Course Descriptions
Course Description and Student Experience
Students will explore the dynamics that influence tourism entrepreneurship, including how to think like an entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and how to plan for adapting to issues; learn financial and organizational components of starting a tourism enterprise, and how to identify and acquire start-up funding; and apply entrepreneurial thinking, strategies, theories, and technical skills to address complex socio-environmental issues and conservation through experiential learning.
Course Objectives
- CLO1: Critically evaluate the unique conditions necessary for entrepreneurship within the tourism industry with a focus on sustainability and a ‘triple-bottom-line’ approach
- CLO2: Identify and engage with key strategies and theories of entrepreneurship and how they are applied to the tourism industry
- CLO3: Learn how to ‘fail fast’, pivot, and adapt to new iterations of an idea, service, or product as it develops.
- CLO4: Describe the different ways value is created from different ethical or moral perspectives, and how to apply them in an entrepreneurial context to tourism.
- CLO5: Understand the importance of working with key networks and actors necessary to help materialize and operate a tourism enterprise.
- CLO6: Learn how to think entrepreneurially, and apply this set of skills to any situation, particularly within the tourism industry.
- CLO7: Identify potential avenues for entrepreneurship start-up funding related to the tourism industry.
- CLO8: Disseminate research to different audiences through oral ‘pitch’ presentations and short write-ups.
- CLO9: Embrace the use of the business model canvas or other innovative learning tools to replace the business plan in most instances.
- CLO10: Explain how financial and accounting operations may differ in a tourism entrepreneurship setting compared to an established corporation.
- CLO11:Account for basic legal, financial, and organizational components of operating a start-up tourism enterprise.
Course Description and Student Experience
This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to key foundational tourism concepts, and how they have informed, and can be applied to, tourism operations around the world. As the tourist is at the center of tourism, this course begins by defining and characterizing tourists, examining their varying motivations, and understanding the nature of tourist experience. Focus is then shifted to the tourism industry and tourism systems, as well as tourism destination development over time. This is followed be an examination of key economic, sociocultural, and technological issues and considerations associated with tourism development. This will provide students with a holistic understanding of the tourist, the tourism industry and system, and how it is affected by the broader macroenvironment, from which students can further build their tourism knowledge.
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Define and characterize tourists and the tourism industry
- Compare and contrast different social theories that apply to tourists, and tourism development
- Evaluate different tourism management strategies and considerations
- Identify and discuss the different stages and management considerations of the tourist experience
- Identify and discuss the different stages and management considerations for tourism destination development
- Critically examine the various economic, sociocultural, and technological aspects of tourism
Course Description and Student Experience
NRRT601 provides an overview of the statistical techniques used by researchers to inform and support tourism decision-making. Emphasis is placed on understanding data manipulation techniques and what statistics are appropriate for addressing applied decision–making problems.
Course Objectives
At the end of this course, students will be able to …
- Identify the appropriate uses of the major statistical techniques utilized by researchers to inform and support tourism decision-making.
- Differentiate what statistical techniques are appropriate for analyzing selected types of tourism research questions.
- Conduct data analysis using IBM SPSS (i.e., Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).
- Interpret SPSS computer printouts and construct data tables/figures for communicating with technical and non-technical audiences
Course Description and Student Experience
Provides the landscape view that situates how tourism, conservation, and natural resource management come together. Examine the history of public lands and protected areas around the world. Explore the evolution of the relationship between tourism and conservation, and the way in which different international agreements on biodiversity and climate change affect tourism and conservation.
Investigate the importance of spending time and travelling outdoors in nature for human well-being. Examine the scientifically proven physical, cognitive, emotional, and social benefits that result from time spent in nature, and how these are achieved through tourism. Immersion in nature is linked to positive conservation outcomes. Examine the role of nature and wellness in achieving tourism and conservation outcomes.
Course Description and Student Experience
This course is designed to provide an understanding of the concept of sustainable tourism development. Theory, practice, history, terminology and issues in sustainable tourism planning and management are examined in the context of sustainable livelihoods and conservation. A comprehensive survey of sustainable tourism components – including poverty alleviation through tourism, natural resources as attractions and destinations, social and resource responsibility, establishing policies, and principles for sustainability – will be covered from a systems thinking perspective.
Student assessment will take the form of discussion posts and responses, personal journal, two mini-papers, and a single course case study project requiring application to real world examples of materials presented in the course.
