International Hospitality and Hotel Management

BSc (Hons)

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UCAS code: N850

Start dates: September 2024 / September 2025

Full time: 3 Years, or 4 if a work placement is chosen

Part time: Up to 8 years

Location: Headington

Department(s): Oxford Brookes Business School

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Overview

You’ll explore the processes happening behind the scenes of international hospitality and hotel management and learn what it means to become a responsible manager.

Working in hospitality is hands-on. You’ll be given real briefs to work on which will give you an insight into what it’s really like to take the lead and make sure everything runs smoothly.

You’ll be learning from a teaching team that knows the sector inside out, whether that’s from their professional experience or years of research. They’re leaders in the field and use their extensive network to help you make new connections.

But why study in Oxford? From sporting events to literary festivals, there is always something going on, as well as people visiting the city from around the world. It’s also easy to hop on the train to London too. You’ll meet professionals, often our alumni, who run hotels and restaurants here in Oxford and around the world.

If you want to focus on curating experiences and developing destinations, our BSc (Hons) International Tourism and Hospitality Management will be the right choice for you.

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Why Oxford Brookes University?

  • Hospitality hub

    As a major city, there’s always lots going on locally, and you’ll be close to other hospitality hubs like London too.

  • Mentoring from leaders

    Our Bacchus mentoring program will introduce you to industry leaders who will offer you personal career advice.

  • International placements

    Our students experience the hotel and hospitality industry at destinations in the USA, Europe and Asia.

  • Real Live projects

    We prepare you for your career with real live projects and opportunities to apply your knowledge to real challenges.

  • Essential training

    Become confident running a hospitality business with our focus on key skills in finance, people management and HR.

  • Free language courses

    Free language courses are available to full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students on many of our courses, and can be taken as a credit on some courses.

  • Study abroad

    You may be able to go on a European or international study exchange while you are at Brookes. Most exchanges take place in the second year. Although we will help as much as we can with your plans, ultimately you are responsible for organising and funding this study abroad.

Course details

Course structure

We’ll sharpen your academic skills, boost your industry knowledge and provide training in areas like finance.

With strong industry links, we invite professionals to speak to you. We arrange visits to hospitality sector organisations such as Taj Hotel, Hilton, Mandarin Oriental, Royal Albert Hall, Oxford Artisan Distillery and Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons. The highlight is putting it all into practice with live projects.

You’ll learn how to manage people, monitor revenue and create hospitality experiences. Your options also give you a chance to look at areas like planning events, food and drink, or consumer behaviour.

Want to add experience to your CV? Going on placement is your chance to do exactly that. Our students regularly land work experience at big names like Marriot and Four Seasons.

In your final year, you’ll keep learning more about the way the industry works and have the opportunity to work with your industry mentors. You’ll focus on your dissertation or consultancy project. For many students, this is inspired by challenges they encountered on their placement.

Students studying

Learning and teaching

With a strong vocational focus the programme incorporates live projects and practitioner involvement in the delivery and assessment of the modules. There is a mix of academic and practitioner input into teaching, assessment and feedback where possible.

Practitioner involvement may work on a number of levels, through guest speakers, input into assessment task design, and assessing and feeding back to students on their problem-solving approaches and the practical viability of the solutions they devise.

Assessment

Assessment tasks take a variety of forms, reflecting students’ varied learning styles, the programme’s learning outcomes, and the demands of an enquiry-based learning approach, including:

  • individual and group assignments
  • case studies
  • essays
  • reports
  • presentations
  • participation in product design
  • and occasionally, time-restricted assessments.

The need for formative assessment early on in the programme of study, and, indeed throughout the programme is recognised fully, together with the value of feed forward opportunities provided by the programme structure. Face-to-face feedback is used to supplement written feedback on at least one module at each level.

Study modules

Year 1

Compulsory modules

  • Building Professional and Academic Skills for Success

    This module will provide you with effective personal and professional skills on which to base your academic study and professional careers in the tourism, hospitality and events industries and is an integral element of the transition to University learning. You will be learning the rules of academic study, acquiring and developing skills to support both your academic and professional career.

