Graduate Profile for the
Bachelor of Tourism (BTour)

Preamble

The Bachelor of Tourism (BTour) is an interdisciplinary degree combining resources from a range of teaching and research areas within the Waikato Management School, the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, and the School of Education.

The papers offered by the University of Waikato towards the BTour have been designed to achieve the following outcomes involving mastery of content, acquisition of skills and development of attributes. Learning experiences are incorporated into the programme to bring about these desired outcomes, and assessment is designed to ensure that students have the opportunity to demonstrate their achievement. The BTour contains three majors: 1) Tourism Management 2) Hospitality Management and 3) Tourism Resources Impacts and Planning (TRIP).

The University has developed strong relationships and networks with communities and businesses to ensure that its programmes and qualifications are relevant and responsive to their needs as well as our students' needs. The University is also responsive to a range of social and economic goals that have been identified as priorities by government. The generic capabilities developed by our graduates are of critical importance, as are specialist knowledge and skills. This graduate profile includes an outline of its links with other education sector groups, community groups, and employers who have an interest in the capabilities of tourism graduates. Many provide workplace experience opportunities.

Learning Philosophy

Tourism is the fastest growing business internationally. This international growth is reflected in New Zealand where it adds significantly to the economy. The growth in New Zealand is in a large number of diverse areas such as ecotourism, tourism regional development, hotel development and sports, leisure and visitor attraction development.

The diversity of the New Zealand tourism industry is reflected in both the subjects offered in the degree and also in the learning philosophy. As reflected in the University’s close industry relationship and the applied industry relevance of the learning, students at many levels are involved with direct industry research and contact. Experienced staff with many years of industry management experience augments the teaching of this degree.

Mastery of Content

The BTour is normally a three-year degree consisting of 20 papers, including eight compulsory papers.

Students can choose from one of the following majors:

• Tourism Management
• Hospitality Management
• Tourism Resources, Impacts and Planning

Admission Requirements

Students who obtain University Entrance through NCEA Level 3 will be admitted to the degree.

Acquisition of Skills and Development of Attributes

Citizenship

Graduates have developed awareness and holistic understanding of their role as responsible citizens in an increasingly globalised context. They are sensitive to the ethical and moral issues that relate to the management domain, and to the relationship of the Treaty of Waitangi to Aotearoa/ New Zealand's social, commercial and political environment.

Graduates are engaged by the world around them, culturally aware, tolerant of difference, and strong believers in creating a better world. Understanding of different approaches, styles and methods within a discipline helps our graduates to develop integrity, tolerance, cooperativeness, and sensitivity to cultural diversity and individual differences as they relate to both Aotearoa/New Zealand and to the larger global context.

Communication

Graduates have excellent oral, aural, written and electronic communication skills in English. They are familiar with the appropriate conventions for formal academic and professional communication in their discipline and are able to structure their communication clearly and to express complex and subtle concepts in an articulate manner.

Graduates are able to adapt their communication style to suit different media, contexts and audiences and have excellent research and presentation skills appropriate to the management and social science disciplines.

Connectedness

Graduates think globally and thrive locally. They build and sustain diverse and high-quality business, professional and personal networks and relationships. They are skilled at working cooperatively within diverse groups. They are team players who maximise the value of their individual skills in an organisational context.

Graduates are adaptable and flexible and can recognise and respond to change. They are skilled at managing transitions and are able to expand the horizons of possibilities through new ideas and insights.

Critical thinking

Graduates are able to engage real-world problems in a theoretically informed, rigorous, and questioning manner. Independent, fair-minded, reflective thinkers, they are skilled in the assimilation, analysis and evaluation of information and are able to draw on relevant theory and research to formulate questions and reasoned arguments leading to rational conclusions. They are willing to reconsider their positions in the light of new arguments and information.

They are skilled and persistent at accessing information through a variety of media and evaluating its relevance to a situation or topic. They are skilled and prudent in decision making by gathering, synthesising and critically assessing information and applying it appropriately to real situations.