Course modules will be available through Canvas with each module being posted prior to the start of that module’s scheduled week. This “gating” is intended to keep the cohort together in terms of material presented so that discussion assignments can be completed with the maximum amount of student interaction.
Course Objectives
By taking this course, students will be able to:
- Synthesize the definitions, terminology and concepts of sustainable tourism and how it relates to tourism, livelihoods, and community development via course journals, mini-papers and online discussions.
- Understand the history and development of sustainable tourism development.
- Identify impacts associated with tourism development and apply intervention strategies to mediate the impacts identified.
- Learn, apply and discuss ethics (codes of conduct, compliance and eco-labeling) in sustainable tourism for policy development.
Course Description and Student Experience
This course will focus on enhancing student understanding of concepts in management applied to a travel and tourism organization. The course begins with an introduction to management, the management process and a discussion of the personal characteristics that make an effective manager. Following this, course topics include the managing ethics, diversity, and globalization; planning, decision-making, and competitive advantage; designing organizational structure and managing for change; leading individuals and groups, and controlling activities and processes such as communication and information technology and operations. A predominant characteristic of this class (and the MTM program as a whole) is that discussions, exercises, and case studies will require students to think about the application of management principles and concepts to the management of travel and tourism organizations.
Course Objectives
By taking this course, students will be able to…
- Discuss what management is within the context of travel and tourism industry sectors.
- Describe how personality traits and psychological characteristics influence a manager’s behavior and impact the organizational culture of a travel and tourism organization.
- Explain what it means to effectively manage diversity in a travel and tourism setting.
- Describe the steps of the planning process and explain the relationship between planning and strategy.
- Describe the types of organizational structures that are appropriate in a tourism setting.
- Describe how motivation theories can be applied to maximize employee productivity, retention, professional development, and satisfaction.
- Explain leadership attributes that most contribute to the effectiveness of tourism managers.
- Explain why groups and teams are key contributors to the effectiveness of tourism organizations.
- Describe how tourism managers can encourage/facilitate collaborative decision-making.
- Explain how human resource management helps gain competitive advantage.
- Describe the functions of human resource management within the context of a tourism organization.
- Explain how operations management ensures a high-quality tourism experience.
Communication has many roles in tourism management, from the most obvious: communicating with current and potential visitors; to more subtle applications such as internal and external stakeholder communication, conflict and change management. This course offers a review of current theoretical approaches to communication study, as well as practical application of communication techniques relevant to tourism management.
Course Description
NRRT650, Financial Management in Tourism, focuses on enhancing the student’s understanding of key concepts of finance as they relate to managing a travel and tourism business. While many of the concepts covered in this course are applicable to those students who find themselves working for large corporations, the content also applies for those students working in or starting smaller entrepreneurial tourism enterprises. Discussions, applications, and case studies will enable students to apply concepts specifically to businesses within the travel and tourism industry. Section 1 of the course introduces students to the financial accounting aspect of finance, including an introduction to the development, interpretation, and analysis of financial statements; analysis of profit, profitability, and breakeven, as well as forecasting and budgeting. Section 2 addresses management accounting aspects of finance; including working capital management, time value of money and capital budgeting.
Course Objectives
By taking this course, students will be able to…
- …describe the nature of financial statements used by travel and tourism businesses.
- …apply techniques for the analysis of financial statements for a travel and tourism business and organization.
- …distinguish between profit and profitability.
- …analyze the efficiency and effectiveness of a travel and tourism business and organization.
- …describe the steps in selecting, evaluating, and applying financial forecasting models.
- …describe a travel and tourism business’s revenue base, sales forecasts, assets, and a need for financing.
- …apply methods of dealing with current asset management and current liability management.
- …calculate and apply future- and present value of lump sums used to solve time-value-of-money problems.
- …calculate and apply future- and present-value annuities used to solve time-value-of-money problems.
- …describe the purpose, need, and implications for making appropriate capital budgeting decisions.
- …describe and apply the steps required in making a capital budgeting decision.
Course Description and Student Experience
This course examines various marketing theories and concepts and their application within a travel and tourism organizational context. The first part of this course describes the tourism marketing process and the unique nature of tourism marketing, as compared to the marketing of other products and services. The second part of the course discusses tourism marketing opportunities and strategies. This includes an examination of the dynamic tourism market and how it influences tourism demand, the use of market research and information systems to better understand tourist behaviour, and the subsequent development and application of market segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies. The third and final part of this course continues the discussion of the tourism marketing mix by focusing on product design and development, pricing considerations, the use of particular distribution channels, and the promotion of tourism products and services.