  • The Experience Economy

    The experience economy, comprising the tourism, hospitality and events industries, has significant positive and negative effects on places. This module introduces the Experience Economy via a set of in-depth case studies, focusing on specific places. In each case study you will be introduced to a specific Experience Economy example, including at least one international event, one tourism destination and one hospitality industry case. The module will include short field trips and site visits, some virtual, including at least one aspect of Oxford’s significant visitor economy, and one international case.

  • Developing and Planning Experiences of Tourism, Hospitality and Events

    This module introduces you to the theoretical and contextual aspects of developing and planning memorable experiences, preparing you to organise your first experience industry products. The module also gives you the opportunity to explore planning for sustainable and responsible practice.

  • Delivering Experiences of Tourism, Hospitality and Events

    This module introduces you to the practical aspects of designing and delivering live experiences and there is a focus on developing understanding of the links between strategy, decisions and outcomes for an experience and its stakeholders.

  • Management in International Tourism, Hospitality and Events

    Every aspect of the business such as management, marketing and finance is based on key techniques. In this module we will introduce these to you with a specific focus on the business realities in tourism, hospitality and events. The techniques from the basic building blocks of academic knowledge are essential to the student experience.

  • Global Industry Contexts in Tourism, Hospitality and Events

    This module aims to introduce you to the context within which the highly dynamic international tourism, hospitality and events industries operate. This includes a comprehensive overview of  the composition, scale and scope of the industry. Historic, current and anticipated trends, developments and challenges will be examined, not the least in the light of the UN principles of sustainable development.

Optional modules

Foundations of Marketing

The aim of this module is to introduce you to the concept of creativity and its role within a marketing context. You will explore creativity in general terms and how it manifests within marketing practice. You will also have an opportunity to develop your own creativity skills in relation to a range of marketing scenarios and audiences.

Digital Technology and Maths for Business

The module introduces foundations of business information management to understand the potential of digital technologies. You will gain essential numerical, modelling and IT-skills, and will learn to manipulate data in order to create meaningful and user-friendly management information. These skills are taught in a business and problem-oriented way, using simplified business problems, combining several skills for each problem. 

Global Business Communications

This module aims to equip you with the skills needed to communicate effectively as a manager in a global environment, highlighting the importance of intercultural exchange as central to modern business and organisational practice. The module is an introduction to the use of oral and written communication in an international context using a variety of supporting technologies and formats.

Work, Employment and Globalisation

To give you an understanding of the complex and dynamic challenges of contemporary global labour markets, you’ll explore contemporary issues about work, employment and global labour markets throughout this module. And you’ll investigate the changing nature and organisation of work, inequalities at work, migration and labour mobility, identity at work, and the digital economy. These issues will be examined using a variety of institutional, organisational and individual theoretical perspectives.

From exploring post-industrial work and society within different institutional contexts, you’ll gain a key understanding of issues of diversity and inclusion at work, while gaining the intellectual skills required to critically research and review literature. 
 

Year 2

Compulsory modules

  • Professional Skills and Preparing for Employability

    On this module you'll build on your acquired professional skills from your first year module Building Professional and Academic Skills for Success to help you further prepare you for your future employment. You'll be able to reflect on your experiences and increase your self-awareness about the skills that you'll need to gain employment in the tourism, hospitality and events management sector as you work through your live projects.

  • Managing People in Hospitality, Tourism and Events

    This module will help you build on your first year learning. You’ll be able to identify and analyse the characteristics of managing people in Tourism, Hospitality and Events labour markets. Also, you’ll gain knowledge of theory and practices associated with managing culturally diverse people and workforces in these sectors. You’ll evaluate critically contemporary people management theoretical approaches utilising a range of independently researched evidence to support your arguments. 

    You’ll analyse relevant theoretical propositions for international Tourism,Hospitality and Events sectors. To build your understanding of managing people in these sectors. And you’ll also engage with current debates concerning the diversity and inclusion, culture and cultural differences and ethical management of diverse workforces to develop your key management skills in Tourism, Hospitality and Events.
     

