Skip to main content

Management with Tourism and Hospitality (Professional Practice) MSc

2025-26 (also available for 2023-24, 2024-25)

Start date

22 September 2025

12 January 2026

Duration

18 months with placement

About the course

Reasons to study

  1. Study at an AACSB International accredited Business School. Globally, less than 6% of institutions offering business degrees achieve this accreditation.
  2. You will have the opportunity to gain an additional professional qualification from the CMI which is highly valued by employers.
  3. Study at the Times Higher Education Business School of the Year 2023.

This course is specifically aimed at international students, supporting those wishing to gain practical work based experiential learning. Together with studying your chosen course we are offering an additional 6-month placement opportunity, making the course 18 months in length. This allows students to put into practice the skills and techniques developed throughout the Master’s degree within a UK environment after completing the 12-month taught programme.

A Masters in Management offers a wide and flexible range of options and is an excellent opportunity for those from a variety of backgrounds to acquire awareness and insight into professional management principles and practice.

This course examines key issues concerning the structure and organisation of the tourism and hospitality sector, together with a critical analysis of major issues affecting the industry. You’ll develop the skills and knowledge for a career in a variety of global management roles.

The course will equip you with the knowledge of key management areas such as marketing, finance, people management and strategy, applying real world business case studies to develop your professional and leadership skills. Designed to enable you to tailor the course to your own personal and career interests, there are a number of option modules available.

Course detail

Core modules

Fundamentals of Management

The Fundamentals of Management module focuses on the fundamentals of why organisations exist and what organisations ‘do’. You'll cover core aspects of the management of a company such as strategic decision making, marketing, accounting and finance, operations and human resource management. The modules provides an opportunity to develop a high-level overview of the landscape of organisations and learn about the skills required by managers in modern organisations.

Tourism and Hospitality Management

In this module you will examine the importance of this dynamic industry and the key issues affecting the structure, organisation and management of the Tourism and Hospitality industry. The module will draw upon a range of disciplines, including history, geography, economics, sociology, psychology and anthropology, as well as applied functional areas such as management, marketing, human resource management, finance, operations and research & development, to assess issues and propose solutions. The module will focus on companies, consumers, destinations and communities.

Fundamentals of Leadership

The Fundamentals of Leadership module focuses on understanding leadership in organisations. You will have an opportunity to develop an appreciation of the ‘softer’ side of business such as people management, communication, leadership skills, diversity and performance management. We will encourage you to reflect on developing your own leadership skills and style and developing your own leadership solutions.

The Global Professional

In today’s highly mobile and interconnected world of business, you will undoubtedly find yourself working with culturally diverse teams, partnerships and customer bases. It is therefore essential that you are able to offer future employers, colleagues and other stakeholders an adaptable interculturally aware and responsive approach. In the light of that, this module fosters transferable skills fundamental to global employability. Your professional and personal development will be guided through the application of the eight CIPD Behaviours, University of Huddersfield’s target Graduate Attributes, and key Intercultural Effectiveness skills and mindsets. As you develop professionally through your subject studies you will increase consciousness of your individual cultural make-up and the impact of this on behaviour, relationships and worldview in order to navigate beyond the borders of your own culture. You will develop a conscious approach to effective global practice, responding positively to difference, and constructing strategies to deal with intercultural workplace encounters.

Your course provides you the option to select from 6 modules which may include:

Intelligent Business Information Systems

This module will review the principles and applications of information systems and business intelligence in different types of businesses and organisations. The role of information systems and business intelligence in modern operations and supply chains will be reviewed and discussed. The most recent advances in technology, their applications and implications in managing businesses will be discussed. Different types of information and enterprise systems and software will be reviewed and discussed in this module. Issues to be considered in the implementation and use of these packages will be highlighted.

Managing Sustainable Challenges

Businesses around the globe are becoming more aware of their role in helping to build a more sustainable future. Consequently, this module will aim to provide you with an integrative understanding of the role of business in overcoming the challenges of sustainability. Utilising both theory and practice-based frameworks related to business responsibility, corporate sustainability and sustainable development, you will have the opportunity to identify, and assess the challenges associated with the responsibilities of business. You will also be introduced to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a view towards examining how businesses could collaborate to achieve these.

Managing Employee Relations

This module will provide a comprehensive understanding of employment relations perspectives and debates, focusing not just on the theoretical, practical and legislative aspects of this constantly evolving subject area but also to manage employment relations strategies and their outcomes on organisational climate, employees and management. Through critical application of activities, knowledge and behavioural competencies learners this module aims to equip you to strategically manage employment relations practices across broad organisational settings e.g. non-union and union environments, to enable the effective management of the employment relationship.

Global Business and Human Rights

As more and new corporate and trading actors emerge onto the global commercial scene, questions as to the relationship between business and human rights increasingly raise profound and intriguing problems of law and policy. This module, alert to historic developments, and drawing on principles of international law, investigates how national, regional and international initiatives to regulate the ever-changing dynamics of financial and cultural globalisation, are affecting respect for human rights in contemporary society. Your study will focus on some of the key dilemmas and opportunities arising from shifts in power dynamics towards non-state actors, enquiring as to how the UN’s negotiation and legal frameworks are adapting for the purpose of protecting rights and ensuring the viability of trading networks in the 21st century.

