Tourism Service Companies Tourism & Hospitality Management Program Fall 2021 Semester Plus Internship - Barcelona

An important part of the intermediary and mediation industry supporting the tourism sector is made up of companies established by the tourism destinations themselves and born out of the need to respond to travelers' expectations. Even though these companies are seen as essential for the functioning of any destination that can generate economic activity based on tourism and people's mobility, they are explicitly left out of the hotel and restaurant business sectors.

Generally, we are referring to companies, but we can also be referring to professional individuals; that is to say, actors serving the function of managing, or even, creating products that eventually will increase the range of tourism practices, whether they are more traditional or more innovative. All of them constitute the infrastructural base that comprises and includes elements ranging from the combination of two or more tourism products to individualized services. Professional congress organizers, specific tour operators, retailers, even leisure and entertainment companies with their mediators (that is, tour guides, entertainers, local development agencies, etc.) would be considered as belonging to the intermediary industry.

This course aims at delving not only into the management of these businesses but also into the role played by the mediators and the most basic functions they perform. Businesses analyzed in depth in other courses like Transport Businesses or Tourism Intermediation, from the same thematic area as this one, have been excluded.

The subject also provides students with the necessary knowledge that will enable them to perform such tasks as management, planning, control and administration of tourism businesses or to calculate the cost of tourism products and / or services, determine profit margins and outcomes as well as to understand the usefulness of internal data for decision-making.