UDTTRMAN - BA Tourism and Travel Management

The BA Tourism and Travel Management was developed to answer the tourism and travel industry demand for specialist tourism and destination managers and planners. Despite industry’s prime position as global revenue and employment contributor, the world’s biggest service economy suffers from insufficient investment in its workforce, especially in relation to challenges of overtourism, global competition, and climate change. Through challenge-focused curriculum, this course attempts to address existing gaps and provide graduates with an understanding and tools to manage tourism’s greatest challenges. Tourism sector demands a wide and complex range of skills, encompassing planning, impacts management. embedding sustainability, management of visitors, destinations and attractions in line with responsible tourism principles.
21st century tourism landscape is rapidly changing, with new technologies, climate change and more complex motivations responsible for advancing new forms of tourism – from astrotourism and medical tourism to coolcations and bleisure. At the same time, established tourism destinations face growing challenges of overtourism, loss of authenticity and deprived destination image. Future tourism industry professionals need to understand the challenges ahead and be equipped with tools to manage them. In response, the course offers an intellectually stimulating and distinctive programme combining a range of tourism studies disciplines and approaches in one syllabus, incorporating sustainability, business management, cultural heritage and tourism-led regeneration, responsible destination management, niche tourism, marketing and entrepreneurship, to offer an all-embracing preparation to graduates.
The course utilises the advantages of its London location, with access to world-class attractions, professionals and business events, at the same time encouraging students to share, use and incorporate their own experiences from all over the world. The course engages students in contemporary challenges via practical projects, case-studies and multiple opportunities to develop research and professional skills leading to the development of life-long learning mindset. The course places as much emphasis on gaining skills relevant to the workplace as on learning the academic discipline, and embeds employability in every year of student journey, starting from level 4 core modules via range of short- and long work placements opportunities to professional environment simulation modules such as tourism destination management.
Staff regularly undertake professional development and are subject to periodic reviews of teaching quality and assessment strategies. Module architecture and assessment strategies are regularly reviewed for their robustness, ensuring the course fulfils the University’s overarching strategy of maintaining a supportive educational environment. Independent learning is encouraged through classroom debate, idea exploration, and discovery-based assessments.

The principal aim of the course is to provide a rigorous academic programme that equips students with knowledge and understanding of core business and management subjects, with a particular focus on the tourism, travel and destination sector.
The course aligns with the QAA Benchmarks for Events, Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism (QAA, November 2019), which include:
• Increasing understanding of concepts and characteristics of tourism as an area of academic and applied study; products, structure of, and interactions in the tourism industry; and the relationships between tourism and the communities and environments in which it takes place
• Preparing students for a career in tourism planning, business and destination management;
• Enhancing a wide range of skills that equip graduates to become effective global citizens.
Students will gain insight into the principles and techniques that drive success in tourism destinations, and business, and they will engage in both real-life and simulated business experiences. The course encourages critical reflection on ethical, social, and cultural issues, fostering a respect for diversity and preparing students to thrive in global tourism organisations.

On completion of this course, students will be able to: demonstrate confidence, resilience, ambition and creativity and will act as inclusive, collaborative and socially responsible professionals in their discipline (ULO)

Thus, upon graduating with an honours degree in Tourism and Travel Management, students will typically:

LO1: Have the confidence needed to take leadership decisions in challenging situations

LO2: Possess the necessary communication skills that will help them adopt a global and multicultural perspective in their professional context

LO3: Be cognisant of the effects of the social and environmental effects of their decisions and will remain active citizens of the places they live and work,

LO4: Demonstrate application of creative thinking skills to practical problems, and possess the analytical and organizational skills to translate creative ideas to operational solutions in tourism and travel industry,

LO5: Consistently demonstrate a command of subject-specific skills as well as proficiency in generic skills and attributes.

LO7: Have a perspective of management that is relevant to tourism, travel and destinations, influenced by a wide range of learning sources, and based on a proactive and independent approach to learning,

LO8: Be distinguished from the basic standard (threshold) of achievement by their enhanced capacity to develop and apply their own perspectives to their studies, to deal with uncertainty and complexity, to explore alternative solutions, to demonstrate critical evaluation, and to integrate theory and practice in a wide range of situations.

QAA Events, Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Subject Benchmark Statement (Nov 2019)
https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/subject-benchmark-statements/subject-benchmark-statement-events-leisure-sport-tourism.pdf?sfvrsn=c339c881_11

The assessment strategy is based on the model of progressive and inclusive curriculum, QAA Subject Benchmark Standards and Learning, Teaching and Assessment Framework, with study skills being introduced, then practiced and finally assessed in one or consecutive modules.

Assessment methods intend to be appropriate to the aims and level of the module and its desired learning outcomes. At level 4, assessments intend to focus on assessing student’s knowledge and comprehension, then assess application and analysis skills at level 5, to finally assess the ability to synthesise and evaluate information and create new products at level 6. Additionally, assessments in level 4 tend to employ forms that students are likely to be familiar with from earlier stages of education (e.g. presentations and tests), while new forms of assessment, more advanced in digital literacy and linked to professional business environment (e.g. business pitch, report, audit, portfolio, consultancy, etc.) are introduced in levels 5 and 6. The variety of assessments allow for personalisation, with students being given a choice of the object of study.

