Master of Arts in International Tourism

Goals and Contents

Having developed very rapidly in recent decades, international tourism has become one of the world economy's major industries. The World Travel and Tourism Council projects that between now and 2013, the tourism and hospitality industry will generate 250 million jobs, consisting of approximately 10% of total world employment.

Yet, managing international tourism demands a serious commitment: it is challenging and one must take into account a variety of different economies, institutions, legal systems, languages and cultures. To strike a fair balance between the various elements at play - the tourist industry, the tourist, the local community, the environment - entrepreneurs and operators need to have an excellent grasp of several (even fairly disparate) disciplines, highly professional skills, a strategic and essential view of phenomena, with a strong sense of responsibility.

The Master aims to be part of a new form of training that is strongly oriented towards a multidisciplinary approach in contents and methods and occupies a unique position in a new educational context that is wide-ranging and with a strong interdisciplinary orientation:

• Economics and management (of tourism, of tourist business, of culture, of territory and environment)
• Communication (in tourism, tourism marketing, information technologies, and human sciences);
• Politics, Institutions and International relations.

The programme trains professional figures with qualified management career prospects in the foremost sectors of international tourism, as for instance:

• Destination Management Organizations;
• Tour operators;
• International organisations active in the field of tourism;
• Tourist communication (publishing, corporate communication, inter-cultural communication).