Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration

Overview

About the Program

Recreation, parks and tourism administration faculty will teach you how to design, plan, co-create, execute and manage events and experiences for individuals, communities and the global society.

The Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration program at California Polytechnic State University will equip you with the knowledge to design, plan and manage experiences across all sectors of the experience industry in California and around the world. You will work closely with our faculty in and outside of the classroom to create optimal experiences at events, programs, venues and destinations in one of the world’s largest and most dynamic industries. The department has earned a national reputation of distinction and excellence and was recently ranked third in the nation by College Factual. The program is accredited by the Council on Accreditation of Parks, Recreation, Tourism and Related Professions.

Learn By Doing

This major allows you to learn to design, create, execute, and manage structured experiences in a variety of real-life settings. Through the program’s 1,000 hours experience requirement and the culminating internship, you will be immersed in the real-world experience industry applications from your first year in the program to graduation. This allows you to network and design experiences with various industry organizations including George P. Johnson Experience Marketing, Visit SLOCAL, Special Olympics and the San Francisco Giants.

Career

Recreation, parks and tourism administration students pursue careers as event planners, destination management specialists, hospitality managers, sport supervisors, sales and marketing directors, outdoor recreation planners, recreation business owners, travel trade managers, tourism marketing directors, park and recreation directors, and customer and employee experience design specialists.

Our graduates have worked with the Los Angeles Clippers, T-Mobile Sports Marketing, Visa North America Events, LinkedIn, Salesforce, TripAdvisor, Mission Viejo Recreation and Community Services, the National Park Service, Visit California and numerous other experience industry organizations.