TOUR 601 Current Issues and Theories for Hospitality and Tourism Management

This course will explore the various issues faced by hospitality and tourism organizations. Current research designs and methodologies related to hospitality and tourism will be examined.

For information regarding prerequisites for this course, please refer to the Academic Course Catalog.

Course Guide

View this course’s outcomes, policies, schedule, and more.*

*The information contained in our Course Guides is provided as a sample. Specific course curriculum and requirements for each course are provided by individual instructors each semester. Students should not use Course Guides to find and complete assignments, class prerequisites, or order books.


This is a required course in the Sports Management master’s degree Tourism cognate. Managers in a sport or tourism organization need to understand the complex issues facing the tourism industry. Therefore, this course is designed to provide an overview of the hospitality and tourism industry with an emphasis on how sporting events and recreational activities fit into the broader hospitality and tourism system.


Textbook readings and presentations

No details available.

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Discussions (3)

There will be 3 required Discussions. These will occur in modules 1, 3, and 5. The student is expected to submit a thread in selected modules: weeks related to the reading for that module: week and/or a question posed in the Discussion. Each thread must be at least 500 words and build upon the information in the readings, including reflective statements and specific applications of the concepts in the text.

The student will offer a reply to the thread in modules 2, 4, and 6. In each of these modules: weeks, the student will reply to at least 1 classmate’s thread from the module: week prior. Each reply must be at least 250 words and build on the ideas in the original thread.

Tourism Assignment

This assignment will be an application of the tourism system concept covered in chapters 1–2 but may also incorporate various forms of tourism found throughout the textbook. The student will be examining the hospitality and tourism system in a community in close proximity to his/her location (within a 1½ hour drive). This assignment will require the student to capture original images and insert them in the paper. The student will also need to include tourism data from the location. The student is highly encouraged to speak with tourism providers and professionals in the area.

Research Paper: Outline and Annotated Bibliography Assignment

The student will submit an outline of his/her proposed Research Paper topic along with an annotated bibliography of his/her key peer-reviewed sources. This assignment will help in providing direction for his/her Research Paper.

Research Paper: Final Paper Assignment

The student will write a formal Research Paper on one of the topics covered during the course. This paper should be a reflection of current issues and academic research regarding that topic. The paper must be written using current APA style. The body of the paper should be 3,000 words and the student should utilize no fewer than 8 peer-reviewed sources. The Research Paper: Final Paper Assignment will be submitted as a Microsoft Word document via Turnitin.

Quizzes (4)

There are 4 quizzes in the course. Each quiz will be open-book/open-notes, contain 50 questions, and have a time limit of 2 hours. The quizzes will be composed of 50 multiple-choice and true/false questions.

Tourism Growth Projection Assignment

The Tourism Growth Projection Assignment allows you to wrap up the class by taking what you have learned about the tourism industry and making several brief, educated projections for the future.

The body of this paper should be between 500-700 words (excluding title page and reference list). Citations should be used in the text of the paper using APA format.


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