Graduate Profile – Bachelor study:
After the first degree of completing, the graduate of the study program Management in Tourism and Hospitality has knowledge in the field of management, in the context of the program. He has knowledge of current trends in tourism, hospitality industry and knows necessary terminology (at least in one world language). After completing the studies, the graduate can manage the decisions, plans and projects, as well as teams, or larger internal organizational units, while fulfilling strategic, tactical, as well as operational goals and plans of the tourism organization. The graduate can apply the individual practical skills of a manager, such as open communication, time management (own and others), effective motivation of employees, innovations management, social responsibility in organization management, work in an intercultural environment, permanent training and education, etc.
The graduate has knowledge in the field of human resources management, applies individual HRM functions in practice to meet the individual as well as organization goals, with respect to individual goals too. After completing the first level of study, the graduate can use research methods, procedures and tools (quantitative and qualitative research methods, such as regionalization methods, cartographic methods...) but also use the secondary information and data obtained from external sources (Tourism Development Strategy 2020, statistics of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic focused on the level of tourism in the Slovak Republic, Trexima, Profesia, Hay group, European Travel Commission, UNWTO ...) to evaluate the operation of the tourism organization and its components in the given context.
Based on the mentioned above, the graduate knows how to identify and analyse management and material opportunities and threats in the field of tourism and hospitality, propose and implement practical solutions with positive economic outcome; has knowledge in the field of human resource management, marketing, event and project organization, economics, accounting, statistics, and informatics and applies them in business sphere, public institutions but also non-governmental area and business sector within service industry of tourism and hospitality. A graduate of the study program Management in Tourism and Hospitality has a broad-spectrum view on the field of tourism and hospitality management in the interaction with all stakeholders as well as taking into account other factors entering the market, thus integrates himself actively in the given area of business as an entrepreneur of a small company or non-profit organization, or in a middle management position.
Educational goals - Required outputs for a bachelor's degree graduate
I. Knowledge
- The graduate has an overview in the field of economics and management and its basic terminology, is familiarized with the most important scientific approaches and the latest trends in economics and management. The study equipped him with a basic conceptual apparatus from the human resource management in organizations in the context of their size, focus and tools also, the knowledge in the field of macroeconomics and microeconomics; the most important directions of economic thinking with the ability to explain the individual instruments of the state monetary and fiscal policy. The graduate can explain the basic principles of complex economy functioning, interpret the relationships between the most important macroeconomic variables, identify profit-maximizing levels of production using cost and revenue curves, explain the factors causing changes in supply and demand and explain the issues of price regulation in a market economy, distinguishes between different concepts of total, average and marginal costs, distinguishes between total and marginal revenue. The graduate knows how businesses and tourism organizations determine the price, what resources to use to provide services, identifies the most available options for financing innovations in the tourism industry, the latest trends in tourism products creation, defines the necessity of innovation processes and characterize innovations in tourism destinations, as well as knows how to define and work with information technologies used in tourism. The graduate of the study program has knowledge of tourism and hospitality, understands its role and importance for the development of national and world economies, understands services in tourism and hospitality industry regarding the multicultural EU environment.
From legal point of view, the graduate has knowledge of legislative aspects of tourism and hospitality together with mastered key terminology necessary to understand the system of public and private law functioning in the field. The graduate has knowledge of national and key world gastronomy, trends connected with the development in the field of catering, hotels operation, hospitality and tourism. The graduate is also familiar with basic theoretical and methodological start points of tourism geography, has acquired knowledge regarding the history of tourism geography, its functions, selective, localization and implementation assumptions aimed at the delimitation and typology of potentials bound with all aspects of national and international tourism. The graduate is familiar with the basic characteristics of consumer markets, purchasing behaviour model of a tourism organization, the graduate knows the structure of marketing and communication mix in the environment of tourism and hospitality industry with the generally applicable principles of international marketing, the application of marketing audit processes in practice, also acquired knowledge of ethics in marketing and the relationship of marketing towards human society. The graduate is also familiar with the mechanism of a sustainable approach to business in the field of tourism and hospitality and perceives tourism products from the point of view of its sustainable development. Finally, the first level graduate also gained specific knowledge on stating, planning and implementation of smaller scale projects, where the project difficulty corresponds to the level of knowledge, expertise and skills bound with the first degree of study completing.
II. Skills
- The graduate can apply the acquired knowledge and skills to prepare assignments and semester projects on the chosen topic.
- The graduate can use the basic methods and techniques of planning, organizing and leading people and control.
- The graduate understands the sense and usefulness of law, as a set of behavioural rules, without which the society life would be unthinkable, and without which society and the state would collapse.
- The graduate can use the tools and individual functions of human resources management in specific conditions, apply basic knowledge when analysing current issues in the field of human resources management.
- The graduate can perform basic macroeconomic calculations in practice and independently calculate basic macro indicators.
- The graduate knows the methodologies for comparing the success of economic policy, can analyse the possibilities of the economy future development.
- The graduate can independently evaluate the potential of tourism in the given region, or destination, can formulate relevant conclusions regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the subject area in terms of tourism potential, localization, selection and implementation of prerequisites.
- The graduate can apply the basic principles of sustainable tourism and sustainable tourism development in practice.
- The graduate can formulate recommendations for tourism businesses that strive to improve their business through innovation and thus increase the number of visitors and tourists in the given region.
