Hospitality Marketing—Undergraduate Concentration
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About the Hospitality Marketing Concentration
This concentration exposes students to the core concepts, essential tools, and key frameworks of marketing in the hospitality industry. In view of marketing’s inseparability from other areas of hospitality operations and management, courses prepare students to contribute to an organization’s marketing objectives as they learn how to formulate strategies that create and capture customer value. The concentration is appropriate for students planning a career in sales, brand management, integrated marketing communications, hospitality distribution, digital marketing, marketing research/consumer insights, and consulting. The concentration requires 12 credits as specified below.
Perfect if you like: Art, Creativity, Photography, Pop Culture, Social Media, Writing
Pick any 12 credits of available concentration electives below.

Required Courses
QST MK487: Branding—(4 Credit Hours)
Offered: Spring & Fall
Prerequisites: QST MK323
Explores the art and science of branding, and the strategies through which companies can create, capture, and sustain shareholder value through brands. Through a mixture of theory and real-world cases, the course examines brands from the perspectives of the cultures and consumers who help create them, and the companies who manage them over time. Basic branding disciplines including positioning and repositioning, brand equity measurement, brand leverage, integrated brand communications, brand stewardship, and brand architecture are considered, as are more contemporary topics such as brand parodies, brand community, and branded entertainment. Particular attention is paid to branding challenges associated with today’s interconnected, consumer-empowered, and transparent web-enabled world.
*In order to register for QST MK487, SHA students will need to fill out the Questrom petition form. SHA HF260 is an alternative pre-requisite for this course. See the course offerings schedule.
HF360: Hospitality Sales Management—(2 Credit Hours)
Offered: Spring & Fall
Prerequisites: SHA HF 260
A dynamic, interactive and intensive hospitality sales management course which prepares you with fundamental skills on how to create, build and execute an effective sales strategy. This course combines theory with practical application and includes working with source markets and partners, identifying and qualifying prospects, building rapport, overcoming objections for creative proposals and successful closing techniques.
HF361: Advanced Consumer Behavior In Hospitality—(4 Credit Hours)
Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: SHA HF 260
In order to create and deliver value for customers, marketers must develop a deep understanding of how their consumers make decisions when purchasing and using their services. In this course those consumer behavior theories will be explored that are most applicable to different types of hospitality purchase experiences.
HF367: Hospitality Distribution Channel Managment—(2 Credit Hours)
Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: SHA HF 260
This course provides an overview for managing marketing distribution strategies. In the hotel business today there is a complex network of legacy, online and mobile channels. Distribution is the intersection of revenue management and marketing strategy. A focus is placed on presenting and analyzing the current distribution channels within the travel/hospitality industry. Various approaches to marketing distribution management are evaluated and tested. Topics include the scope of hospitality marketing distribution; economics of the major hospitality distribution segments/channels; managing hospitality distribution strategies; In the end, this course will provide the framework for how and where a hotel should be distributed to maximize revenue and profit.
HF368: Digital Marketing Strategies for the Hospitality Industry—(4 Credit Hours)
Offered: Spring & Fall
Prerequisites: SHA HF 260
This is an advanced course in hospitality marketing focused on the variety of digital marketing tools currently available for hotels and restaurants. The course is designed to follow HSMAI’s CHDM (Certified Hospitality Digital Marketing) study guide to meet the industry standard for digital marketing professionals. There will be a review of the most revenue-generating internet marketing techniques and finally booking mechanisms and distribution channels. The course includes concentration on content marketing, social media and developing social campaigns; OTAs and understanding the distribution channels; as well as online reputation management and the technical tools used to monitor results. The class will be structured as a lecture; you must bring your laptops for all in class exercises. 4 cr.
*In order to register for QST MK487, SHA students will need to fill out the Questrom petition form. SHA HF260 is an alternative pre-requisite for this course. See the course offerings schedule.