Graduates are able to plan their work to meet time and structural constraints. They are life-long learners who are adaptable to change, progressive, innovative, and able to identify solutions and opportunities that add value to an organisation. They take a long-term, socially responsible view of their recommendations and decisions.

Commercial context

Graduates recognise the importance of a broad understanding of the business environment and organisational context within which decisions are made. Strategic, higher-level thinkers, they have developed an ability to integrate knowledge from academic disciplines, research and practice to achieve a broad perspective on the multitude of factors - internal and external - that impact on the organisation.

Creative, actively involved and solution oriented, graduates are open to and aware of the wider implications of specific knowledge and are able to adapt and apply their skills to suit varied situations.

Graduate Pathways in Further Education

Students take advantage of a comprehensive range of graduate and postgraduate qualifications to build on their BTour qualification. These include:

• BTour Hons
• Graduate Certificate and Diploma in Tourism Management
• Postgraduate Diploma in Tourism Management
• Master of Management Studies
• Master of Philosophy
• Doctor of Philosophy

Majors and Career Prospects

The Bachelor of Tourism differs from other degrees offered in New Zealand in relation to the broad nature of the subjects offered as well as their specific industry relevance. This gives students the ability to select from the degree a programme of study that best fits their aspirations and that of the fast developing tourism industry.

Tourism Management Major

Career Paths:

• Tourist Attraction Manager
• Visitor Services Manager
• Adventure Tourism Operator
• Tourism Facility Manager
• Tourism Business Developer
• Regional or National Tourism Planner
• Tourism Policy Analyst

The ongoing growth of tourism has fuelled demand for people who understand management within the tourism industry in its widest contexts.

This major in Tourism Management involves describing, explaining and forecasting the intentions, activities and experiences of people, as well as understanding the management of social, cultural, economic and environmental impacts of tourism.

Hospitality Management Major

Career Paths:

• Hotel Manager
• Lodge and Resort Manager
• Food and Beverage Manager
• Industrial and Commercial Food Service Manager
• Reception Facilities Manager
• Food and Beverage Retail Manager
• Hotel Operations Manager

The hospitality industry is where entrepreneurship, service quality and business leadership thrive. Hospitality Management is defined as the management of any business that supplies food, drink or accommodation to those away from home and, as such, influences many parts of the tourist experience.

Tourism Resources, Impacts and Planning Major

Career Paths:

• Environmental or Resource Management Planner
• Regional or National Tourism Planner
• Local Authority Policy Analyst

This major looks at the impacts of tourism in its role in social and economic development. It studies the origins of travellers and their destinations and the interconnections thus established. It includes the political, social, environmental, economic and cultural contexts tourism occurs in. This major comprises a mix of compulsory papers on the construction and impacts of tourism as a social process, as well as papers from social science disciplines, which assist students to explore gender, ethnic, regional and environmental dimensions of tourism. This major is offered by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Business and Community Networks

During the past three years the Department of Tourism Management has developed strong relationships with the tourism industry and community, and as a result has undertaken a large number of research projects. Research projects undertaken include:

• Bay of Islands – Tourism Impacts
• Hamilton Masters Games – Economic Impact
• Hamilton International Airport
• Tourism Coromandel
• Impacts of visitors to Hamilton – Waikato Motel Association
• Measuring Attitudes – Department of Conservation
• Indigenous People in Tourism – various projects including those related to The Māori Arts and Crafts Institute
• Tourism Waikato – Economic Impact
• Rangitikei Tourism – Economic Impact
• Tourism Behaviours – Report River Valley Ventures
• Strategic Development – North Waikato Tourism Group
• Destination Waitomo – Economic Impact Assessment
• Chinese Visitors to New Zealand Tourism – Tourism New Zealand Funded Project
• Ecotourism in Raglan

Conclusion

The BTour focuses on developing a responsive approach to the needs of the industry, in New Zealand and overseas, by encouraging students to develop both a constructive, and critical understanding of tourism, its constituent parts, impacts and management.