Tourism Management

In the first semester of year 2, you will work on two tourism projects. After that, you will have the opportunity to determine your own study route by choosing a challenge, an exchange or a placement.
 
A challenge is a form of education in which students, together with lecturers and professionals from the field, work on issues from the world around us. These are mostly real-world issues in society for which they develop solutions, aiming to improve the travel industry. 

Overview of options:

• Year 2: In semester 3: two tourism projects and in semester 4: challenge, exchange or placement.
• Year 3: In semester 5: challenge, exchange, placement or minor and in semester 6: challenge, exchange, placement or minor.
• Year 4: In semester 7: challenge, exchange, placement, minor or graduation project and in semester 8: challenge, exchange, placement, minor or graduation project. 

The ground rules are as follows:  

• You do a placement of at least one semester. 
• You may do one international exchange of one semester. 
• You may do one minor of one semester. 

Placement

You will go on a placement of a minimum of twenty weeks. You can either do this in one go, or you can opt for two ten-week placements. 
During your placement, you will gain practical experience, discover what suits you best and prepare yourself for a job in the tourism and recreation field. The programme has an extensive national and international network, offering a wide choice of placements, both at home and abroad. You can make use of this network or look for a suitable placement yourself. The student affairs team will support you in your search for a placement.

Do you think 20 weeks is not enough in terms of a placement? You can also choose to do several placements during your studies. 

Here are a few placement examples:  

• Communication at Landal GreenParks
• Sun holidays at TUI
• Sustainability at Transavia
• Marketing & social media influencer at NBTC Holland Marketing
• EF International Language School in Madrid
• Marketing at Corinthia Hotels Malta 
• Sales at Happy Gringo Travel in Ecuador 

Read Rianne’s story to find out how everything she learned in her studies fell into place during her placement. And check out a day in the life of Jaleesa’s placement at EF International Language School in Sydney. 
 

Exchange

In the second, third or fourth year of your studies, you can take a semester of Tourism Management at one of our partner universities abroad. We have a total of some 100 partner universities, all over the world. To take part in an exchange programme, you will need to meet several conditions. If you are considering an exchange within Europe, you may qualify for a financial allowance through the Erasmus+ scholarship programme. A few of our partner universities:

• Hong Kong Polytechnic University in China 
• Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences in Finland 
• Università degli Studi di Roma 'Tor Vergata' in Italy 
• Northern Arizona University in the United States
• Hanyang University in South Korea 
• Munich University of Applied Sciences in Germany
• Universidad Politécnica de Valencia in Spain

Minors

In the third or fourth year, you may do a minor of one semester. During this period, you can choose whether you want to explore your current field in more depth or broaden your horizons in another subject. 

You may choose to take a minor at BUas. View all minors offered by BUas here. You can also opt for a minor at another university of applied sciences in the Netherlands.  

Foreign languages

Would you like to spend a block or semester studying a foreign language such as French, German or Spanish? If so, the Languages & Culture minor is right up your street. This minor will immerse you in the country’s culture. You will enter at your own level and learn what you need to be effective and successful in this language.  
 

Pre-master's

BUas offers its own pre-master's programme Strategic Business Management and Marketing (SBM). If your academic results are good, you will be offered the opportunity of attending this pre-master’s programme in your fourth year. Successful completion of this track will give you direct access, after Breda University of Applied Sciences, to various Master of Science programmes in business-related studies in management and marketing at several partner universities. A few examples are the universities of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. In this way, it will be possible for you to earn an academic master's degree within five years' time or, after having completed an accelerated three-year track, even within four years' time.

After your fourth year, you can also opt for a pre-master’s programme of a Dutch research university to gain direct access to their master’s programmes. 

