Tourism (full time day studies) Rovaniemi, Autumn 2016: R81D16S

Kuvaus

SUORITETTAVA TUTKINTOBachelor of Hospitality Management 210 ECTS
TUTKINNON YLEISKUVAUS JA TAVOITTEETThe Degree Programme in Tourism at Lapland University of Applied Sciences gives you a degree as a Bachelor of Hospitality Management. The tourism and hospitality industry needs specialists with creativity, innovation and team working skills as well as solid expertise in tourism related subjects. The degree aims at giving you skills and competences required to be able to work for private or public organisations in an international and multicultural environment e.g. as a Marketing and/or Sales Manager, Travel Supervisor, Customer Service/Event Manager, Project Manager/Coordinator or as an entrepreneur.

Tourism Management and Experience Design can be described as the actual specialisation field of the programme. Experience Design has a holistic approach of planning and designing tourism products, services and events with the focus on the quality of culturally relevant customer experiences which create emotional responses and leave a lasting impression and satisfaction for the user. Carefully chosen programme-specific competences in the Degree Programme in Tourism emphasise field-related skills. According to the strategy of the Multidimensional Tourism Institute, also hospitality, foresight and safety issues are seen important from the perspective of your own expertise and the entire tourism field.

Entrepreneurship and business studies are included in the Degree Programme in Tourism. Internationalisation issues have naturally a central position in the curriculum as well as multicultural issues, mostly due to the fact that the programme itself is international and its students come from various cultural backgrounds. Sustainable development and responsibility are the core elements which are taken into close consideration throughout the contents of the curriculum.

Your learning takes place in diverse, changing environments and studies contain a lot of cooperation with local and international partners from the working life. You complete various projects together with the working life according to needs and requirements of local companies and organisations in the tourism and hospitality industry. Real working life problems are studied and solved as part of the content of your study units. Therefore research, development and innovation have a clear emphasis in your studies.

You can take part of your studies and/or your training periods outside Finland. Non-Finnish students are also encouraged to take their training in Finland in order to better integrate into Finnish society and working life. Training takes place partly in the summer semesters being a suitable option from the student's point of view.

The study exchange outside Finland has been taken into consideration in the curriculum so that the 2nd autumn semester offers the most ideal option for it. You have a possibility to choose whether to get specialisation according to the requirements and key areas of one of our UAS’ partner institutions or to stay in the home institution and deepen your expertise in studies with a northern aspect instead.

The Degree Programme in Tourism also works in close cooperation with other degree programmes of Lapland UAS and with the University of Lapland. There are study units organised together as well as cross-selectable studies that consist of study units of all three institutions of the Multidimensional Tourism Institute (MTI). This enables you to broaden your specialisation even further and to get more perspective from the focal areas of the other MTI institutions.

OPINTOJEN RAKENNE JA TOTEUTUSTAPAThe curriculum consists of study units and themes. The learning objectives and contents of the themes describe central professional competence required in the tourism and hospitality field. Annual and semester themes are built up from the perspective of your professional growth.

The curriculum structure of the Degree Programme in Tourism:

1) Basic and Professional Studies 150 ECTS

2) Free-Choice Electives 10 ECTS

3) Practical Training 30 ECTS

4) Bachelor’s Thesis 20 ECTS (including R&D studies)

The objective of Basic Studies is to give you a broad, general picture of the tourism and hospitality field. Cultural issues and the Arctic region with its various aspects are taken into consideration. The Basic Studies also give knowledge of general theoretical principles of the work and communication and provide our students with the language skills required by the Polytechnics Act (1129/2014, 7 § and 481/2003, 15 – 19§).

The objective of Professional Studies is to familiarise you with the main work entities and applications in the field and their scientific and academic principles so that, upon graduating, you are able to work independently as a specialist or entrepreneur in the tourism field and participate in developing the work community.

Practical Training familiarises you with practical work, which is important from the standpoint of professional studies and allows you to apply your knowledge and skills in the working life.

In the Thesis project you develop your ability to apply your knowledge and skills in practical specialist's work related to your professional studies.

The objective of Free-Choice Electives is to deepen and supplement your professional competence. These studies also support your compulsory studies and broaden the content according to your own interests and personal preferences. In addition to general Free-Choice Electives and campus-specific selectable studies, you may also include studies from other degree programmes and other higher education institutions in your Free-Choice Electives.

Path of Professional GrowthIn the curriculum of the Degree Programme in Tourism the learning process is transparent and your professional growth from the learner to the developer is described through the annual themes as follows:
1. Annual Theme: Student as a Learner
Students value their studies in the field of tourism and hospitality management. They develop their know-how in hospitality, their skills in investigative learning and their basic knowledge and skills in professional competence as a foundation for their own profession. Students become oriented to the Lappish work and operating environments in the field of tourism and hospitality management. They employ investigative learning methods to develop their own personal way of working in a group as a learner, a guide of learning and an evaluator of learning. They are able to take responsibility for their own work and also for the learning process and common tasks of the whole group. They take multicultural issues into account when planning, implementing and assessing their study and work related operations. They apply principles of sustainability in their studies and work-related tasks.
2. Annual Theme: Student as an Applier
Students apply their knowledge in the field of tourism and hospitality management in varied operating environments. They develop their business-related skills in tourism service while deepening their competence in programme-specific core areas required of a superior in the field of tourism and hospitality management. Students also broaden their specialisation in international issues by taking exchange studies or their training period outside Finland or specialising in northern issues in their home institution. They apply an innovative and foresight related approach in their field related studies and tasks. At the end of the academic year, students are able to apply their knowledge of Service and Experience Design.
3. Annual Theme: Student as a Developer
Students employ a reflective, investigative and developmental grasp of work to profile themselves as innovative, creative developers in the field of tourism and hospitality management. They have individual-, community- and organisation-level competence required (of a good novice) to develop the field. Students are able to diversely apply their business, development, work community and substance skills in their practical work. They develop their skills in their specialisation area, Tourism Management and Experience Design.
4. Annual Theme: Student as a Developer
Students are able to develop their business, development, work community and substance skills. They have more expertise in their specialisation area, Tourism Management and Experience design. They deepen their knowledge in responsible destination management and develop destination experiences. They also produce project and research materials according to the requirements of a Bachelor of Hospitality Management. At the end of their studies students have met the competence requirements of the tourism and hospitality field. They can also reflect their professional skills from the viewpoint of their own career development.