Emotional Intelligence for the Effective Leader

EQ (emotional intelligence) is considered to be the ‘soft’ skill which the sharpest leaders use. This module encourages you to enhance your effectiveness in areas of EQ such as self-awareness, self management, mindset, integrity, maturity, empathy, inter- and intrapersonal intelligences, and physical context. All of this is contextualised within a framework for developing effective relationship management in team work and leadership.

Management Accounting

This module aims to provide you with an understanding of key management accounting issues and applied methodologies in contemporary business practice, focusing on the role of management accounting in providing information for operational and strategic decision-making, planning, control and performance management. You will have the opportunity to examine the blend of cost analysis and managerial judgment required to make sound economic decisions and covers topics in cost management, budgetary control, and short and longer term financial decision making, particularly in the manufacturing sector.

Final Project

An opportunity to pursue an area that interests you or which you are passionate about comes in your choice of project. You have a choice of three routes: Research Route, Consultancy Route and New Venture Creation Route (subject to tutor approval).

Research Route

Research Methods

This module aims to provide you with foundation concepts of research methods to prepare you to conduct your own research. It will introduce you to different types of research approaches available to researchers, how to formulate good research questions, how to review academic literature in the research process, how to select the appropriate data collection techniques, how to carry out the data analysis and write-up. The module should provide a solid basis for you to develop your skills further in your own research project.

Individual Research Project

The Individual Research Project provides an opportunity to pursue your own interests and engage more deeply with your subject by completing an in-depth piece of research work using relevant research methods. Working autonomously, but under the guidance of a supervisor, you will make choices about the most appropriate methods and then conduct your own research project. Through the Individual Research Project, you will have the opportunity to greatly enhance your own knowledge and skills. The research will be presented in written format using academic conventions recognised in your field.

Consultancy Route

Consultancy Skills

This module prepares you for the Group Consultancy Project. It introduces the theory underpinning the process of consultancy in organisations. The module will analyse various models of consultancy and you will be given an opportunity to explore different stages in the consultancy cycle including: the purpose of consultancy in business context, project scoping and contracting, information gathering, analysis and report, action planning, implementation, review and exiting.

Group Consultancy Project

The Group Consultancy Project provides you with the opportunity to engage in a ‘real world’ live client brief. You will work in small teams and will be expected to engage in the process of scoping the project with the business client, undertake the necessary information gathering, analysing the information and make recommendations to the client. As part of this module, you will also need to evaluate how principles of ethics, sustainability and responsibility influence your professional decision making.

New Venture Creation

Launch a venture

The module provides you with the opportunity to take the practical steps to initiate a new venture or facilitate growth and innovation in an existing venture. The focus is on developing an understanding of business practicalities through action, reflection and case study. The module encourages you to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes for practice, recognising that you may be at different stages and working on different issues at the same time. Supervision and action learning sets provide flexible support to enable self directed learning to facilitate start up and business development initiatives with existing businesses.

New Venture Creation

The module will encourage you to develop your entrepreneurial mind-set, and help you understand the challenges and opportunities of starting and running a new venture. Your entrepreneurial skills and abilities will be guided through the application of different entrepreneurial tools and techniques – as well as practical exercises - that should enable you to assess your own entrepreneurial readiness, while preparing for the risky, uncertain and challenging environment of creating new ventures.

MSc Professional Practice Placement

The Professional Practice module gives you an opportunity to reflect on your personal and professional development and put theory into practice through professional work experience. This route must be chosen at the point of application by selecting the specific (Professional Practice) route as the placement adds a further 6 months to your duration of study. Due to the competitive nature of the placement route the Professional Practice course has limited availability and places are capped.

Placements are not guaranteed and are secured through a competitive process. You may be required to undertake formal application processes and interviews with placement providers in order to successfully secure a work placement.

Assessment of this module is in the form of a reflective log.

Entry requirements

Entry requirements for Professional Practice courses are normally:

  • An Honours degree (2:1 or above) or equivalent professional qualification, in any subject.
  • Applicants with other appropriate professional qualifications and/or experience will be considered on an individual basis.

If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 7.0 overall with no element lower than 6.5 (a minimum of TOEFL 550 (Computer Based Toefl 213) score) or equivalent. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our International Entry Requirements page.

Placements


This course offers you the chance to undertake a 6 month placement at the end of the taught element. A placement can help you build on the knowledge and skills developed on the course.

The placement is a valuable tool that can enhance your employability and help you to develop as an individual. It is acknowledged that graduates with work experience are generally much more attractive to employers.

Our Employability and Placements Office are available to support you in finding placement opportunities and can provide advice in areas such as interview skills and preparing CVs and covering letters.

