International Hotel and Tourism Marketing - 2012 entry

Course content

You can view the course structure here. 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 the Responsible Tourism Business focuses on sustainability issues that are now capturing public, media and government attention, and examines the ethical 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. You will learn how to critique a tourism or hospitality organisation’s existing practice in respect of ethical marketing in tourism organisations.

Marketing Across Cultures introduces you to the concept of marketing within an international hotel and tourism 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 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 risk management thinking. In a team you will research the historic and current business context of one company in the international hospitality 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 provides you with an introduction to research methods so that you are aware of the approaches, methodologies and resources available for your dissertation. You will design a research project that ensures that you generate the information required to write the dissertation.

The Dissertation develops your ability to critically review literature, to identify the gaps in knowledge and practise relevant research skills to facilitate data collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation and writing. The 20,000 word dissertation provides you with the opportunity to investigate a marketing topic in depth from multiple perspectives working independently and supervised by a specialist tutor. You choose the hospitality or tourism marketing 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 Professional Practice module. This provides up to 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 Professional Development module after finishing the taught part of the programme.
• Or 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.
• There may be opportunities for placements in international hotel and tourism companies.

• for information about the part-time mode, see part-time PDF
• for information about the sandwich mode, see sandwich PDF.

As our courses are reviewed regularly, course content and module choices may change from those listed in the course entry.

As our courses are reviewed regularly, course content and module choices may change from those listed in the course entry.

Faculty

Faculty of Business

Department

The Oxford School of Hospitality Management

Course length

Full-time: 12 months, or 24 months Sandwich mode (provides the opportunity to obtain one year's full-time paid supervised work experience)
Part-time: 24 months for UK and European Union students (teaching normally structured to provide one day or two half days each week in the semester)

Teaching location

Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane

Start date

September 2012
January 2013

UKPASS code

P026771

Entry requirements

Entry requirements are normally a minimum of a good second class honours degree in hotel, tourism and management (or equivalent) plus a minimum of one year's work experience in the hotel and tourism industry. Entry will also be subject to two satisfactory references (one of these must be an academic reference). Applicants who have limited work experience in the hotel and tourism industry can join the sandwich mode and undertake the Professional Practice module, which starts in January each year. 

Scholarships and funding

For general sources of financial support, see:

• funding for students from the UK and EU
• funding for students from outside the EU

Why Oxford is a great place to study International Hotel and Tourism Marketing

Our students tell us they enjoy living in Oxford due to the small-city scale, the wonderful historic buildings, and the vibrant international student atmosphere. As a Masters' student you can benefit from the hospitality and tourism learning opportunities provided within Oxford – for example, the renovated Ashmolean Museum, Britain's oldest public museum; hotels such as the Old Bank, Malmaison and Randolph; historic pubs and ethnic restaurants. We sometimes visit these businesses and their managers talk to our students about the practise and realities of hospitality and tourism management.

In addition to the Oxford Brookes University library, students have access to the Oxford University Bodleian Library which is an excellent resource for the Dissertation.
 

Support for students studying International Hotel and Tourism Marketing

Students are provided with strong support mechanisms to help them in their demanding study schedule. Help and advice for students is provided by the Programme Director, Module Leaders, individual tutors, Dissertation tutors, and the Oxford School of Hospitality Management administrators. The School’s careers and work placement office is in close contact with hospitality and tourism employers to help students with careers and work placement advice. 

How Brookes supports postgraduate students

Supporting your learning

From academic advisers and support co-ordinators to specialist subject librarians and other learning support staff, we want to ensure that you get the best out of your studies.

Personal support services

We want your time at Brookes to be as enjoyable and successful as possible. That's why we provide all the facilities you need to be relaxed, happy and healthy throughout your studies.

Departmental research highlights

The Oxford School of Hospitality Management is ranked number one in Europe for hospitality research, and top in the world for research productivity (Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, March 2011). 

Research areas and clusters

Graduates from these master's programmes have conducted doctoral research in the following fields:

Strategy implementation in hotel companies; International expansion in a hotel company; The influence of national culture on staff appraisal techniques; Measurement of customer satisfaction in branded hotels; Conceptual development of a customer profitability analysis model for individual hotel properties; Strategy making in hotels; Political risk and the affect on international hotel expansion decision making; The historic strategic development of four hotel companies in the UK, 1979-2004; The influence of environmental management practices on hotel profitability: short-term versus long-term perspectives; Determinants of risk appetite: Insights from international hotel companies; Corporate Image Formation through Public Relations in hotel corporations.

Creating shared meaning in sustainable tourism: the use of semiotics; Development of a performance measurement framework for hallmark events; A complexity approach to the measurement of affiliate marketing effectiveness in tourism; Authenticity in place branding; A stakeholder approach to implementing sustainable development in tourism.