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Major Areas of Study to Prepare for Business Careers Leading to Tourism Management Positions: 

Accounting:. The undergraduate accounting program prepares students for careers in all industries including tourism. An extra advantage for those employers in the tourism industry is that these students have studied accounting practices and regulations related to federal and state government entities. Finance: A finance executive develops improved approaches to budgeting, forecasting, performance standards and measurements. The finance graduate often brings a desperately needed financial structure perspective to tourism organizations. Management: This curriculum focuses on the development of personal capacity in leadership, critical thinking, problem solving, and ethical decision making at all organizational levels from first line supervision through middle management to executive levels. In the increasing global competitive market place for tourists, these graduates can bring much needed skills to organizations. Marketing: Studies in this option prepare students to enter this growing and ever-changing sector of the American economy in positions such as marketing managers, sales managers, retail buyers, marketing representatives, professional salespersons, and advertising staff. In the area of tourism, marketing graduates can develop marketing plans, segmentation and differentiation programs and promotional programs Major Areas of Study to Prepare for Business Careers Leading to Tourism Management Positions

Minor Areas of Study Related to Tourism : 

Minor Areas of Study Related to Tourism - Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management: This program teaches skills related to founding, operating and growing a business from concept through start-up and, ultimately, incorporation. Political leaders in the state, entrepreneurs and local business people are highly supportive of this program. - International Business: This program of study takes advantage of the MSU College of Business international partnerships. The College has relationships with Universities in Ireland, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Japan. Corporate recruiters in the areas of accounting, finance and marketing have expressed strong interest in graduates with an international business specialization to accompany the primary area of study. - Management of Information Technology: Nationally, the application of information technology, not just the development of information technology, is a key managerial issue within corporations. The state is developing a cluster of technology firms that are keen on having business students with specialized training in the management of information technology. The College is partnering with the College of Engineering (particularly the Computer Science department) in delivering this program.

Combined Major Areas—Minor Areas of study highly suited to the needs of tourism. : 

Combined Major Areas—Minor Areas of study highly suited to the needs of tourism. - Marketing/International Business: This type of graduate is ideally suited to customer service especially for foreign visitors to the state. Organizations like parks, hotels and restaurants. A region manager for the Sofitel Hotel chain headquartered in Paris, France (half) jokingly that he would hire every graduate with this profile that we graduate. Marketing/Information Technology: This marketing graduate will have expertise in developing and managing customer databases for targeting specific segments of the market and creating direct marketing efforts. Accounting/Information Technology: This type of graduate is valuable in any organization, but can be particularly valuable to tourist organizations. The combination of accounting and IT allows for building and tracking databases of customers in addition to automated accounting functions. Management/Entrepreneurship: This graduate will be extremely valuable to the small tourist oriented business or for to anyone hoping to start a tourist oriented business. This student is trained specifically in finding and managing resources to start a business. Finance/International Business and Finance/Entrepreneurship: Much like their marketing and management counterparts, these students have high ability for dealing issues related to foreign visitors or the issues associated with starting and managing a new business.

Undergraduate Research Scholars Program and On-going Tourism Research : 

Undergraduate Research Scholars Program and On-going Tourism Research Two College of Business marketing faculty members, Professors David Snepenger and Tim Christiansen, have been doing extensive research on the issue of tourism in Montana.. They have conducted two recent very important studies with students that have been published in prestigious academic and trade journals. These studies are titled, Is it the Mood or the Mall, published in the Journal of Shopping Center Research and Tourists and Residents, published in the Annals of Tourism Research. Among the shoppers that they studied, tourists made more impulse purchases, spent more than an hour more at the mall on an average and spent an average of $40 more than local counterparts. Many tourists seem to fit in a visit to a mall while they are on a trip. These tourists seem to enjoy the entire mall experience more than a local shopper. From the survey Christiansen and Snepenger learned that tourists bought a greater percentage of impulse purchases, spent more time shopping and spent more money at the mall than they would on an average trip to their home mall. On the average, tourists said they spent about $22.50 more at malls they visited as a tourist than when they went shopping at a mall near their home.