Student support

​At the University of Huddersfield, you'll find support networks and services to help you get ahead in your studies and social life. Whether you study at undergraduate or postgraduate level, you'll soon discover that you're never far away from our dedicated staff and resources to help you to navigate through your personal student journey. Find out more about all our support services.

Important information

Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons

When you enrol as a student of the University, your study and time with us will be governed by our terms and conditions, Handbook of Regulations and associated policies. It is important that you familiarise yourself with these as you will be asked to agree to them when you join us as a student. You will find a guide to the key terms here, along with the Student Protection Plan.

Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons

Changes to a course you have applied for but are not yet enrolled on

If we propose to make a major change to a course that you are holding an offer for, then we will tell you as soon as possible so that you can decide whether to withdraw your application prior to enrolment. We may occasionally have to withdraw a course you have applied for or combine your programme with another programme if we consider this reasonably necessary to ensure a good student experience, for example if there are not enough applicants. Where this is the case we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible and we will discuss with you other suitable courses we can transfer your application to. If you do not wish to transfer to another course with us, you may cancel your application and we will refund you any deposits or fees you have paid to us.

Changes to your course after you enrol as a student

Changes to option modules:

Where your course allows you to choose modules from a range of options, we will review these each year and change them to reflect the expertise of our staff, current trends in research and as a result of student feedback or demand for certain modules. We will always ensure that you have an equivalent range of options to that advertised for the course. We will let you know in good time the options available for you to choose for the following year.

Major changes:

We will only make major changes to non-optional modules on a course if it is necessary for us to do so and provided such changes are reasonable. A major change is a change that substantially changes the outcomes, or a significant part of your course, such as the nature of the award or a substantial change to module content, teaching days (part time provision), type of delivery or assessment of the core curriculum. For example, it may be necessary to make a major change to reflect changes in the law or the requirements of the University’s regulators or a commissioning or accrediting body. We may also make changes to improve the course in response to student, examiners’ or other course evaluators’ feedback or to ensure you are being taught current best practice. Major changes may also be necessary because of circumstances outside our reasonable control, such as a key member of staff leaving the University or being unable to teach, where they have a particular specialism that can’t be adequately covered by other members of staff; or due to damage or interruption to buildings, facilities or equipment, or pandemics.

Major changes would usually be made with effect from the next academic year, but may happen sooner in an emergency. We will notify you as soon as possible should we need to make a major change and will carry out suitable consultation. If you reasonably believe that the proposed change will cause you detriment or hardship we will, if appropriate, work with you to try to reduce the adverse effect on you or find an appropriate solution. Where an appropriate solution cannot be found and you contact us in writing before the change takes effect you can cancel your registration and withdraw from the University without liability to the University for future tuition fees. We will provide reasonable support to assist you with transferring to another university if you wish to do so.

In exceptional circumstances, we may, for reasons outside of our control, be forced to discontinue or suspend your course. Where this is the case, a formal exit strategy will be followed in accordance with the student protection plan.

The Office for Students (OfS) is the principal regulator for the University.

You may also be interested in...

Management (Professional Practice) MSc

This course prepares you for a career in a variety of management roles. Enhance your knowledge and critical understanding of concepts and models that can be applied to the analysis of strategic issues facing an organisation, with an opportunity to undertake an additional 6 month placement.

Find out more How to apply

Full-time

Postgraduate


Management with Marketing (Professional Practice) MSc

This course aims to prepare you for a career in a variety of management and marketing roles. You will have the opportunity to develop knowledge on the role of customer insights and enhanced customer engagement, and have the opportunity to undertake an additional 6 month placement.

Find out more How to apply

Full-time

Postgraduate


Management with Communication (Professional Practice) MSc

This course specialises in the strategic importance of communication for contemporary organisations and its impact on society. The course is ideal if you are seeking to advance a career in corporate communication and public relations alongside leadership aspirations. The course offers an opportunity to undertake an additional 6 month placement.

Find out more How to apply

Full-time

Postgraduate


Management with Entrepreneurship (Professional Practice) MSc

This course aims to develop your entrepreneurial mind-set, whilst looking at core principles of management, giving emphasis to curiosity, creative thinking, future thinking, vision and imagination. There is an opportunity to undertake an additional 6 month placement

Find out more How to apply

Full-time

Postgraduate


Management with Leadership (Professional Practice) MSc

This course will help you acquire awareness and insights into professional management principles and practice, and aims to develop your leadership potential. There is also opportunity to undertake an additional 6 month placement.

Find out more How to apply

Full-time

Postgraduate


Management with International Business (Professional Practice) MSc

This course looks at the core principles of management, helping to prepare you for a career in a variety of global management roles. There is also an opportunity to undertake an additional 6 month placement.

Find out more How to apply

Full-time

Postgraduate


Management with Human Resource Management (Professional Practice) MSc

This course aims to prepare you for a career in a variety of management roles. Through critical application of activities, knowledge and behavioural competencies you’ll learn to manage employment relations practices across broad organisational settings in non-union and union environments. There is also an opportunity to undertake an additional 6 month placement.

Find out more How to apply

Full-time

Postgraduate