  • Revenue Management and Financial Essentials

    Managing revenue effectively is of ultimate importance to maximising value and profit for the Hospitality, Tourism and Event industry. Management of revenue involves a co-ordinated application of a range of financial, operational and marketing skills, ranging from 

    • price determination
    • demand forecasting
    • customer value perception
    • inventory control 
    • to channel distribution management. 

    On this module you’ll examine all these topics and it will give you a holistic insight into Revenue Management from a combined financial and customer-centric approach. Your study will help prepare you for a fast-tracked career in the hospitality industry, in the Revenue Management area. You’ll finish this module equipped with the financial knowledge to tackle your final year financial modules.
     

  • Methods of Research in Tourism, Hospitality and Events

    Develop your critical research methods that can be used in the industry to provide the foundations for evidence based decision making. You will look at qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as developing your background knowledge that underpins research efforts. The knowledge you’ll acquire on this module will lay the foundation for you to use on your later research projects and in your future employment.

  • Hospitality Experiences

    You’ll learn all that is needed to create a hospitality experience, with a specific focus on experiential learning. The first part of your module will involve the planning and preparation of a hospitality event. In your second part, delivered in block at the end of your first semester you will put the experience into practice. You will learn how to:

    • identify and engage key stakeholders 
    • how to identify, manage and mitigate risk
    • how to establish key targets and performance indicators
    • how to monitor and manage progress against these indicators
    • how to deal with the impact of change on the project 
    • how to develop and implement post evaluation (environmental, social and economic)

    to capture the learning from the experience. Including if necessary, an exit and legacy strategy. While you focus on developing understanding of the links between strategy, decisions and outcomes for all stakeholders – internal and external.
     

  • Marketing and Digital Transformations

    This is your introduction to the core principles of marketing within the current digital environment. You’ll develop an understanding of the current changes in digital marketplaces and the need to adapt Tourism, Hospitality or Event (THE) products and services for those markets. Also you’ll explore the discipline of Digital Marketing in the wider context of service industries’ marketing activities combining theoretical foundations with a hands-on approach to the topic. You’ll have the opportunity to work in teams to audit an existing THE brand and/or develop your own team brand, draft a marketing plan and engage in the creation of a realistic digital marketing campaign.

  • Placement Search and Preparation (compulsory for sandwich mode)

    This module provides you with practical guidance and support as you undertake a placement search, and helps prepare you for the placement experience and its related assessment requirements. It integrates with other employability related learning experiences, including co-curricular activities, which you may be undertaking.

Optional modules

Business Strategy for Competitive Advantage

You will develop knowledge and critical understanding of the classical principles of business strategy in exploring the question 'How should organisations compete to achieve sustainable, competitive advantage in today's global business environment?’ In answering this question, the potential of an organisation to create value through effective exploitation and development of internal resources and capabilities is examined using well-established analytical tools.

On successful completion of this module, you will be able to analyse and evaluate the relative impact of the international industrial and competitive environment on organisations and the strategic choices they face, apply decision-making criteria and weigh risks appropriately.

Creativity and Innovation

You’ll gain the underpinning theory, concepts and also some basic skills to understand and engage in the processes of creativity and innovation. You’ll take a holistic approach to look at this subject from a variety of angles. This could be from an

  • academic perspective
  • an organisational perspective
  • a management consultancy perspective
  • an entrepreneurial perspective. 

You’ll also have the opportunity and be supported to release and express more of your own creative potential. You’ll explore why creativity and innovation is increasingly being viewed as the key to competitive advantage in the New Economy.
 

Environmentally Sustainable Business

You’ll look at the environmental sustainability challenges facing society and businesses. You’ll discuss key environmental issues such as:

  • global warming
  • pollution
  • biodiversity loss 
  • freshwater depletion 

and the role of business in causing as well as responding to such issues. 

You’ll explore macro (economic, policy, governance) as well as micro (organisational and individual) perspectives. You’ll also be introduced to a variety of stakeholder perspectives and frameworks for evaluating business responses. Through the module you’ll develop your key competencies for sustainability that are endorsed by UNESCO (2017) and the QAA/Advance HE (2021). The competencies are:

  • systems thinking
  • anticipatory thinking
  • normative competency 
  • strategic thinking
  • collaborative competency 
  • critical thinking
  • self-awareness 
  • integrated problem-solving competency.
     

