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LOCATION
Docklands Campus
Location Fees and Funding
Here's the fees and funding information for each year of this course
Overview
Working in the hospitality industry is all about giving people a truly memorable experience. Running a great restaurant, maintaining a beautiful hotel or putting on the best club nights makes for a rewarding and challenging career.
Our BA Hospitality Management degree will provide you with the knowledge and skills you need to thrive in a growth industry that employs approximately 1.9 million people in the UK alone.
UEL is conveniently located a short walk away from London City Airport and some of the capital's most famous venues - including the Excel Centre and O2 Arena - and learning in London gives you access to some of the best hotels, restaurants and attractions in the world. Take a look at our own guide to East London to see what's nearby!
The course is designed to give you a great head-start in your career; it is accredited by the Institute of Hospitality and you'll enjoy placements and guest lectures held with industry leaders across the capital.
Our extended foundation course is perfect if you want a degree in hospitality management but don’t have the standard entry requirements. We prepare you for your degree during the Foundation year, bringing you up to speed with academic skills and a firm grounding in the subject. You can then go on to study the full undergraduate degree.
What makes this course different
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
The course covers a wide range of topics that are essential for a career in hospitality management, as well as broader themes in business management that will root your understanding of hospitality in the wider business environment, helping you to remain flexible in the job market and contribute more to your employer.
Course structure
The first year is focused on building your key skills in hospitality management while cementing the basics of good business, such as people management and marketing.
In the second year, you will study core modules that cover different practical aspects of hospitality management, including service delivery, finance, leadership, and food and beverage management. You will also have the chance to choose from a number of optional modules that allow you to focus on themes such as e-business, destination marketing, social media or events. You will also have the option of undertaking a work-based project that takes the form of a real internship at one of our industry links.
The third year is the overseas placement year for International Hospitality students or the final year for those taking the core BA programme. In this year you will focus on an individual Research Project, Consultancy Project or Enterprise Project (for Hospitality Entrepreneur students), giving you the chance to apply your skills to a practical project of your choice. You will also study core modules covering innovation and enterprise, conferences and events, and food culture with further optional modules to choose from.
MODULES
- Core Modules
Developing Academic Skills CloseDeveloping Academic Skills
The main aim of this module is to equip you and develop the academic skills necessary to study at an HEI. This includes an introduction to the structure of higher education and also the learning and study skills necessary to produce quality pieces of work.
Developing Academic Literacy CloseDeveloping Academic Literacy
The aim of this module is for you to develop confidence and autonomy through ‘learning by doing’ process. It will help you develop your academic literacy, appropriate academic voice and skills and to express argument(s) by using credible academic sources. Additionally, it helps you to apply theoretical concepts/positions in their coursework and also to demonstrate these properly in written form. It is also designed to ensure you understand the concept of academic integrity and associated protocols and the use of Word and referencing tools such as Endnote.
Introduction to the Experience and Visitor Economy CloseIntroduction to the Experience and Visitor Economy
The aim of this module is to introduce you to the size, structure and characteristics of three of the major 'Experience Industries' - Hospitality, Events and Tourism - and raise awareness of the career opportunities within each industry. This module forms a foundation of knowledge that is further developed in the successive academic years in a more detailed analysis. Hospitality, Events and Tourism are distinct industries within the experience and visitor economy and are thus inextricably linked. This module seeks to examine the links between these industries and analyse their interdependent nature. For example, an international event will attract in-bound tourists who will seek local accommodation, food and drink during their stay. It is important that you can identify and understand the characteristics and interdependence of these industries in order to prepare for you future employability.
Communication Management in Hospitality, Events and Tourism CloseCommunication Management in Hospitality, Events and Tourism
It is crucial for service and experience centred businesses to be able to effectively communicate what they do to a range of stakeholders, including their potential audiences and customers. This module will – after first introducing you to basic marketing theory – focus on communications in relation to hospitality, events and tourism. The module will give you a solid understanding of various communication strategies and approaches – including a wide selection of promotional tools. The module will further emphasise the importance of understanding the needs and wants of the audience, so that appropriate content can be generated, and so that suitable messages are communicated using the most appropriate channels and platforms. By completing this module, you will gain a deeper understanding of communications, and the central role marketing communications play in the experience economy.
The Customer Experience CloseThe Customer Experience
This module will introduce you to the role and importance of customer service and experience within hospitality, events and tourism. You will have a broad introduction to customer care and service quality within these industries and explore the relationship between customer care, service quality, customer satisfaction and financial success.
Employability in Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth) CloseEmployability in Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth)
The main aim of this module is to familiarise you with the qualities required to identify, secure and retain graduate employment in the dynamic and customer centric industries of Hospitality, Events and Tourism Management. You will gain an understanding of the skills essential to working in the HET Industries to impact positively on the customer, ways of building relationships with customers and influencing positive experiences for the customer and business. This seeks to identify and meet the "soft-skills" and work readiness skills that most employers demand.