From semester 4 in year 2, you can specialise further in the themes you were introduced to in year 1. You choose the theme you want to specialise in by working out challenges. This may be a challenge that lasts one block, but you can also choose to specialise in one theme for the rest of your studies. There are four main specialisation themes:  

• Travel Mobility. Exploring and developing responsible ways of travelling. An example of a challenge is the question: How can you motivate the adventurous traveller to travel by train instead of by plane? What solutions can you come up with - for example, for Eurail - to make rail travel within Europe easier?
• Tourism Hospitality. Exploring and combining new forms of hospitality in tourism. How can you lift hospitality to a higher level and blend it seamlessly into products like cruises, holiday resorts and day trip destinations?  
  Within this theme, you can also opt for Attractions & Theme Parks Management, an English-taught track together with International Facility Management and Leisure & Events Management. You have the option to participate in this track for either one semester or commit to a two-year programme and graduate in it.  
• Destination Development. Designing attractive tourism destinations for both visitors and residents. 
  In this theme, you will ‘Rethink Tourism’ during fieldwork. Your task will be to create sustainable solutions for local tourism businesses that have a positive impact on the destination.
• Travel Experience Design. Transforming travellers’ expectations into unforgettable experiences. 
  Using ‘Design Thinking’, you will solve complex problems for various travel companies, learn to create experience prototypes and do experiments and tests with these. Our Newways training company also falls under this theme. You can opt for a 20-week placement here from year 3. You can also opt for a 40-week placement in your graduation year. At our training company, you will organise a wide variety of trips and events, both business and leisure events.

During the Tourism Management professional bachelor’s programme, you will work on projects in a ‘learning community’. In small groups together with other students, lecturers and industry professionals, you will work on real-world assignments for companies. With proper support, of course! Not only from a team of lecturers, but also from your fellow students as you are working on the projects. 

In a learning community you learn by doing, exploring and discovering, and by reflecting together. In this way, you will develop skills that you can put to good use later on in your professional career.

You will also learn how things work in practice through company visits and fieldwork.
 

The average study load for this programme amounts to 40 hours per week per year. The number of hours students actually spend on their studies differs from person to person and from week to week. You will have two to three full days of classes on campus. These are fixed days that remain the same throughout the year. On the other days, you will work on projects either on campus or at home. 

Personal development

With the Lumina Spark method you will discover who you are and what you have to offer. You will gain insight into your personal preferences, your behaviour and how you react in different situations. You will learn to look at yourself and others from different perspectives.

Self-insight is the basis for many personal and professional skills that you can continue to use in your future personal and professional life, such as reflecting, cooperating effectively, giving feedback and dealing with stressful situations. Understanding yourself and others better is key to achieving success.  
 

On-site learning and internationalisation are important - if not indispensable - components of your Tourism Management programme and super valuable in terms of your own personal development.  

Fieldwork means working in professional practice; not only ‘seeing’ destinations and organisations from your classroom chair, but actually experiencing them on location, while demonstrating the competencies you have learned at the same time. 

With the help of BUas and local players in the tourism and recreation industry, you will get to know a destination from different perspectives. After all, you are not only a visitor and tourist, but also a professional-to-be. You will get to know a culture you may be not so familiar with. You will face dilemmas that you and your group will have to overcome. This will make you stronger in many respects.

In year 1, you will travel in the Netherlands or Europe (e.g., Bruges, Berlin or Malaga), but also visit, for example, the Holiday Fair (Vakantiebeurs) in Utrecht or an international fair in London. In year 2, you have the option to travel further, for example to Bali or Turkey.
 

At BUas you are trained to become an entrepreneurial professional. In all the professional bachelor’s programmes, you are given the opportunity to develop your entrepreneurial skills. Alongside your studies, you can join BUas Startup Support, BUSS. BUSS organises (networking) events and connects student startup entrepreneurs, there is even the possibility to apply for guidance from your own startup coach.

You can also graduate within BUas with your own company! Every academy offers this opportunity, though a selection process may apply. Maybe, by that time, you already have a small profitable business or have plans to start one? BUas Startup Support can help you.

More information on how to start your own business.