Independent Study in Business

This is your opportunity for independent study on an approved topic. It will relate to your programme learning outcomes. You’ll select and discuss a relevant topic area with your Programme Lead/Subject Co-ordinator. Your independent study may involve:

  • action based learning 
  • be based solely on desk research 
  • limited primary research
  • group work.

And will be self directed. Through any group work you may have a specific role and responsibilities.
 

Tourist Behaviour

You’ll explore and critically analyse theories, models and frameworks of tourist behaviour drawn from a range of social science disciplines such as:

  • Anthropology
  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Geography
  • and Politics. 

You’ll be able to relate theory to practice through evaluation of academic and non-academic material. You'll also reflect on tourist narratives (e.g. social media) and your personal experiences. Finally, you’ll assess the relevance of the above to applied tourism management (especially destination management).
 

Wedding Planning and Celebratory Events

You’ll explore the socio-cultural origins and place in society of a range of celebratory events, such as:

  • weddings
  • anniversaries
  • celebrations of birth and death.

You’ll critically review the religious, ethnic and social associations of such events in various settings. Also you’ll apply the key practical and creative requirements of designing and staging such events. 

Through your studies you’ll develop core events skills like taking a client brief, managing stakeholders and events communications. You’ll have the opportunity to work with a live client brief. Practising your core skills you’ll acknowledge the cultural expectations of the client, and reflect on difference and opportunity, to celebrate diversity.
 

Year 3 (optional placement year)

Optional modules

Supervised Work Experience

This module helps you to develop the competencies required by graduate employers. You'll undertake a placement in a hospitality, tourism, and events organisation to give a significant length of time to experience the realities of work. Learn more about how Oxford Brookes Business School supports students secure a work placement.

Year 4 (or year 3 if no placement)

Compulsory modules

  • Leadership and Professional Development in Tourism and Hospitality

    You will be challenged to advance your reflective skills and reassess the personal ability to effectively manage a diverse range of relationships. Also you’ll look at authentic leadership skills within the international hospitality and tourism industries.

    By the end of the module, you will have developed

    • leadership knowledge
    • competencies and skills by using your own work
    • university and/or community-based experiences to explore key relationships
    • professional sector competencies
    • and how to evaluate contemporary leadership challenges. 
       

     

  • Research Project of Tourism, Hospitality and Events

    Through this Research Project you’ll have the opportunity to conduct sustained, self-directed, independent work through an in-depth study of a hospitality or tourism-related topic where you can analyse theory, evaluate it and apply it to examining practice.

  • Optimising Hospitality Operations

    You will explore the fundamental techniques and tools to analyse and improve operational capabilities of hospitality organisations. You will learn about commonly occurring application problems such as

    • hotel/restaurant inventory control
    • facility layout and workflow problems
    • process and bottleneck analysis. 

    Also you’ll look at optimisation models that support hospitality procurement and purchasing functions, including labour productivity analysis and regulating waiting times.

    By the end of this module you will have explored various case studies of the role of operations in building the competitive strengths of an organisation and in fulfilling its ultimate goal of creating value and delivering customer satisfaction.
     

Optional modules

Business Analytics for Hospitality and Tourism

You will build skills in thinking logically and critically about complex managerial issues that hospitality organisations face today and structure solutions with a data-driven approach.

You’ll develop your understanding of the content, importance and relevance of business analytics and data visualisation in business decision-making with a focus on the hospitality and tourism industry.

You will gain knowledge of the key concepts and methods combined with extensive opportunities to develop your hands-on skills for applying business analytics and data visualisation to managerial decision-making.
 

Business Ethics

This module is designed to address our changing world that is facing social and environmental challenges. You’ll develop the capacity to make ethically defensible decisions as members of business organisations and of society in general. You’ll analyse and evaluate the ethical propositions of others. And, you’ll evaluate the ethics of different systemic models of production, distribution and exchange.

