Coming to tourism field without any academic knowledge, the courses in the MA in Tourism Management program have given me valuable insights into fascinating concepts and also existing issues that need to be acknowledged. Throughout the program, I was able to obtain tremendous knowledge about how tourism and hospitality are deeply connected with each other and with the economy while representing one’s culture. Out of 36 credits earned in this program, below are the courses that offered myself the most appealing knowledge along with hands-on research based on real life experience.
Global Tourism addresses tourism concepts and issues on a macro level. In this course, I was introduced to many different angles of tourism such as pro-poor tourism and dark tourism; I learned the concepts that explained pretty much every single tourism phenomenon that many of us usually take for granted such as ‘sense of place’, ‘authenticity’, ‘sense of community’, ‘meaning of souvenirs’, etc. The course ended with a 4000 word field study paper on our field trip to Munich, Germany with my specific topic on Traveling Lessons of a First-time Traveler which expressed my observation of meaningful, educative tourism that lies underneath yet goes beyond an enjoyable vacation. Â
Transforming Destinations, on the other hand, teaches me how to use tourism as a tool to transform any destination in order to resolve many issues, especially in improving the economy of a religion. This course contains the most major project of the whole MA program that was ongoing for nearly 4 months. Thanks to this project, our MATM cohort was able to see Sooke as a growing tourism destination with many potentials that awaited to be discovered. More information of this course’s project can be found here.
Trends and Issues in Hospitality Management is an interesting course that gives me the opportunity to look at the hospitality angle in a tourism context. Through this course, I got to know what the current trends that hoteliers around the world are shifting towards and also the issues that are existing in the hospitality industry such as high turnover rates as per my individual research topic.Â
Strategic Tourism Marketing teaches me the ability to think about tourism strategically from a DMO’s perspective. The course addressed multiple angles of maintaining, managing and marketing a tourism destination by looking at real examples of how certain DMOs are governed, how their funding models are structured and what staffing practices are applied, etc. As I chose Tourism Victoria (Destination Greater Victoria) for the course’s final assignment of writing a DMO effectiveness audit, I was able to look further into Destination Greater Victoria’s current model and was able to understand how tourism, hospitality and event industries are tied closely together, especially in Victoria’s context.