Tourism University of Essex

Overview

Through a combination of vocational and academic study, by taking  Tourism at University of Essex you will learn deeply about the evolution of tourism, tourist types, behaviours, and motivations as well as the marketing and management of destinations in a digital era (i.e., artificial intelligence).

Your future

Crucially, you will critically explore various conventional and unconventional forms of heritage and cultural tourism including dark tourism and other unique forms of special interest tourism. Key societal, cultural, economic, political and environmental challenges of tourism and its related sectors will be evaluated and assessed, especially in the context of searching for sustainable, smart, strategic and customer-focused solutions.

Global tourism is expected to grow annually by 3.7% over the next 10 years, compared to 2.4% for the wider global economy. In 2025, it is expected that global tourism will contribute an all-time high of 11.7 trillion US Dollars to the global economy, accounting for 10.3% of global GDP.

The global tourism sector supports many jobs which are expected to grow by 14 million in 2025, to reach 371 million worldwide, more than the population of the United States. Currently, the UK’s Travel & Tourism sector directly employs almost the same number of people as the National Health Service (NHS).

Global tourism has contributed 280 billion GBP to the UK economy in 2024 (10.3%) and supported over 4.1 million jobs (11.3%). Both domestically and internationally, the sector plays a crucial part in supporting many economies, ensuring that tourism itself is one of the most impactful economies to work in.

Edge Hotel School works closely with Visit Essex, the official tourism organisation for Greater Essex. The course includes opportunity for working with Wivenhoe House Hotel, a luxury country hotel on the University of Essex's Colchester campus.

These unique opportunities provide you the opportunity to work alongside various businesses on collaborative tourism projects as well as integrating contributions from industry and academic guest speakers, consultancy projects, and live project experiences.

With a student experience unlike any other, it may come as no surprise that 95% of our graduates are in full-time employment or further education (Graduate Outcomes Survey 2024).

We believe that we provide good quality education that is appreciated by our past and current students, especially as we consistently achieve high scores in the National Student Survey. Edge Hotel School is very proud of such achievements.