Upon completing this module, be able evaluate and apply ethical reasoning to local and global business dilemmas and economic systems, and you’ll be able to evaluate the significance of a range of western and non-western ethical perspectives.
 

Contemporary Consumer Behaviour

This module builds on students’ previous marketing knowledge by developing a thorough understanding of the theories of consumer behaviour and their appropriate application in different organisational contexts. It examines decision-making processes, consumption or product usage and post consumption behaviours. The module is important because the actions of consumers lie at the heart of modern marketing theory and practice.

Contemporary issues in International HRM

This module enables you to review and develop disciplinary knowledge and research skills within a contemporary global context. The module adopts a broad definition of `international human resource management', to include issues relating to the impact of diversity management, national culture, the debates in the comparative HRM literature and examples of differences in the way HRM is conducted around the world. It also examines how international organisations deal with the extra complexity that operating internationally brings to HRM.

Current issues will also be examined including the foreign vs. local staffing debate, women expatriates, joint venture issues and issues surrounding cross-cultural management.
 

Entrepreneurship and Creativity Enterprise in Hospitality and Tourism

You will be exposed to what is involved in being a successful entrepreneur in the Hospitality and Tourism industry sectors. Also you’ll learn techniques to foster creativity and innovation.

You’ll undertake informed reflection on your entrepreneurial predispositions and have the opportunity to work up and present an idea for your own potential venture to a panel of expert entrepreneurs.
 

Financial Decision Making for Hospitality and Tourism

Explore how the assets of a hospitality and tourism organisation are effectively managed on behalf of internal and external stakeholders and key techniques of financial decision-making for hospitality and tourism organisations. Also, you will get the opportunity to analyse and interpret the Annual Report and Accounts of a publically listed Hospitality or Tourism business.

You’ll look at hospitality and tourism financial reports, where you build your skills and knowledge of:

  • uniform accounting systems
  • responsibility accounting
  • hotel industry studies and comparative analysis.
  • content and interpretation of annual reports of hospitality and tourism businesses
  • hotel management contracts
  • franchising
  • business valuation
  • capital project appraisal methods
  • responsibilities of the asset manager within the owner/operator context
  • contemporary financial issues.
     

Food, Drink and Culture

You’ll have the opportunity to explore complex relationships between food and drink, individuals and societies.You will build your critical thinking skills and be able to argue and present about the extensive implications of food and drink-related practices for society. 

You’ll analyse a variety of factors that shape these relationships and examine the

  • consequences for health
  • environment
  • distinctiveness of cultures
  • cohesiveness of communities.
     

Independent Study

This is your opportunity to embark on independent study of an approved topic that relates to your learning outcomes. Your study will be conducted under supervision and you will select a relevant topic area from your course and you’ll need to get approval from the module leader.

Your study on this module can involve:

  • action-based learning
  • solely on desk research 
  • limited primary research.
     

International Business Strategies in Hospitality and Tourism

You will explore factors affecting the decisions related to the international business strategies of hospitality and tourism (H and T) organisations. You’ll also learn methods to evaluate various international expansion modes considering the political, economic and socio-cultural environments of potential destinations. 

You’ll build appreciation of the risks associated with doing business in international markets by addressing transnational differences (with a particular focus on emerging markets) that affect the strategy, performance, and value of international H and T organisations. 

You’ll have the oppportunity to critically reflect on the impacts of a globalised brand or brands on local markets and consider ethical, social and environmental effects of a company’s decision to expand internationally. You’ll also look at models for organising and managing an international network of operations and how to coordinate knowledge transfer across borders.
 

Perspectives on International Management

This module aims to equip you with the skills and knowledge necessary to manage effectively in a globalised business environment. You’ll analyse a wide range of management practices, while also evaluating theoretical frameworks and conducting research on national cultures. You will evaluate the strategic implications of culture on business operations and HRM practices, while also developing the aptitude required to manage effectively across cultures.

Benefits to you include gaining a competitive edge in the job market by expanding knowledge about managing in a globalised world and navigating cross-cultural communication challenges. You will also broaden your horizons and increase your cultural awareness and sensitivity, enhancing your ability to work effectively with individuals from different backgrounds.

