Bachelor of Business (Honours) in Tourism and Event Management

Course Summary

This degree is the only three-year honours degree in this subject available in our region, offering students the most current business degree with a specialism in tourism and events. This provides a broad and exciting platform to build a successful career, alongside opportunities to travel internationally. In a dynamic and rapidly changing world, our tourism graduates are confident, creative, and agile. This is exactly what is needed to continue to develop the world’s fastest growing economic sector. Our graduates also understand sustainability issues including managing tourism impacts and tourism planning marketing.

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW

This business degree is diverse and offers students a variety of career paths and further study options when they graduate. Guest lecturers, with national and international profiles, regularly visit to share their expertise with students. Students also complete real-life projects in collaboration with industry experts.

A work placement module takes place at the end of Year 2 and runs from April to September .This provides students with invaluable real-world experience and practical insights into the tourism, events, and closely related sectors. These include national or local tourism development agencies, travel agencies, tour operators, heritage and archaeological centres and tourism attractions. Students are encouraged to complete the placement overseas. In the past, students have completed their work placement in the USA, France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Alaska, Hong Kong, UK, Turkey and Ireland.

Business insight trips to tourism operations and firms are an integral part of the degree. There are also international field trips to tourist destinations such as Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Venice, Frankfurt and Rome.

YEAR 1

Modules include Event Management, Foundations of Tourism, Tourism and Travel Industry, Business Management and Business Application Software. 

YEAR 2

Students continue to explore the tourism sector and undertake modules in Sustainable Managing of the Impacts of Tourism, whilst also developing their Event Management and Financial Accounting skills. Students participate in a paid 4 to 6 month accredited work placement to apply their knowledge and develop their skills in tourism specific environments in Ireland or in an international destination.

YEAR 3

Students focus on the strategic aspects of the tourism sector and complete a 20-credit tourism and event management dissertation. Modules include Strategy, Global Tourism and Strategic Tourism.

KEY SKILLS

We have embedded several key skills in this degree.

• Students gain awareness and understanding of core tourism concepts and trends including cultural, adventure, eco- and events-related tourism developments
• Students understand sustainability issues including managing tourism impacts and tourism planning marketing
• Students build competencies in core business areas including management, marketing, finance, law and digital media marketing
• Students learn people-related skills including communication, interpersonal, team-working and customer service skills
• Students build their understanding of conceptual and organisational skills including collecting and organising information, problem-solving, planning and organising, innovation and creativity
• Students can choose to study French, German or Spanish as part of their elective choices.

Please note that modules may change for your year of entry. The exact modules available and their order may vary depending on student demand and course updates.

Entry Requirements

Entry requirements for CAO courses at ATU Sligo are available for download below:

• Download Entry requirements for just Level 8 programmes
• Download Entry requirements for all programmes

Garda Vetting

All entrants to this programme will be required to undergo vetting by An Garda Síochána. Students who have a criminal conviction in Ireland or elsewhere, may adversely impact their ability to undertake a professional placement or to secure employment.

Career Opportunities

Graduates are highly sought after and can work across the globe in festival and event management companies, national and local tourism development agencies, education, conference or business tourism, ecotourism, tour operators or travel agents, destination management, marketing organisations, as well as within cultural, heritage and conservation projects.

Many of our entrepreneurial graduates also start their own businesses. Graduates have worked on amazing events like Sea Sessions, Electric Picnic and the X-Factor. The opportunities arising from studying a multifaceted business degree such as Tourism and Event Management are endless.

Further Study

Graduates can pursue a wide range of Level 9 and 10 postgraduate programmes at Atlantic Technological University or other third-level institutions.

This degree has been designed in compliance with the Teaching Council’s curricular teaching subject requirements for Business,  graduates who complete a Professional Master of Education (PME) can become a secondary school teacher of Business.