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Define and explain the general concepts and theories behind the marketing of tourism products and services
- Describe the unique nature of the travel and tourism industry and how it influences the marketing process
- Examine the role of market research and marketing information systems in understanding tourist motivations and behavior
- Discuss external factors and their impact on the tourism marketing process
- Apply market segmentation techniques to travel and tourism markets
- Discuss and apply the marketing mix as it applies to travel and tourism
Course Description and Student Experience
NRRT671, Strategic Management for Travel and Tourism focuses on enhancing student’s understanding of the concepts underlying the strategic management of a travel and tourism business. The first section of the course introduces the strategic process as well as conducting an internal analysis of factors within the travel and tourism organization. The second section discusses the external analysis of the organization, with a specific focus on both the macro‐ context and micro‐context (i.e., the competitive environment) of the external environment of the organization. Combination of these two sections results in the development of an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to the organization (SWOT). Section three examines strategic choice and strategy implementation for a travel and tourism organization. This includes discussions of competitive strategy and directions, methods of development for travel and tourism, evaluation, selection, and implementation of strategic choices. The section also addresses international and global strategies for travel and tourism organizations.
Course Objectives
By taking this course, students will be able to…
- Describe the strategic process as it applies to travel and tourism organizations and the industry.
- Articulate the fundamental components of an internal analysis of a travel and tourism organization.
- Present the role and application of conducting an internal analysis of the travel and tourism organization.
- List the fundamental components of an external analysis of a travel and tourism organization.
- Explain the role and application of conducting an external analysis of a travel and tourism organization.
- Apply the internal and external analyses to the development of an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the organization (SWOT analysis).
- State development, evaluation, and selection of strategic choices for a travel and tourism organization.
- Explain the process of strategy implementation for a travel and tourism organization.
- Recognize the nature of the internationalization and globalization of the tourism industry
Course Description and Student Experience
Applies project management knowledge and skills to the planning of tourism events. Event planning, logistics, and management best practices are discussed within the context of leisure, cultural, sporting, lifestyle and business meetings and events.
Course Description and Student Experience
Introduction to the fundamentals of leadership theory and different leadership styles. Apply this knowledge at an individual, organizational, and community level within a tourism context. The role of leadership in service excellence, crisis and change management, and sustainability is examined, with a focus on providing the necessary skills to develop resilient tourism industry leaders.
Course Description and Student Experience
This is two-course series (A/B). Series A examines professional development and career preparation for the tourism industry. Students will apply an enhanced sense of self-awareness to their career, network and engage with tourism industry professionals, observe guest speaker interviews from the MTM Advisory Board, visit tourism sites, develop a resume, cover letter, and a professional digital presence, and craft a career preparation plan.
Series B is structured around the adult pedagogical framework that facilitates student development as a Critical Tourism Citizen (see Boluk, Cavaliere and Duffy, 2019). This course also examines the relationship between various information sources and current issues in nature-based tourism. In addition, this course will prepare students to conduct basic content analysis and research for the professional world. Content research is required in non-profit, private, academic, governance and multilateral sectors and is an important way to communicate tourism trends and impacts. A very important goal of this course is to help students gain an understanding of developing their critical thinking skills, which is deemed the most important skill by employers. By developing and applying a critical thinking lens to current issues in nature-based tourism, students will learn to see that communication forms and validity changes between information sources. Students will also have the opportunity to refine their public presentation skills.
Course Description and Student Experience
This experiential learning course provides students the opportunity to coalesce everything they learned in the MTM program through an 8-week term project. Students will work with community partners to conduct an applied research or consultancy project, and then provide a final written and oral report to present to the stakeholders they are working with. Students are expected to conduct themselves professionally, develop their networking and leadership skills, and work cooperatively in teams.
Course Objectives
- CLO1: Apply all learning outcomes from the MTM program in an applied, 8-week long experiential learning project.
- CLO2: Conduct interviews with stakeholders and read through academic and public literature to identify the research problem, and then develop a research question.
- CLO3: Conduct and analyze data about the research problem/question, and write up results in one of a variety of formats (e.g., technical report, academic publication, etc.), depending on the partner’s needs.
- CLO4: Take on a leadership role by managing a rotating assigned task related to the project during the semester.
- CLO5: Deliver an oral presentation with team members (if applicable) to partner organization(s), or in an academic conference or event depending on the project.
- CLO6: Explain what you learned in the MTM program and during this project in an interview-based setting for a post-program job.