Tourism Impact Analysis

You’ll focus on the study of the range of nature and type of impacts associated with tourism and tourists on the 

  • Environment
  • Economy 
  • Society.

Including approaches to impact assessment and management to ensure that the tourism and hospitality industry benefits from them.
 

Please note: As our courses are reviewed regularly as part of our quality assurance framework, the modules you can choose from may vary from those shown here. The structure of the course may also mean some modules are not available to you.

Download course structure chart

Careers

From hotels and restaurants to resorts and cruise lines, there are plenty of areas where you’ll be able to apply your skills. Employers across the world will value your practical experience and industry insight. You’ll also benefit from our links with:

  • Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, a Belmond Hotel
  • Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park
  • Marriott
  • Hilton
  • The Connaught.

Something else that will make you stand out is your enterprising attitude. You’ll know how to spot opportunities outside of your job description to add value, take responsibility and solve challenges.

You’ll be a great fit for graduate schemes in this area or even starting your own business, but you’ll also be ready for a range of roles like:

  • hotel manager
  • events manager
  • catering manager
  • food and beverage manager.

Want to continue your studies? We offer MSc International Hospitality, Events and Tourism Management and MSc International Hotel and Tourism Management.

Working at a Hotel

Student profiles

Entry requirements

Wherever possible we make our conditional offers using the UCAS Tariff. The combination of A-level grades listed here would be just one way of achieving the UCAS Tariff points for this course.

Standard offer

UCAS Tariff Points: 104

A Level: BCC

IB Points: 29

BTEC: DMM

Further offer details

Applications are also welcomed for consideration from applicants with European qualifications, international qualifications or recognised foundation courses. For advice on eligibility please contact Admissions: admissions@brookes.ac.uk

If you don’t achieve the required tariff points you can apply to join a foundation course, like Foundation in Business or an international foundation course to help to reach the required level for entry onto this degree.

International qualifications and equivalences

Tuition fees

Please see the fees note
Home (UK) full time
£9,250

Home (UK) part time
£1,155 per single module

Home (UK) sandwich (placement)
£1,500

International full time
£15,500

International sandwich (placement)
£1,500

Home (UK) full time
£9,250

Home (UK) part time
£1,155 per single module

Home (UK) sandwich (placement)
£1,600

International full time
£15,800

International sandwich (placement)
£1,600

Questions about fees?

Contact Student Finance on:

Tuition fees

2023 / 24
Home (UK) full time
£9,250

Home (UK) part time
£1,155 per single module

Home (UK) sandwich (placement)
£1,500

International full time
£15,500

International sandwich (placement)
£1,500

2024 / 25
Home (UK) full time
£9,250

Home (UK) part time
£1,155 per single module

Home (UK) sandwich (placement)
£1,600

International full time
£15,800

International sandwich (placement)
£1,600

Questions about fees?

Contact Student Finance on:

+44 (0)1865 534400

financefees@brookes.ac.uk

Please note, tuition fees for Home students may increase in subsequent years both for new and continuing students in line with an inflationary amount determined by government. Oxford Brookes University intends to maintain its fees for new and returning Home students at the maximum permitted level.

Tuition fees for International students may increase in subsequent years both for new and continuing students. 

The following factors will be taken into account by the University when it is setting the annual fees: inflationary measures such as the retail price indices, projected increases in University costs, changes in the level of funding received from Government sources, admissions statistics and access considerations including the availability of student support. 

How and when to pay

Tuition fee instalments for the semester are due by the Monday of week 1 of each semester. Students are not liable for full fees for that semester if they leave before week 4. If the leaving date is after week 4, full fees for the semester are payable.

  • For information on payment methods please see our Make a Payment page.
  • For information about refunds please visit our Refund policy page

Additional costs

Please be aware that some courses will involve some additional costs that are not covered by your fees. Specific additional costs for this course are detailed below.

Information from Discover Uni

Full-time study

Part-time study

Programme changes:
On rare occasions we may need to make changes to our course programmes after they have been published on the website. For more information, please visit our changes to programmes page.