Personally, I have often heard the question: "So what do you do as a tourism manager?" First of all, there is no such thing as THE tourism manager.

With a degree in Tourism Management, countless doors are open to us in the world of work. In the 5th semester, we can set our own priorities for the future by choosing two specialization modules. Some of us already have a concrete idea of what we want to do with our degree and choose a module that best suits their career aspirations. And then, of course, there are those who don't quite know where they want to go yet.

"Maybe I'll do my Master's first and then see... I actually quite like studying..."

you hear those students say. They then decide on a module that sounds the most interesting to them. After all, you don't need to go by the least amount of work, which is similar in all modules.

Students choose one of three modules each from the fields of tourism science and tourism management. The compulsory elective modules give us the opportunity to "get a taste" of different areas of the tourism industry and to specialize a little.

In the field of tourism science, you have the choice between health and sustainability tourism, cultural and sports tourism and travel psychology. And yes, these are sciences - at the latest when you deal with the 8 different groups of mountain bike tourists, you realize that.

We covered these and many other topics relating to cultural travel and active tourism in the Culture and Sport module this semester. Contrary to appearances, culture and sport can be a very good combination on vacation. We worked on numerous topics relating to cycling, hiking and sailing in groups, debated the compatibility of nature conservation and tourism in online conferences and learned a lot about the culturally rich and sporty leisure opportunities throughout Germany.

Sophia from my class chose the Health and Sustainable Tourism module because she can imagine steering her career in this direction later on, even if she hasn't 100% decided yet.

For all those who, like me, can't yet imagine anything specific when it comes to health and sustainability tourism, I asked Sophia what topics are covered.

"In health and sustainability tourism, we are working with the spa town of Oybin and its mayor to develop sustainable certification criteria that the town of Oybin could use to re-certify itself as a spa town and make tourism in Oybin and Lückendorf more sustainable.

In general, we dealt a lot with sustainability criteria, concepts and measurability in the module and how general regulations or guidelines could be implemented in practice."

Sounds really exciting, I think! Sustainability is an important and exciting topic anyway, and one that will always be with us in the future.

Fellow student Vicky, on the other hand, opted for the travel psychology module. For her, it was a decision based on her interests and she simply ruled out the other modules.

What were the seminars like on this course? Were there any exciting projects?

"We have a larger project in travel psychology. We have 3 groups with different research topics. For example, my group is investigating the connection between travel and creativity. We will also conduct interviews and present our findings in the exam presentation. Another group is investigating the influence of corona on travel behavior."

So, as you can see, it's inevitable that we'll be dealing with current and practical topics.

In this field, students can choose between the tour operator, event and hotel management modules.

My fellow student Sophia, mentioned above, opted for tour operator management because it interested her the most and corresponded to her job expectations.

Anyone thinking: "Tour operator? That has something to do with travel agencies, doesn't it?", you're not entirely wrong, but you'd be amazed at what else is involved.

"In tour operator management, we worked on a competitor analysis for Mr. Finke's (our lecturer) company MESO Reisen and want to analyse a new destination for the company in the next few steps and prepare it so that it can perhaps be added to the portfolio."

In the area of management, Vicky has opted for the hotel management course, actually also with the ulterior motive of pursuing this direction in her future career. She has already gained experience in a hotel in Bulgaria during her last internship semester.

Hotel management is also an area that involves more than just the day-to-day running of a hotel. Vicky tells me about the focus of this module:

"In hotel management, we first covered trends in the hotel industry and, of course, the topic of corona at the beginning. After that, 'new luxury' was a really interesting topic. We are currently working on experience design. There are a lot of really interesting concepts! We are presenting different hotel concepts to each other."

The event management module is ideal for all those who not only enjoy attending concerts, festivals, trade fairs or other major events, but also want to organize such events themselves. Here too, of course, it is not just the theory of event planning that is covered, from public holiday laws to the right lighting. Learning by doing has always been a proven learning principle. That's why the event managers of the 5th semester have been responsible for planning the annual university information day - HIT for short! Thanks to Corona, we can also experience and learn how to plan an event under special conditions.