Formative feedback and feedforward is embedded in the course at all levels, where students can obtain advice on case study choices, and discuss early research findings. Modules use varied feedback mechanisms, including oral feedback in taught sessions, written feedback (e.g. comments on case study choices), feedback sessions (in-class and online via Blackboard Collaborate), written and audio feedback on the final work and sometimes visual feedback (e.g. mind maps of feedback on draft work, e.g. dissertation). The timeline of feedback provision is in line with university policies and standards, and marking schemes for levels 4, 5 and 6 respectively are employed in all modules.
All assessments (apart from artefacts and written exams) are submitted online via Weblearn/Turnitin to ensure timely submission and monitoring of engagement. Online submission enables anonymous marking and guarantees equal access for all module tutors and external markers to assignments.

At Level 5, students can choose from three alternative core 15-credit work-based learning modules:
• MN5W55 Learning Through Work - For those looking to gain experience from undertaking and reflecting on work-based projects related to your career interest.
• MN5W50 Creating a Winning Business - Ideal for those seeking to understand how entrepreneurial knowledge can benefit those seeking employment or for those interested in how to be self-employed. Includes a short work-based project
• WL5W50 Empowering London: Working within the Community - For students interested in how societal issues affect London, including gaining work experience supporting a charity or community organisations.
Students can also apply for the option to extend their degree by completing a full Year in Industry module (MN6W04) after successfully finishing Level 5. This provides in-depth, real-world experience, professional-level skills development, and opportunities to build networks, helping graduates stand out in a competitive job market.

There are no specified part-time structures for this course. Students on a part-time mode of study are required to take between 30 and 90 credits per academic year to complete the degree programme within the maximum time length allowed (6 years for a three-year course).
Programme planning is therefore agreed between the student and course team, in accordance with regulations on progression and completion.

Courses shall conform to both the framework and University Academic Regulations.

Consultancy Project for Strategic Management OR Marketing and Creative Industries Dissertation

CertHE Tourism and Travel Management: 120 credits at Level 4
DipHE Tourism and Travel Management: 240 credits at Level 5
BA (unclassified) Tourism and Travel Management: 300 credits at Level 6 (excluding Project/Dissertation)

Developing reflective practice in students is built into the curriculum, and specific activities to support this are the introduction of Enhancement Weeks and Personal Development Planning (PDP), which are now an established part of the undergraduate programmes.

Enhancement Weeks are scheduled as part of teaching programmes where teaching individual modules is suspended to enable students to engage in broader course-based activities. These include opportunities for reflective engagement with feedback, career preparation and employability development activities, conferences by and for students, and programme planning advice.

PDP is embedded in activities and assessments to encourage and emphasise reflection on learning goals and outcomes, to plan ways to address students’ learning development needs, and to capture their learning achievements. PDP on the course involves a variety of processes and formats as appropriate to the discipline (e.g., learning journals, e-portfolios, annotated sketchbooks, case books, skills audits, reflective commentaries, graduation statements).

Generic and transferable skills are integrated into the context of the tourism and travel industry in a wide range of modules that are delivered centrally. Assessment is customised to focus on research and enterprise in sector-context, which enables the promotion of best practice, such as:
• Incorporation of a formative assessment task for modules at each level
• Publication and communication of assessment criteria from the outset of module delivery
• Provision of details on feedback, including timing and overall management at module and course levels

To prepare students for a career in tourism and travel and enhance life-long learning skills, students will get the opportunity to engage with employers through a variety of mechanisms in core modules at levels 4, 5 and 6, including curricular and co-curricular activities taking place throughout the course. During the course of level 4 students will have an opportunity to participate in a business trade fair event, which will feed into professional aspirations within the sector.

This course has helped many graduates to successfully secure positions in national destination management organisations and governmental bodies (e.g. Armenia, Sri Lanka, London), visitor attractions, tourism consultancy, travel trade and hospitality. Some graduates became entrepreneurs while many successfully apply for postgraduate courses in the UK, especially in heritage, sustainability, planning and digital marketing.

The Student Enterprise Team supports London Met students and graduates to bring ideas to life and develop skills for success in start-up, self-employment and freelancing. Through a range of events, activities and programmes, the Team can help everyone realise their entrepreneurial potential. One-to-one advice sessions and support programmes run throughout the year.

We believe that your university experience should be designed to enhance and support your professional life. We place as much emphasis on gaining skills relevant to the workplace as on learning the academic discipline that you’re studying.

This course is designed to offer an intellectually stimulating and distinctive programme that enables you to prepare for a satisfying career. Over the past 20 years, many of our graduates have developed rewarding careers in business, government and third sector tourism organisations, in roles such as:

• research
• consultancy
• tour operation
• destination managers and planning
• road, rail, sea and air transport management

In addition to the University's standard entry requirements, you should have:

• a minimum grade C in three A levels in academic subjects (or a minimum of 96 UCAS points from an equivalent Level 3 qualification, eg BTEC National, OCR Diploma or Advanced Diploma)
• English Language GCSEs at grade C/grade 4 or above (or equivalent)

If you don't have traditional qualifications or can't meet the entry requirements for this undergraduate degree, you may still be able to gain entry by completing our Business Management CertHE course.