and reconcile both commercial demand and social need in relation to market segments.
Introduction to People, Organisations and Management
The module introduces you to the variety of work organisations in the Hospitality, Tourism and Events environments, and the various forms they take as well as understand and explore different approaches to the management of people within organisations and the consequences for employers and employees. It will equip you with the necessary skills to understand the human resources process and requirements within the experience and visitor economy.
Understanding Hospitality, Event and Tourism Experiences
This module allows you to build work-based skills in hospitality, event and/or tourism management that are underpinned with relevant theory. It opens with an introduction to key design and experience theories and concepts such as: the experience economy; service encounters; experiencescapes; the tourist gaze; co-creation; and symbolic interactionism. You will examine key management functions and consider these in the context of specific hospitality, events or tourism, in an authentic experiential setting.
Service and Experience Marketing
In this module you will learn about a range of concepts, tools and techniques that will both broaden and deepen your understanding of service and experience related marketing principles – with an emphasis on the importance of authenticity and earning the trust of the customer. Key areas of study include the marketing mix for services, target markets and segmentation, marketing planning, branding and positioning, marketing communications (including digital), and experiential strategy.
Tourism and Hospitality: Concepts and Approaches
The aim of this module is to develop your understanding of the diverse historical social, economic and political forces that have shaped and continue to transform the international tourism and hospitality industries and their impacts worldwide. Informed by diverse theoretical and disciplinary traditions the module will develop your ability to critically comprehend the major theories and concepts that underpin the study of the international tourism and hospitality industries and to apply these to the analysis of contemporary trends and issues facing managers in these sectors.
Year 2
CORE MODULES
Tourism, Globalisation and Business Strategy
This module develops your understanding of the relationship between the global political economy and strategic management challenges facing diverse tourism businesses and destination organisations. Drawing on different theoretical perspectives and applied case studies from political economy and international business the module provides you with a thorough understanding of diverse strategic management issues faced by the various firms and organisations working across the tourism industries. You will develop the appropriate knowledge and skills to be able to make complex business decisions across a range of economic, political and commercial contexts in tourism in the light of the various strategic management challenges faced by tourism firms and destinations operating in diverse global business environments.
Finance for Hospitality, Events and Tourism
This module is aimed at those of you who are not majoring in accounting or finance but who are studying accounts and finance as part of their programme and is particularly focused on the Experience Economy cluster – Hospitality, Events and Tourism industries. It aims to ensure you understand and are able to construct a set of financial statements, evaluate performance, and have an understanding of planning and control frameworks as well as develop your understanding of the concepts, principles and ethical considerations on which good financial decisions are based.
Leadership in Hospitality, Events and Tourism
The aim of this module is for you to examine theories and practices related to effective leadership within Hospitality, Events and Tourism. You will cover a range of different leadership theories and their relevance to, and impacts upon, organisations and employees. The module is designed to further support your development as an effective manager through the critical analysis of current theories and practices associated with leadership in the challenging environments faced by the fast-changing make-up of hospitality, events and tourism organisations.
Professional Practice in Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth)
The module builds on the mental wealth level 4 module and is designed to expand your awareness and development of transferable skills required for your future career in their respective experience industries. This includes producing CVs and covering letters, constructing a professional development plan and reflecting on current professional skills as well as identifying areas of development and creating a career development plan. The module introduces you to the importance of understanding careers in the HET industries and the link to your academic studies.
Destination Marketing
This module builds on previously acquired marketing knowledge. The overall aim of the module is to develop your critical understanding of the principles and processes of marketing as they apply to destinations, as well as examining marketing issues that are specific to tourism destinations. Key areas of study include the characteristics of destination management and marketing organisations, destination branding, destination marketing for crisis management, marketing communications for destinations (including digital), and the evaluation of destination marketing campaigns. By the end of this module you will not only have an enhanced theoretical understanding of key issues relating to destination marketing, but also the ability to put theory into practice.
OPTIONAL MODULES
Professional Development in Practice - Internship
This module provides you with the opportunity to engage directly with industry through volunteering initiatives and short internships. It therefore offers you the opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge developed through your first year of study as you strive to become professional, employable graduates.
Food and Beverage Management
This module aims to provide you with the knowledge and skills to understand the key issues associated with the organisation and operation of food and beverage services as they apply to experience economy. Key management skills developed include costing and control, waste management and the impact of managing multicultural workforces. It also considers how food and beverage concepts and principles are transferrable across a range of experience economy environments.
Celebration, Ritual and Culture in the Events Industry
This module will enable you to think critically about the role and context of celebration events in a range of cultural, national, political, religious, spiritual and social environments and equip you with the skills to exhibit ritual and culture inherent in such events. You will plan, design and manage an exhibition for a celebration event to facilitate a practice-based understanding of event management practices. As part of this module you will apply the principles of event project management by staging an exhibition on-campus. The live event project will showcase your ability to represent the vital part celebrations play in the cultural elements of different societies. Together with module TM4### The Event Industry: Concepts and Approaches, this set of two modules will fuel your academic, personal and professional development, and give you the confidence in appreciating the challenges and complexities of working in events. As a result you will be able to address specific types of events of significance to people, populations and places, such as national day events, festivals, carnivals, sport events, weddings, birth and death – to enhance your awareness of difference and diversity in culturally-oriented events.