Postgraduate options at ATU Sligo

Testimonials

“Sligo is a fantastic place to study. I loved every minute. Following my degree, I continued my studies to PhD level in ATU Sligo. My doctoral research focused on Local Authority sustainable planning for event management in Ireland. I went on to become a Senior Lecturer in Tourism and Event Management, John Moore University, Liverpool, UK and have recently moved back to Ireland where I now work as a lecturer in the Technological University of the Shannon”

Kelly has worked with Local Authorities in planning large-scale outdoor public events in Ireland and has worked as an independent research consultant in technologies for tourism and travel apps. She has acted as co-principal investigator on industry research funded by the National Tourism Development Authority of Ireland.

Dr. Kelly Maguire, BBs (Hons) in Tourism and Event Management, PhD studies in ATU Sligo and now working as a Lecturer

Did you know?

This is the only three-year honours degree in this subject available in the region.

We also offer this degree at Level 7 - AU803 BBs in International Tourism and Event Management

In a dynamic and rapidly changing world, our tourism graduates are confident, creative, and agile. This is exactly what is needed to continue to develop the world’s fastest growing economic sector in a sustainable manner.

Students complete real-life projects in collaboration with industry experts.

Business insight trips to tourism operations and firms are an integral part of the degree.

The degree includes international field trips to tourist destinations such as Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Venice, Frankfurt and Rome.

Guest lecturers, with national and international profiles, regularly visit to share their expertise with students.

Work placement provides students with invaluable real world experience and practical insights into the tourism, events, and closely related sectors. Students are encouraged to complete the placement overseas. In the past, students have completed their work placements in the USA, France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Alaska, Hong Kong, UK, Turkey and Ireland.

Students can choose to study French, German or Spanish as part of their elective choices.

Alumni

"The wide variety of modules will make you a well-rounded business person. This degree is perfect for entrepreneurs, project and event managers, and modern digital marketers. The modern workforce needs to be multi-skilled, and in my experience, those who have a flexible skill-set are higher valued by employers.

 After graduating, I became Deputy Manager at the Body and Soul music festival. This made me the 3rd most responsible person for medical teams and resources at a 10,000 person event. I used my time at ATU Sligo to get onto that team.

The next major career step after ATU Sligo was joining The White Hag Irish Brewing Company for three years. I started as an Event Executive before moving into Marketing and Communications, and finally becoming a manager at the brewery with core responsibility for all in-house events (Hagstravaganza International Brewery Festival, Boxtravaganza, TapRoom Series etc.) outgoing sales and logistics. Finally, I set up my own business in January 2021 with a long term friend as co-owner and co-founder. TemperHound Productions is a video and film production company."

Conor Mc Cullagh, BBs (Hons) in Tourism and Event Management graduate and co-owner of TemperHound Productions

"My favourite modules were tourism impacts, destination management, research methods in tourism, global tourism and completing my dissertation. In these modules, you have a lot of freedom to choose the direction that you want your continuous assessments or dissertation to go in, such as choosing the destination or the topic that you wish to investigate. Being allowed to investigate something you are interested in or enthusiastic about makes an enormous difference when you are completing your projects.

After graduating, I began my doctoral research project in October 2019 at ATU Sligo. My research aimed to assess the carbon footprint of Irish tourism and develop a stakeholder-based decarbonisation toolkit. I have presented at tourism conferences (nationally and internationally), and I have received an award from the AMI conference for the best academic paper. Furthermore, I have published academic papers in credible tourism journals on my research findings to date. Most importantly, I have created a novel bottom-up methodology to measure, monitor and report tourism emissions at a destination level.

In 2022, I established the first baseline carbon footprint of tourism in the Republic of Ireland. Currently, I am measuring and reporting the carbon footprint of tourism in Northern Ireland. Thus, I will have established the first baseline carbon footprint for tourism on the Island of Ireland. After that, I will be moving on to the next stage of my research which is to develop a stakeholder-based decarbonisation toolkit to mitigate climate change for sustainable destination management."

Anita Conefrey, BBs (Hons) in Tourism and Event Management graduate and currently completing her PhD studies in ATU Sligo

Course Format

Semester 1

Semester 2

Semester 3

Semester 4

Semester 5

Semester 6