- Core Modules
Personal Skills for Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth) ClosePersonal Skills for Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth)
The aim of this module is to equip you with an understanding of the importance of continual self-evaluation, personal development and skills necessary to progress in your professional life to ensure a minimal gap in the academia and industry skills requirements. It sets the base for personal skills audit and SWOT analysis of skills essential for and transferable to the HET Industries thus increasing one’s future saleability through a strong skills base for the experience industry.
The Business Environment for Hospitality, Events and Tourism CloseThe Business Environment for Hospitality, Events and Tourism
The aim of this module is for you to investigate the business environment in which the events, hospitality and tourism industries operate in. It considers and evaluates appropriate elements of policy, law and practice within each of these service-based industries, including commercial, public and voluntary sectors. The module will detail how providers respond to and reconcile both commercial demand and social need in relation to market segments.
Introduction to People, Organisations and Management CloseIntroduction to People, Organisations and Management
The module introduces you to the variety of work organisations in the Hospitality, Tourism and Events environments, and the various forms they take as well as understand and explore different approaches to the management of people within organisations and the consequences for employers and employees. It will equip you with the necessary skills to understand the human resources process and requirements within the experience and visitor economy.
Understanding Hospitality, Event and Tourism Experiences CloseUnderstanding Hospitality, Event and Tourism Experiences
This module allows you to build work-based skills in hospitality, event and/or tourism management that are underpinned with relevant theory. It opens with an introduction to key design and experience theories and concepts such as: the experience economy; service encounters; experience escapes; the tourist gaze; co-creation; and symbolic interactionism. You will examine key management functions and consider these in the context of specific hospitality, events or tourism, in an authentic experiential setting.
Service and Experience Marketing CloseService and Experience Marketing
In this module you will learn about a range of concepts, tools and techniques that will both broaden and deepen your understanding of service and experience related marketing principles – with an emphasis on the importance of authenticity and earning the trust of the customer. Key areas of study include the marketing mix for services, target markets and segmentation, marketing planning, branding and positioning, marketing communications (including digital), and experiential strategy.
Tourism and Hospitality: Concepts and Approaches CloseTourism and Hospitality: Concepts and Approaches
The aim of this module is to develop your understanding of the diverse historical social, economic and political forces that have shaped and continue to transform the international tourism and hospitality industries and their impacts worldwide. Informed by diverse theoretical and disciplinary traditions the module will develop your ability to critically comprehend the major theories and concepts that underpin the study of the international tourism and hospitality industries and to apply these to the analysis of contemporary trends and issues facing managers in these sectors.
- Core Modules
Food and Beverage Management CloseFood and Beverage Management
This module aims to provide you with the knowledge and skills to understand the key issues associated with the organisation and operation of food and beverage services as they apply to experience economy. Key management skills developed include costing and control, waste management and the impact of managing multicultural workforces. It also considers how food and beverage concepts and principles are transferrable across a range of experience economy environments.
Finance for Hospitality, Events and Tourism CloseFinance for Hospitality, Events and Tourism
This module is aimed at those of you who are not majoring in accounting or finance but who are studying accounts and finance as part of their programme and is particularly focused on the Experience Economy cluster – Hospitality, Events and Tourism industries. It aims to ensure you understand and are able to construct a set of financial statements, evaluate performance, and have an understanding of planning and control frameworks as well as develop your understanding of the concepts, principles and ethical considerations on which good financial decisions are based.
Leadership in Hospitality, Events and Tourism CloseLeadership in Hospitality, Events and Tourism
The aim of this module is for you to examine theories and practices related to effective leadership within Hospitality, Events and Tourism. You will cover a range of different leadership theories and their relevance to, and impacts upon, organisations and employees. The module is designed to further support your development as an effective manager through the critical analysis of current theories and practices associated with leadership in the challenging environments faced by the fast-changing make-up of hospitality, events and tourism organisations.
Professional Practice in Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth) CloseProfessional Practice in Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth)
The module builds on the mental wealth level 4 module and is designed to expand your awareness and development of transferable skills required for your future career in their respective experience industries. This includes producing CVs and covering letters, constructing a professional development plan and reflecting on current professional skills as well as identifying areas of development and creating a career development plan. The module introduces you to the importance of understanding careers in the HET industries and the link to your academic studies.
Hospitality Management and Service Delivery CloseHospitality Management and Service Delivery
All managers in the hospitality industry need to be able to understand, analyse and improve the processes for which they are responsible. In order to be able to do this effectively they need to understand the nature and purpose of the service concept and the ways processes and people deliver this. This module aims to provide you with the knowledge and skills to understand and evaluate the key issues associated with the operational management of hospitality environments and their associated service provided. Students will gain insights into key aspects of the management of a service delivery with a view to meeting and exceeding expectations of both business and leisure customers. In addition, standard operating procedures will enable the development of consistent standards and the monitoring of the performance of operational staff.