Wide areas of professional competences derived from the working life form the basis of the curricula of Lapland University of Applied Sciences which also include various learning objectives and assessment criteria.
Competences of the curriculum are divided into general working life competences (1-5) common to all degree programmes and programme-specific competences (6-12).
General competences are general areas of knowledge common to all degree programmes but their special features and importance may vary in different professions and work. General competences form the basis for working, cooperating and developing as a specialist in working life. The assessment of the general competences take place in the same assessment process as the programme-specific competences.

Competences
1. Learning Competence
2. Working Community Competence
3. Ethical Competence
4. Innovation Competence
5. Internationalisation Competence
6. Responsible Tourism Business Competence
7. Management and Supervisory Competence
8. Hospitality Competence
9. Foresight Competence
10. Safety Competence
11. Cultural and Communication Competence
12. Service and Experience Design Competence

The curricula contain specific areas of emphasis derived from the strategy of Lapland University of Applied Sciences as cross-cutting learning objectives. The profile areas are Safety and Security, Arctic Cooperation and Cross-Border Expertise, Managing Distances, Smart Use of Natural Resources as well as Service Business and Entrepreneurship.
Internationalisation is naturally taken into close consideration due to the fact that this degree programme is multicultural and international. The language of tuition is English and you have a possibility to take your study exchange/training outside Finland, which will broaden your expertise even further. Exchange students from the partner institutions of Lapland UAS attend the studies of your degree programme as well.
Finnish students study Swedish (5 ECTS) and, in addition, they also need to choose studies of some other foreign language except English (5 ECTS) as one of their compulsory language studies. Foreign students study Finnish (10 ECTS) in order to integrate to Finnish society and culture more easily. Communications skills are integrated and assessed throughout the studies of the degree programme.
Implementation and AssessmentThe common learning approach of Lapland UAS is competence and problem-based. The main learning goal is to develop your professional skills through active learning and teaching methods. You develop your professional expertise by strengthening your problem-solving and decision-making skills in development projects implemented together with the working life. Learning is seen as active interaction and participation between students, teachers and the working life. You become an active and responsible key operator in your own learning process. Your teacher is a specialist, supervisor and facilitator of the learning process. On a semester level, all teachers of the study units work as a team and create thus assignments and projects together with the working life.
The official objectives of the tourism education are the guidelines that support and motivate your learning. The curriculum forms the basis for an individual study plan (ISP) which you compile together with your Teacher Tutor. It can be updated whenever needed.
Learning, research and development take place in diverse, changing environments consisting of laboratories, virtual platforms, environments offered by international partners, working life and research, development and innovation projects. Digitalization is therefore utilised in the learning process. Your thesis project is also always commissioned by a tourism company or organisation and its goal is to develop the tourism and hospitality industry, in addition to your own skills and competences.
Pedagogisation of work is an alternative way of studying. You acquire skills and competences required in the curriculum by working in the tourism field and getting the skills and competences directly from there. This method supports your professional development.
Assessment takes place both in the learning process and with the learning outcomes. Your self-evaluation and feedback are seen as central elements of the assessment. The learning objectives of a study unit create basis for the assessment and they are derived directly from the competence requirements of the programme. The learning objectives and the assessment criteria of the study unit are in focus in the assessment process and the learning outcomes are identified through them.
In addition to the learning outcomes, attention is also paid to the learning and development of your skills and competences. Therefore, this assessment takes place on a semester basis so that all four levels of the assessment are included (social, reflective, cognitive and operational). In this way you will be able to see the progress of your personal professional growth and know at which stages of your learning path the assessment takes place. You, your group members, the teacher team of the semester as well as the working life representative(s) participate in the assessment process.
The following assessment scale is in use: excellent (5), good (3–4), satisfactory (1–2), failed (0) or the scale passed/failed. A detailed assessment plan for each study unit is presented in the study unit's implementation plan. The programme has taken into use very specific, detailed assessment criteria to be presented at the very beginning of each study unit and they are discussed together with the students and all other assessment parties involved.
The quality of the education is paid careful attention to with the help of a student feedback process. In addition to the study unit and semester feedback, you can give annual feedback about the studies of the degree programme and also when graduating. 
The definition of student workload is based on the principles of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS). One academic year consists of 1,600 hours of full-time study. This corresponds to completing 60 credits during the academic year. One credit comprises about 27 hours based on the learning objectives of the study unit. Studies are designed to progress steadily for 40 weeks during each academic year. A time control plan is used in each study unit and on a semester basisto measure the right workload of students.
Competence acquired earlier and/or elsewhere can be recognised as part of your studies of the degree programme. The recognition of prior learning follows a certain procedure which is in use at Lapland UAS. It is also possible for you to get some of your studies completed through a credit transfer process (932/2014, 37 § 9).