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The course provides students with the conceptual and practical tools to understand and apply marketing management principles and planning in the hospitality industry. Furthermore, considering the evolving normative, socioeconomic, and technological environments, the course will challenge students to reflect and work on emerging topics. More particularly, the course examines several emerging themes, including customer experience, sustainable behavior, diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as customers’ perceptions of and reactions to recent technological innovations and digital transformation in hospitality contexts. The course adopts an interactive approach involving theoretical lectures and different in-class inquiry-based activities. 

Intended learning outcomes based on Dublin’s descriptors

After completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and understanding:

– Know and understand the core concepts of the discipline;

– Critically discuss key and emerging topics, how different marketing choices about them can interact, and how strategies can be adapted or re-invented in specific real contexts and markets;

– Interpret marketing analytics and data useful to develop effective marketing strategies and improve customer experience in the hospitality industry.

Applying knowledge and understanding:

– Examine theories and models discussed in class and apply them to real situations;

– Compare real situations and design actionable marketing strategies and plans for those situations;

– Collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data from the market to develop appropriate solutions to real business problems.

Making judgments:

– Address practical problems by working, either individually or in groups, on specific assignments;

– Critically appraise, adapt, and rearrange existing concepts to develop implementable creative solutions to challenging situations.

Communication skills:

– Develop the necessary writing and oral communication skills;

– Summarize prior research findings on the central topics of the course;

– Defend their points of view and convince the audience of the validity of their arguments.

Learning skills:

– Criticize prior research findings on individual topics;

– Develop new research questions and hypotheses regarding emerging themes in tourism and hospitality marketing management.

Regarding the development of soft skills, upon completion of the course, students will be able to: a) apply their knowledge to real situations; b) make autonomous and critical judgments (for example, regarding specific marketing strategies), c) work in groups, coordinating themselves with teammates and integrating different competences and points of view to fix assigned problems; d) generate new business ideas, develop and design new actionable strategies.

Lectures, case-study discussion, group work, practical exercises, flipped classroom, project work, in-class presentation

The final exam will consist of a single written test lasting 60 minutes. The test will include open-ended questions on topics covered in class or illustrated in the instructor's teaching materials, including readings and power-points. This exam format allows students to critically describe the theoretical and practical elements of the subject. This exam format also assesses their ability to demonstrate the disciplinary knowledge and skills acquired, presenting them in a schematic, structured way and with critical thinking.

The final grade (out of 30) will be based on the score of the single written test, plus bonus points (up to 4 points out of 30) that students might gain by participating, on a voluntary and optional basis, in project-work, teaching, and research-oriented activities organized within the course. Although optional, these activities will give students the opportunity to learn concepts and apply tools in interactive, critical, and constructive ways.

Note #1: There are no differences in exam format and teaching materials between attending and non-attending students.

Note #2: A sample exam will be made available to all students on the University's online platform https://elearning.unisalento.it/

Note #3: Students with disabilities and/or specific learning disorders (SLD) who wish to request individualized accommodations for the exam should contact the University of Salento's Inclusion Office at centro.sostegno@unisalento.it.

Exam sessions and dates are available at the following link:

https://www.dse.unisalento.it/guida-alla-didattica/calendario-esami

Exam registration procedure

Students can register for the final exam exclusively through the studenti.unisalento.it platform.

Software

Microsoft Office and Google ecosystem tools

Instructor’s e-mail

alessandro.peluso@unisalento.it

The course is organized into three modules and related sub-modules. Module 1 provides a concise refresher for students without prior background in marketing; Modules 2 and 3 constitute the core of course.

Module 1 – Foundations of marketing management: 1.1) The marketing concept; 1.2) The strategic marketing planning process.

Module 2 – Characteristics and peculiarities of hospitality marketing: 2.1) Service marketing peculiarities; 2.2) The hospitality industry; 2.3) Applying and adapting marketing principles and tools to the hospitality context.

Module 3 – Key topics in hospitality marketing management: 3.1) The importance of experiential marketing and the drivers of customer experience and satisfaction across different hospitality settings (e.g., wedding, MICE, luxury hotels, vacation rentals, camping); 3.2) Sustainability and sustainable behaviors in tourism and hospitality; 3.3) Emerging communication tools and customer reaction to new technologies and digital transformation (e.g., AI-WOM, customer-robot interaction in hospitality contexts).

– Instructor’s PPT presentations discussed in class

– George R. (2025). Marketing Tourism and Hospitality: Concepts and Cases. Palgrave [Chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9].

– Other teaching materials (e.g., exercises, links, video journal articles, etc.) will be shared by the instructors through the University e-learning platform https://elearning.unisalento.it/.