Optional ModulesProfessional Development in Practice - Internship CloseProfessional Development in Practice - Internship
This module provides you with the opportunity to engage directly with industry through volunteering initiatives and short internships. It therefore offers you the opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge developed through your first year of study as you strive to become professional, employable graduates.
Principles of Event Theming and Design ClosePrinciples of Event Theming and Design
This event module explores the role of design in events, introducing an understanding and application of what design is, design principles, design concepts, operational design, theming, staging, and production. The module will reflect on design at events as a management tool. Drawing upon experience ideas (imagineering) and frameworks (experience realms) you will, through experiential study and visit (s) to events, analyse event settings and environments and explore the impact these have on attendees. The module aims to teach you fundamental skills needed for the development of designs (visual and thematic) for events.
Celebration, Ritual and Culture in the Events Industry CloseCelebration, Ritual and Culture in the Events Industry
This module will enable you to think critically about the role and context of celebration events in a range of cultural, national, political, religious, spiritual and social environments and equip you with the skills to exhibit ritual and culture inherent in such events. You will plan, design and manage an exhibition for a celebration event to facilitate a practice-based understanding of event management practices. As part of this module you will apply the principles of event project management by staging an exhibition on-campus. The live event project will showcase your ability to represent the vital part celebrations play in the cultural elements of different societies. Together with module TM4### The Event Industry: Concepts and Approaches, this set of two modules will fuel your academic, personal and professional development, and give you the confidence in appreciating the challenges and complexities of working in events. As a result you will be able to address specific types of events of significance to people, populations and places, such as national day events, festivals, carnivals, sport events, weddings, birth and death – to enhance your awareness of difference and diversity in culturally-oriented events.
Destination Marketing CloseDestination Marketing
This module builds on previously acquired marketing knowledge. The overall aim of the module is to develop your critical understanding of the principles and processes of marketing as they apply to destinations, as well as examining marketing issues that are specific to tourism destinations. Key areas of study include the characteristics of destination management and marketing organisations, destination branding, destination marketing for crisis management, marketing communications for destinations (including digital), and the evaluation of destination marketing campaigns. By the end of this module you will not only have an enhanced theoretical understanding of key issues relating to destination marketing, but also the ability to put theory into practice.
- Optional Modules
Optional placement CloseOptional placement
This course offers the opportunity of year-long placement between years two and three. If you choose to take this option, you’ll spend your third year on a placement with a relevant company or organisation, adding valuable practical experience to your growing academic knowledge.
The extra placement year means it will take four years to complete your studies, instead of three. - Core Modules
Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events (MICE) CloseMeetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events (MICE)
The major part of this module is devoted towards the planning, management and staging of a live event. This module will require you to work in teams with allocated roles and responsibilities. It considers the development of the events industry and its increasingly innovative approach to the selection of appealing environments to stage its activities. It considers each aspect of the client relationship from the brief, proposal, budget, planning, implementing, feedback and review processes.
Food, Society and Culture CloseFood, Society and Culture
This module introduces you to key approaches to understanding food as a cultural form, combining theories and insights from disciplines such as sociology, geography, and anthropology. This module focuses on the cultural and societal significance of foods as they are given meaning through the ways they are, to encourage you to make connections between different aspects of food, culture and society. You will be encouraged to examine the relationships between how foods are produced, represented, regulated, and consumed and how they become associated with, and used to construct, particular cultural identities. This module will provide you with a broader understanding of food from a range of cultural and historical perspectives. It will explore and appraise the present attitude towards and preconceptions of food, placing them within the context of food choices. Physiological and psychological considerations will also be made in relation to food security, policy and poverty.
Financial and Revenue Management CloseFinancial and Revenue Management
This module introduces you to Corporate Financial Management, Corporate Accounting as well as Revenue Management as a continuation from the Level 5 Module - Finance for Hospitality, Events and Tourism. Revenue management will consider the main revenue streams of a business, customer relationship management, pricing and distribution strategies as well as various market segments within the experience industries to maximise revenue. As an element of this module, you will analyse the performance of contemporary businesses, and evaluate the revenue management practices employed, using your critical and analytical skills to recommend better practices that will ultimately improve their profits.
Research Project CloseResearch Project
The overall aim of this module is to ensure that you develop your critical thinking skills, methodological awareness and analytical ability through the process of proposing, planning, managing and completing a research project.
The project is an excellent opportunity for you to focus on an aspect of your chosen field that you are particularly interested in, and it is especially valuable if you wish to work in a specific sub-sector – and it also helps prepare you for postgraduate studies.
