MSc in International Tourism Management

Course Description
Tourism marketing information systems have gained popularity in recent years. To understand the proper role of tourism marketing information systems, this course will examine what tourism managers do and what information they need for decision making. Course participants will understand how decisions are made and what kinds of decision problems can be supported by a formal information system. One can then determine whether a tourism marketing information system will be a valuable tool and how it should be designed. This course will offer a basic understanding of the different challenges tourism managers face and how marketing information systems can support them in their work. The instructor will remind the participants to the different types and levels of marketing decision making and explain the major components of a marketing information system. The course will create awareness of the often under-utilized internal sources of information available to tourism managers and understanding of the nature, merits, and limitations of analytical models within tourism marketing information systems. MODUL University Vienna is hosting TourMIS (www.tourmis.info), one of the most comprehensive tourism marketing information systems of the world. TourMIS will be used as a case example during the entire course.

Learning Objectives
After successfully completion of this course students are able:

• To describe the generic characteristics and special types of decision support systems
• To understand the application areas of marketing information systems for supporting the planning of tourism destination marketing organizations
• To understand the opportunities and limitations of various data sources for tourism planning
• To understand a comprehensive budget allocation model for increasing the effectiveness of marketing activities of destination marketing organizations
• Be able to critically assess various analytical models available in TourMIS (www.tourmis.info)
• Be conversant with basic MIS and DSS terminology (e.g. big data, data warehouse, data mining, etc.)

Instructor
Prof. Karl Wöber

Semester Offered
Fall or Spring