Purdue’s online master’s in hospitality and tourism management updates curriculum to prepare service professionals for success in a wide range of industries
According to The Atlantic, the United States is in the midst of a paradigm shift – our economy, which was once driven by manufacturing, is now dominated by the services sector. This sector, which encompasses a wide range of businesses and industries that provide services to consumers, now accounts for over 70% of the United States’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Industries included in the services sector include financial service providers, the technology industry, media and entertainment, as well as food, hospitality and tourism. Increasingly, most jobs have a service component, and possessing strong service skills can help professionals succeed in a variety of different roles.
Purdue University is a global leader in training engineers, and the school’s White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM) is no different – expanding Purdue’s engineering legacy to “experience engineering.” Through the school’s top-ranked online Master of Science in Hospitality and Tourism Management, professionals from many different service sectors can get hands-on training focused on the latest trends and techniques in service management and prepare themselves for leadership roles in a variety of industries.
As a leader in training experience engineers, Purdue’s online HTM program focuses on helping service professionals craft and deliver an exceptional experience for the customer. Offering service excellence through experience engineering – whether in hospitality, restaurants, tourism or any other service-focused industry – requires a great deal of strategic planning, analytical thinking and industry expertise.
To reflect the complexities of experience engineering, the online master’s in hospitality and tourism management program has updated its curriculum to center on the state-of-the-art training and techniques that are defining the service industry today. These curriculum updates are designed to help prepare service professionals for the future of experience engineering and give them the advanced strategic and analytical skills they need to become service leaders and managers. Designed for professionals seeking career advancement, the program’s new curriculum offers foundational training that’s applicable to many different service fields, as well as courses in specialized topics and influential trends like influencer marketing, digital analytics, revenue management and more.
“The updated curriculum enriches the program offerings by including currently trendy and directly relevant topics that our students can directly apply to their jobs,” said Alei Fan, associate professor and director of master’s programs in the White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue University.
“For example, influencer marketing has become one of the most important marketing tools used by many organizations,” Fan continued. “The new Integrated Marketing Communication course integrates such a topic into the course contents by leveraging the research-proved best practices and hands-on experience to provide value-added learning experience to our online master’s students.”
Through taking updated courses focused on developing a service excellence mindset, experience design, revenue management, asset management, consumer behavior and more, students in the program reap the benefits of a traditional business degree with an added specific focus on service excellence. Several of the program’s courses focus on helping students build strong analytical thinking and strategic management skills, which are acquired through completing hands-on projects. These skills can help students prepare themselves for leadership and management roles within the service industry. Additionally, the program’s courses are taught by industry-experienced instructors from a variety of professional backgrounds who bring real-world knowledge to the virtual classroom.
“The hospitality and tourism industries have long been at the forefront of pioneering service excellence, but of late, other industries are realizing the benefits of their leaders adopting such a service mindset,” said Ceridwyn King, professor and school head of the White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue University. “In response to this, this curriculum redesign seeks to continue such pioneering efforts but does so in a way that is more accessible for those that not only work in hospitality and tourism but also for those that work in related fields or positions.”
The program’s curriculum updates also include an accelerated completion timeline, which makes earning Purdue’s master’s in hospitality and tourism management quicker and more accessible. In completing their master’s online, students get added flexibility and the ability to work toward the degree at their own pace. Those features were designed to help working professionals balance going back to school with their careers.
“The new curriculum consists of key competencies for the general service industry while covering a wide range of applications to various types of service organizations,” Fan said. “Students can adapt what they learn from this master’s program to various disciplines and different career paths in the general service industry or any service-related fields, including but not limited to hospitality, tourism, transportation, healthcare, senior living, retailing, financial planning, consulting and more.”
To learn more about Purdue’s online Master of Science in Hospitality and Tourism Management, please visit the program’s webpage.