The project is individual and based on a research question chosen by you, focusing on an aspect relating to your respective degree programme within Hospitality, Events and/or Tourism. The research project tests your ability to work independently, and it should have a strategic element (for example solving a problem, critically investigating a management issue, or testing a specific theory), and it may be based on secondary and/or primary research.
The project may be undertaken as a traditional dissertation, or in the form of a consultancy project. The taught part of the module includes guidance on how to frame a research topic or consultancy project, developing a research question and objectives, completing a literature review and research design, and how to choose appropriate forms of analysis. During the research process, you will critically engage with literature on your chosen topic, formulate valid aims and objectives, evaluate methodological approaches, plan and execute appropriate data collection, select relevant modes of analysis and develop strong arguments that address the research question and objectives originally posed. Overall, the module aims to develop your independent research skills to allow you to be confident researchers – which is an invaluable asset, wherever your future career path will take you.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Experience Economy (Tourism, Hospitality & Events Industries) CloseEntrepreneurship and Innovation in the Experience Economy (Tourism, Hospitality & Events Industries)
The module will develop your understanding of the unique production - consumption characteristics in the experience economy and the implications for entrepreneurship and innovation. You will develop the knowledge, confidence and skills to conceive, develop and communicate a business proposal in the light of emerging market trends, technological change and new developments in the tourism, hospitality and events industries.
Exploring Professional Practice in Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth) CloseExploring Professional Practice in Hospitality, Events and Tourism (Mental Wealth)
This module aims to provide you with the necessary skills that bridge your academic gains into the workplace. This is completed through examination of and participating in various types of recruitment methods such as Assessment Centre; to assess and develop the soft skills that make them more marketable, ready and sustainable for the industrial revolution.
HOW YOU'LL LEARN
We pride ourselves on giving students a fantastic experience and great support from day one. We're an inclusive university with a close-knit community of students and our teaching reflects that. Teaching is delivered through a diverse range of methods, not only to develop your different skills but also to enrich the learning experience. As well as traditional seminars and lectures, you'll have the chance to go on field trips across London, learn from guest speakers and gain useful, practical experience.
Ultimately, hospitality management should be fun and give you the chance to express your creative ideas in a professional environment – we want your student experience to be as great as your future customers' will be.
When you begin this course you'll join a cosmopolitan community of students in small classes to learn the fundamentals of the subject through a mixture of lectures, seminars and workshops. In addition to formal teaching time, you'll be expected to put in independent study to enhance your learning, supported by our online digital materials, handbooks, notes and other resources.
London is one of the greatest hospitality and culture hotspots in the world and we have connections with many major organisations in the industry across the capital. We're privileged to share the region with major players including:
- The Excel Centre – London's major events and conference venue
- The O2 Arena
- The Olympic Park
- Westfield Stratford
- Stratford Circus
Our students also have access to many of the thousands of recognisable names throughout the capital and our links with industry stretch across the world. When you're not observing professionals in action, we'll be bringing them to you with a programme of regular guest speakers who will keep you informed and inspire you for the career that lies ahead of you.
HOW YOU'LL BE ASSESSED
- Foundation Year (if taken) - 100% coursework;
- Year 1 - 100% coursework;
- Year 2 - 95% coursework, 5% examination;
- Year 3 - 80% coursework, 20% practical.
CAMPUS and FACILITIES

Docklands Campus, Docklands Campus, London, E16 2RD
WHO TEACHES THIS COURSE
The teaching team includes qualified academics, practitioners and industry experts as guest speakers. Full details of the academics will be provided in the student handbook and module guides.
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At the University of East London we are working on the some of the big issues that will define our future; from sustainable architecture and ethical AI, to health inequality and breaking down barriers in the creative industries.
Our students and academics are more critically engaged and socially conscious than ever before. Discover some of the positive changes our students, alumni and academics are making in the world.
Be the Next
To find out more about studying at the University of East London visit the links on the right.
YOUR FUTURE CAREER
The hospitality industry is global, enormous and growing. A huge variety of different organisations require hospitality management, from small bars and restaurants to global hotel chains and airlines. That's what makes working in the industry so special; you'll have the opportunity to work across multiple sectors and give life-changing experiences to thousands of people.
The service sector is the largest sector in the world's economy and short of good quality managers – exactly the skills gap that this course is designed to fill. The course will give you the skills and experience you need to work in a wide range of exciting businesses, while giving you the industry contacts and guidance that will help you make the first step into a rewarding career.
Whichever path you take, this accredited course will thoroughly prepare you for a challenging role in a competitive industry. We place emphasis on a vocational approach to teaching, allowing you to develop a wide range of employability skills through experience and training. We also have a superb employability team that works with students to find placements, projects, graduate schemes and full-time employment, combining careers advice with practical training in interview technique and CV writing.
Explore the different career options you can pursue with this degree and see the median salaries of the sector on our Career Coach portal.