You’ll cover the foundations of event tourism, with a focus on research and data interpretation. Depending on your interests, you’ll explore the management side of sports tourism, cultural tourism, or strategic meetings. You’ll also choose from a list of electives that cover human resource management, statistical analysis, and topics in public affairs.
Required Courses
The course objectives are: 1) to introduce graduate students to the use of research as the basis for generating knowledge in areas related to health, kinesiology and recreation; 2) to introduce students to the importance of research and to give students practice with tools and tasks of research; 3) to introduce students to quantitative and qualitative research methodologies; 4) to assist students in the development of skills in reading, conducting and understanding research; and 5) to assist students in the development of an understanding of the conceptual foundations of research from which they will be able to: a) critically review and evaluate research, and b) pursue greater understanding of more technical aspects of research through advanced course work in research methodology and statistics.
Elementary and essential statistical and graphical techniques for analysis and interpretation of data; practice with actual data.
Emphasis Courses
This course will serve as a forum for the discussion of today's tourism, including tourism trends, tourism impact, tourism policy issues, examination of the role of the tourist, the tourism manager and the host community, etc. Delivery will be through a series of structured lectures, seminars, directed activities and a research project. This will include analyses of case studies, discussions, slide shows, DVD/videos, guided readings and individual/group research projects.
The purpose of this course is to help you gain advanced marketing concepts and learn the process of formulating and managing marketing strategy for event tourism. After taking this class, you should be able to: 1) identify aspects of event tourism marketing, 2) review and critically assess different marketing theories and practices in event tourism, and 3) conduct methodological sound marketing research of your own.
P: Undergraduate Micro-Economics.
The course examines the fundamental economic principles as they apply to the leisure and tourism industry. The economic complexities of the tourism product, including travel behavior, tourism spending, demand and supply of tourism services, costs and benefits of tourism events, tourism development by governments, etc., will be investigated. Trends in travel and tourism, and related socio-economic impacts are examined.
This course analyzes the interconnectedness of sport and tourism from behavioral, historical, economic, management, marketing, environmental and policy perspectives. Issues and trends in the sport and tourism industry are also investigated.
The course investigates the relationship between culture and tourism, by examining the socio-cultural complexities of cultural heritage tourism. Issues and trends in the management of tangible and intangible assets, such as interpretation, globalization, cross-cultural values, impacts of development, sustainable tourism, etc., are also investigated.
This graduate seminar is designed to address contemporary issues facing business professionals in the meeting and event industry. The course will evaluate high-level strategies that address a coordinated approach to planning and evaluating meetings.
Elective Recommendations
Application of statistical analysis to issues in public and environmental affairs and related fields. Addresses descriptive statistics, statistical inference, the nature of random variables, sampling distributions, point and interval estimation of parameters (mean, standard deviation, etc.), hypothesis testing, analysis of variance, and bivariate and multivariate regression. Emphasizes practical aspects of applying such methods, appropriately interpreting the results of these statistical analysis tools, and gaining a meaningful understanding of how statistical analysis can be misused or erroneously executed. Use of computer tools for carrying out statistical analysis (primarily SAS) will is also a major emphasis
P: SPEA-E 538 or V 506.
Focus on analytical models and their use in solving problems and making decisions in the public sector. Discussion of standard approaches to modeling and estimation of parameters.
The theory, size, scope, and functions of the nonprofit and voluntary sector are covered from multiple disciplinary perspectives including historical, political, economic, and social.
This course provides an overview of the human resource management areas necessary for the productive functioning of nonprofit organizations. Theories of motivation applicable to the management of staff and volunteers, and personnel topics of recruitment, selection, board-staff relations, compensation, training, and development are covered.
P: SPEA-V 521 or PHST-P 521.
An examination of nonprofit organizations and their role in society. Management issues and public policy affecting these organizations are discussed. Primary emphasis is upon U.S. organizations, but attention is given to the global nature of the sector.
This course emphasizes a thorough understanding of the language and key concepts of nonprofit financial management. A working knowledge of the basic analytical tools used in financial decision making for nonprofit organizations will be examined through the use of computer software.
Selected research and discussion topics organized on a semester-by-semester basis, usually with significant student input in the course design
Important aspects of the fund raising process in nonprofit organizations are covered, including techniques and strategies for assessing potential sources of support; effective use of human resources; process management; theory to underlay practice; analysis of current practice; practice standards; and discussion of ethical problems.
P: SPEA-V 506.
Focuses on management science methods as applied to public affairs. Includes treatment of decision theory, constrained optimization, and probability simulation.
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