Hospitality Management and Service Delivery
All managers in the hospitality industry need to be able to understand, analyse and improve the processes for which they are responsible. In order to be able to do this effectively they need to understand the nature and purpose of the service concept and the ways processes and people deliver this. This module aims to provide you with the knowledge and skills to understand and evaluate the key issues associated with the operational management of hospitality environments and their associated service provided. Students will gain insights into key aspects of the management of a service delivery with a view to meeting and exceeding expectations of both business and leisure customers. In addition, standard operating procedures will enable the development of consistent standards and the monitoring of the performance of operational staff.
OPTIONAL MODULES
Optional placement
This course offers the opportunity of year-long placement between years two and three. If you choose to take this option, you’ll spend your third year on a placement with a relevant company or organisation, adding valuable practical experience to your growing academic knowledge.
The extra placement year means it will take four years to complete your studies, instead of three.
Year 3
CORE MODULES
Sustainable Tourism Planning and Destination Management
The aim of this module is to develop your ability to analyse, evaluate and critique different models of sustainable tourism planning and destination management in diverse tourism settings. It draws upon a comprehensive body of theory and empirical research relating to sustainable development, destination management and tourism planning to engage students with the full scope of policy debates, issues and challenges pertaining to the development and management of tourism in accordance with principles of sustainability, responsible management and corporate social-environmental responsibility. Through a combination of theoretical debate, practical workshops and field trips you will gain a critical insight into the complex inter-relationships between the strategic concerns of the global tourism industries, public authorities, tourism businesses and diverse destination stakeholders and be able to devise creative solutions for sustainable tourism aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Sport and Event Tourism
This module will enable you to critically examine sport events as a tourist activity from a fan's, spectator's and tourist's perspective. The module draws on a range of theoretical and conceptual frameworks to allow you to discuss the importance of sport and sport events for the tourism industry. You will produce a feasibility study for a destination by assessing its potential to host sport event-related tourism to facilitate a practice-based understanding of sport tourism planning, development and management. As part of this module you will inspect sport and event tourism from a political, economic, social and business perspectives, and evaluate its positive and negative impacts. The applied project will showcase your ability to research a contemporary or 'live' issue for the management of this changing, challenging and complex sector. The module will help you focus upon the planning and operational elements of sport and event tourism, ensuring you have a relevant theoretical and practical application of sport and event tourism in developed and developing nations. Thus fuelling your academic, personal and professional development, and give you the confidence to debate and discuss the importance of sport and event tourism to people, places and populations. As a result you will be able to respond to a range of planning and operational needs of sport and event tourism, and develop such skills as assertiveness, negotiation and problem-solving for future work in tourism and related industries.
Culture, Heritage and the Tourist Landscape
This module engages you with the tourist landscape, particularly in relation to its formation and development through various forms of governance and policy - with an emphasis on aspects relating to culture, heritage, mobility and representation. The overall aim of the module is to develop your critical understanding of the tourism product as expressed in and through the landscape - and how the management of culture and heritage is linked to identity and the concept of place. Key areas of study include culture and heritage as tourism products, cultural tourism management, place-making and landscape formation, culture-led regeneration, contested heritage, and landscape identity and representation. By the end of this module you will not only have an enhanced theoretical understanding of key issues relating to culture, heritage and the tourist landscape, but also the ability to identify, develop and evaluate cultural tourism products within the landscape.
Research Project
The overall aim of this module is to ensure that you develop your critical thinking skills, methodological awareness and analytical ability through the process of proposing, planning, managing and completing a research project.
The project is an excellent opportunity for you to focus on an aspect of your chosen field that you are particularly interested in, and it is especially valuable if you wish to work in a specific sub-sector – and it also helps prepare you for postgraduate studies.
The project is individual and based on a research question chosen by you, focusing on an aspect relating to your respective degree programme within Hospitality, Events and/or Tourism. The research project tests your ability to work independently, and it should have a strategic element (for example solving a problem, critically investigating a management issue, or testing a specific theory), and it may be based on secondary and/or primary research.
The project may be undertaken as a traditional dissertation, or in the form of a consultancy project. The taught part of the module includes guidance on how to frame a research topic or consultancy project, developing a research question and objectives, completing a literature review and research design, and how to choose appropriate forms of analysis. During the research process, you will critically engage with literature on your chosen topic, formulate valid aims and objectives, evaluate methodological approaches, plan and execute appropriate data collection, select relevant modes of analysis and develop strong arguments that address the research question and objectives originally posed. Overall, the module aims to develop your independent research skills to allow you to be confident researchers – which is an invaluable asset, wherever your future career path will take you.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Experience Economy (Tourism, Hospitality & Events Industries)
The module will develop your understanding of the unique production - consumption characteristics in the experience economy and the implications for entrepreneurship and innovation. You will develop the knowledge, confidence and skills to conceive, develop and communicate a business proposal in the light of emerging market trends, technological change and new developments in the tourism, hospitality and events industries.
Exploring Professional Practice in Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth)
This module aims to provide you with the necessary skills that bridge your academic gains into the workplace. This is completed through examination of and participating in various types of recruitment methods such as Assessment Centre; to assess and develop the soft skills that make them more marketable, ready and sustainable for the industrial revolution.