- The graduate can independently evaluate the necessities of the innovation process and clearly define the main features of tourism innovation.
- The graduate can apply the basic principles of sustainability in the tourism industry, apply them in accommodation services, use methods and techniques of saving electricity and thermal energy, water; initiate measures for their saving and ecological renewal, introduce a system of economical waste management in tourism facilities with the use of smart technologies.
- The graduate can independently evaluate the basic problems of introducing ecological company performance, can formulate relevant conclusions for sustainability, as well as apply basic knowledge when analysing current issues, recognize the causes of climate change in the world and their expected consequences for tourism.
- The graduate can carry out analyses of the basic processes of the marketing environment as well as the purchasing behaviour of consumers on the market, end consumers, organizations, and governments.
- The graduate can apply the skills to decide on the marketing tools of a tourism company.
- The graduate can constructively plan the implementation of a smaller scale project (event) focused on the field of tourism, including the sources defining and a specific program planning.
- The graduate can independently create an animation activity and adapt it according to the user's age in the context of personal motor skills and the cognitive stage of personality. Further can evaluate the time, material and financial resources needed for the animation activity implementation.
- The graduate can solve partial parts of the project, but also comprehensively process all documents and then apply them during the implementation process.
III. Professional competencies
- • The graduate acquires skills in a wide range of theoretical approaches to solving practical issues related to the management of the organization as a whole or its individual parts.
- The graduate can apply the acquired knowledge within the framework of other related professional courses and also within the study framework at the second level of university studies.
- The graduate is professionally qualified to analyse the application of individual human resources management functions in specific conditions and is able to evaluate the situation and propose measures to improve the current situation.
- The graduate is professionally qualified to perform an analysis of the macroeconomic environment with knowledge of the input variables, can predict possible developments and propose solutions to possible adverse developments in a particular economy.
- The graduate has acquired basic legal-theoretical knowledge suitable to use in public administration practice and is able to decide on the application of relevant provisions of law in problematic situations and to look up the current wording of legal regulations.
- The graduate can work with selected applications focused on map systems and navigation, compile an itinerary of a tourist stay in a selected tourism destination and fill it with a program corresponding to real time possibilities, with the use of portals such as Booking, Tripadvisor and others.
- The graduate has an overview in a wide range of theoretical and practical knowledge related to inventions and innovations in the tourism industry, knows new trends that condition and largely influence the tourism products creation, and also can recommend the tourism businesses with the procedures and options to approach innovative steps appropriately.
- Based on knowledge about the financial possibilities of innovation support, the graduate has the ability to suggest the real tourism businesses with the way how to proceed with innovations implementation.
- The graduate is professionally qualified for the introduction of environmentally sensitive measures in tourism establishments (especially in accommodation services).
- The graduate gained overview in a wide range of technical solutions aimed at environmentally alternative solutions used for the operation of accommodation facilities, can name specific measures aimed at partial elimination of the negative consequences of climate change on destinations and tourism facilities.
- The graduate knows the causes, consequences and possible solutions of over tourism and can use demarketing tools within restrictive measures to mitigate its consequences.
- The graduate can compile a situational analysis of a tourism company, identify its competitive advantages on the leisure market, and propose a product, price, distribution and communication strategy for the company.
- The graduate is professionally qualified to organize smaller scale events in the field of tourism, independently and flexibly solve problems during planning and during the actual implementation of the project. Through analytical methods, the graduate can evaluate the success of implemented project and subsequently propose a measure for future improvement.
- After graduation is the graduate professionally qualified to apply the acquired knowledge and skills in practical activities in tourism and hospitality industry.
IV. Transferable skills
- The graduate of the study program acquires communication skills, the ability to organize and plan work, make decisions, and take responsibility for them.
- The graduate can rationally evaluate the course and results of the activities performed.
- The graduate acquires legal thinking, develops analytical thinking, acquires cultivated and professional written and oral speech, acquires as well as consolidates civic competences.
- Graduates develop teamwork skills, improve their ability to analyse and solve practical problems, and master time management techniques.
- The graduate acquires analytical skills important for the field of research methodology, the ability to solve tasks from practice, effectively use models and techniques in the field of economic decision-making.
- The graduate can independently characterize individual regions from the viewpoint of tourism superstructure and infrastructure, even with an accent on the key forms of tourism in the given region.
- The graduate gets an overview in exchange activities and pitfalls when exchanging domestic currency for foreign currency.
- The graduate masters analytical skills in the field of energy and water consumption, compares various options to provide tourism services in terms of energy savings and environmental impacts and choose the best options, while obtaining the necessary information, and work with it and propose creative solutions and flexibly adapt to new results of science and implement them in practice.
- The graduate knows how to use effective communication when booking selected tourism services and searching for information about destinations on the Internet.
- The graduate can analyse and solve problems within the framework of the effects of the marketing environment on the tourism business and the customer, makes decisions and takes responsibility for the implementation of the marketing plan in practice, uses creative techniques effectively as to create campaigns for tourist attractions and hotels, manages complex marketing assignments and draw conclusions from them.
- The graduate can creatively and flexibly search for alternatives to solve the problem.
- Graduates improve their digital literacy and analytical thinking.
- The graduate acquires the ability to analyse and solve problems.
- The graduate will be able to work independently or conceptually in a team, according to the requirements of a specific focus of a business.
