International Hospitality and Tourism Management (Top-Up) BA (Hons)

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Dissertation writing requirements
• Research Skills
• Ethical considerations
• Understanding research limitations
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.

You will learn advanced academic skills; such as how to use structured approaches to read, note-making, research and writing, transferable skills to ensure academic success in all your other academic modules and enabling you to conduct a critical literature review of employability, graduate marked place informed by career theory (see themes 1,2 and 3 below). Then using advanced research skills, theory and self-assessment tools you will learn how to and choose and apply for a relevant job role and career path, in turn enhancing your employability and transferable academic skills (themes 4 and 5). Finally, you will conclude the module by designing a complete set of graduate application tools for the job role and career chosen and will experience a no of recruitment exercises such as interviews, group exercises and self-branding and presentation to further develop your employability, academic performance and career management skills. The module will be concluded with a theoretical session and a number of practical exercises designed to develop your self-confidence and employability (theme 6).

Theme 1 – Introduction and advanced study skills
1. Introduction to advanced study skills and career development.
2. Searching for and critically evaluating academic and professional sources.
3. Critical analysis of information and data.
Theme 2 – Understanding the graduate labour market and employers
4. Understanding the global graduate labour market.
Theme 3 – What employers want from graduates and how to achieve it?
5. Enhance business awareness, networking, cultural sensitivity and global mind sets.
Theme 4 – Choose career path
6. Understanding and choosing suitable career paths.
Theme 5 – Design career personal development plan
7. Design a career personal development plan using the NU (ELA) framework.
Theme 6 - Recruitment, selection and employability/application tools
8. An introduction to recruitment and selection processes.
9. Development of skills and tools to enable students to demonstrate effective self-presentation.
10. Develop techniques and practice to excel at interviews.
11. Self-confidence and Employability: Conclusions and introduction to the extended critical literature review module that follows.
12. Assignment surgery

On this module, you will learn about critical thinking and reflection, and doing so, you will develop the necessary critical skills to perform both of these effectively as a learner in higher education. You will learn about the necessary academic skills required to undertake a critical review of existing literature on a contemporary issue within the business and management disciplines. On completing this, you will be able to a critical literature review on a subject appropriate to your degree programme.

Here, you will be introduced to the module, before identifying how to select a contemporary issue within business and management. You will learn about the development of critical thinking and what is meant by a literature review as well as the importance of being able to write a literature review.

You will learn how to get started in this development; by searching for sources and developing essential research skills including reviewing literature and critical evaluation, before going onto develop you own critical literature review which represents the module assessment.

This is a non-credit bearing module, and forms an extension to the 120 module credit points on your top-up programme. The module is designed to provide greater understanding of academic expectations for your direct entry into the final year and support you in the transition process of learning experience.

The aim of the module is to facilitate the development of your independent learning over the one-year course. Induction and on-going personal support activities are to be phased in line with the academic development and the need to support the delivery of programme modules.

In personal support, you will cover:
• The key support and points of contact available to you within the institution
• Societies and social wellbeing
• Library resources and academic skills
• ARTA regulation
• Teamwork protocol
• Use LinkedIn to network

In academic development, you will cover:
• Emailing tutors
• Introduction to referencing
• Finding and evaluating sources
• APA reference guide
• Paraphrasing, summarising and writing critically
• Reporting words, cohesion/linking
• Combining sources
• Conclusions, abstracts and marking criteria

On completion of this module, you should be able to complete the process of transition directly to the final year. This will include your personal and academic development activities. You will also be able to seek learning resources and study support, including academic and social integration.

You will learn how organisations can compete successfully in economic terms while managing their corporate, social and environmental responsibility. At the end of the module you will learn to critically evaluate the factors which underpin an organisation’s success (or otherwise) in managing the triple bottom line and will have learned how to use appropriate frameworks to analyse research material and draw useful conclusions.

You will initially learn about consumer behaviour in tourism, hospitality and event (THE) consumption. You will evaluate why this has changed in recent years and consider the market development into a more experienced, knowledgeable consumer demanding specialised, sophisticated and segmented products. You will learn about how THE consumers make purchase decisions utilising models of decision making theory.
You will progress, learning what categories of THE innovation are being developed; product and service, technical, process innovation, managerial/management, marketing, and institutional innovation. You will examine the benefits of innovation and creative product development for organisations in the THE sector. You will evaluate the notion of the entrepreneur and niche products. You will learn the importance of effective experience management. Having learnt the basic fundamentals behind consumer behaviour and the importance of new product development and innovative and creative service products you will move on to cover the following topic areas from a management, marketing, operational and strategic perspective:

• Health tourism
• Innovative packaging in THE
• Tailor made tourism
• THE for the ‘grey market’
• Wedding THE
• Ski tourism
• Adventure tourism
• Nature tourism
• Rural and farm tourism innovation
• Volunteer tourism
• Event Innovation
• Creative Attractions
• Sustainability in THE
• Innovations in marketing destinations and events
• Innovation in restaurants and hotels

The module concludes by reflecting on practice and developments in THE SME’s (small, medium size enterprises) and makes a comparison with operations and practice in larger organisations and how innovative products are developed within these organisations.

You will learn about the critical strategic challenges facing managers in the international hospitality and tourism industries. Hospitality and tourism are dynamic industries and need to be able to respond to changing consumer trends and internal and external business variables, so emphasis will be placed on the latest developments in international hospitality and tourism operations and contemporary management practices.

Topics include:
• Evolving trends in hospitality and tourism;
• The management of service, quality and loyalty;
• Selection, recruitment, training and retention of employees within hospitality and tourism;
• International human resource management challenges and developments;
• Management of Cultural and social diversity;
• Women, gender and hospitality;
• Managing social responsibility in international hospitality and tourism;
• Managing crisis within hospitality and tourism;
• Entrepreneurship and small business management in the global market; and
• New product developments such as gastronomy, eco-hotels, cruising and casinos.

The module aims to provide you with an overview of the international hospitality industry and its management and strategic and operational practices which accompany it. The module provides knowledge of both historical and current factors which have shaped the industry and provides you with the skills to evaluate changes taking place in key markets and be able to consider the implications of these for hospitality providers.

You will learn about the following topics:

• Definitions of hospitality, hospitableness, hosts and guests; implications for management
• An overview of the historical global development of the industry and an analysis of the factors that have shaped industry development
• An evaluation of global hospitality demand and the industry’s response to changes in consumer demand
• Hospitality marketing and brand management
• Analysis of the distinguishing features of the industry as a service product and the unique challenges presented for management
• The hotel sector – diversity, product appraisal
• Hospitality operations, theory and practice in departments and functions
• Food and beverage management
• International hospitality growth strategies
• International hospitality human resource management
• Hospitality customer service management and quality
• The management of the hospitality experience, customer delight and enlightened hospitality management
• Winter sport hospitality