Tourism and Sustainability, Master Programme

120 credits

Are you interested in tourism and sustainable development? Do you want to work with creating the tourism of the future? This Master’s programme gives you in-depth knowledge about how to evaluate tourism and plan for future tourism from a sustainability perspective.

As a globally leading business industry, the tourism industry has to take responsibility for the planet’s limitations. This Master’s programme Tourism and Sustainability provides you with an insight into the paramount challenges that face the tourism industry’s development and our world. You will acquire skills that enable you to grapple with important and often contradictory trajectories of tourism and its sustainable future. This can be, for instance, how tourists often seek the pristine, the authentic or the genuine, while in doing so also burden destinations and travel system through unsustainable patterns of practices and carbon dioxide emissions. On a larger scale, it is not only the tourism industry that is under threat but also the world as we know it. Therefore, the most central question we ask ourselves on the Master’s programme in Tourism and Sustainability is – how do we create the tourism industry of the future?

This Master’s programme in Tourism and Sustainability takes on the challenges that climate change and sustainability issues bring about for the tourism and travel industry. As a truly global business with ties all across the globe, tourism links together the most remote places in a gigantic web of relations in environment, politics, geography, economy, the social and the cultural.

During the first year, you are introduced to tourism as an academic subject with ethics, justice, social, environmental and historical perspectives. You will study the course Tourism in the Anthropocene which addresses tourism in a new geological era where the living conditions of humanity challenge the planetary boundaries and, to an ever increasing extent, determine the future of our planet. The courses Business Models for Sustainability, Evaluation and Planning of Tourism Sustainability, Developing Sustainable Destinations, and Ecological Economics, focus on finding solutions and viable paths forward.

During the second year, you will get thorough methodological training and the opportunity to carry out an internship or study elective courses, before the final semester’s degree project (30 credits).

Career

In the large tourism sector there is a growing need for qualified expertise in evaluating, analyzing and planning for tourism and tourism-related activities in a sustainability perspective. The program provides these skills and prepares students for advanced jobs in the private as well as public sector.

For example, you can work as a destination developer, destination manager, sustainability manager or sustainable business developer.

Degree

Master of Science (120 credits) with specialisation in Sustainability

Main field of study: Tourism Studies

Responsive header image

We are accredited

The School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University is accredited by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, AACSB. 

Read more about AACSB

International opportunities

The language of tuition is English. In this way, you will become prepared not only for a career in Sweden, but also for a career in international contexts. The programme admits students from all over the world, which means that you will get international and multicultural experience throughout the programme. Further opportunity for internationalisation is provided through the opportunity to study a semester abroad at one of our partner universities around the world.

"I hope my research will contribute to a deeper understanding of how tourism contributes to carbon footprints"

"I have always been curious about tourism as a phenomenon. Growing up close to a national park, I was fascinated by the industry and wanted to understand it better."

Originally from Kenya, Beatrice Waleghwa moved to Sweden to pursue her academic interests in tourism and sustainability. Her decision to study there was influenced by her long-standing friendship with a Swedish family that had worked as missionaries in Kenya.

I get to combine my interests in travelling, tourism and sustainability

Madeleine Mayer

Madeleine is originally from Germany and was drawn towards living in Sweden. Tourism and Sustainability was the perfect combination of her interest and the perfect reason to extend her stay in Sweden. Something she enjoys about the programme is the way it looks at tourism from many different perspectives. The future of tourism is one of the aspects she found especially interesting.

Shiva got admitted to a PhD-programme

Shiva

Shiva is originally from Iran and decided to take a big step in her international career by coming to the northern countries a few year ago. She started her Master’s degree at Linnaeus University on the Tourism and Sustainability programme and very recently she moved to Norway to start a PhD programme at the University of Stavanger.

Kalmar – the student city by the sea

In Kalmar centre, right next to the sea, you will find the university’s facilities that were inaugurated in August 2021. In Kalmar, everything is nearby, and you can take your bicycle to the university regardless of where you live in the city.

New students have housing guarantee. This means that you are entitled to student accommodation within two months. This is one of the reasons for Kalmar being appointed Student City of the Year 2023 by the Swedish National Union of Students. Kalmar has also received the award because the city offers students an excellent living environment. What is more, the city works actively to create opportunities for students to stay in Kalmar to work when they have completed their studies.

Kalmar municipality has about 70 000 inhabitants. Kalmar has a strong trade and industry with many companies that are on the forefront in green energy, e-commerce, and eHealth, which means there is good opportunity to establish contacts for your future work life.

Kalmar has a cultural history centre and has been named Sweden’s Summer City several times. No wonder, with all the hours of sun, beaches and concerts. What is more, the island of Öland is just one bridge away.

Learn more about our student cities

House Vita at universitetskajen in Kalmar