MSc Luxury Hospitality and Event Management

Program Objectives

Acquire the specific skills to perform in the luxury market

This program in Luxury Hospitality and Event Management is designed to answer the specific needs of a fast-evolving, diverse and complex industry: new trends, new concepts, new services, and new players are breaking into the sector that represents the ultimate expression of personalized service and intimate elegance.

The MSc Luxury Hospitality and Event Management provides the necessary knowledge and expertise to enter in the luxury service industry through a mix of academic pillars and practical courses on different industry segments.

Because the luxury service oriented industries look for future leaders endowed with a good balance between creativity and managerial skills, able to provide innovative solutions, the program will drive students in developing a resourceful and original thinking around brand and marketing strategies.

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At a glance

Program operated by

Initial, continuous or work-study training

year

Duration

Full English

in Paris & Chambery

Intake in October

Accessible after a 4-year post-secondary degree

months of internship

Core Courses

Introduction to Luxury Goods and Services

This course provides a broad overview of the entire luxury industry and outlines the diversity of numerous luxury sectors: the history, the evolution of luxury, markets, major players, and trends.
Using case studies, articles and other professional reports, the course considers methods and techniques for organizing and managing the unique factors impacting the industry.

Luxury Industry and Competitive Analysis

We provide students with the opportunity to critically review microeconomic and macroeconomic theories, conceptual frameworks and other models in order to understand the dynamics of a given industry and to conduct in-depth analysis within the Luxury Goods industry. All this culminates in the preparation of an Industry Analysis Report in which the students should demonstrate the knowledge acquired throughout this course.

Luxury Consumer Behaviour

This course investigates the dynamics of human behaviour and how it relates to decision making in the luxury sector. It concentrates on the most important factors that influence the consumer’s decision making process. These include, at the individual level, motivations, personality traits and the self-concept, values and lifestyles, as well as psychological processes and at the social and cultural level, group membership, social classes and subcultures. The course also discusses definitions of culture and how these affect postmodern consumer mores, how members of different cultures vary, and on what criteria they can and cannot be compared.

Luxury Services

This course will examine the unique aspects of services management and marketing, with a particular focus on services in the luxury environment. The methodology used will be both theoretical and practical. Underlying the approach of this course is the “service perspective”. According to this perspective, customers are not looking for goods or services, but rather for benefits or solutions to their problems. In other words, to be competitive, firms need to understand their selected customers’ total needs in order to design and deliver the core solution: the pertinent package of goods and services.

CRM & Client Database Management

The course approaches its subject matter from a relational viewpoint. That is, it emphasizes learning more about customers‘ needs and behaviours in order to develop stronger relationships with them, through technology and by integrating information about consumers, sales, marketing, responsiveness, and luxury market trends.
Topics include : CRM and the sales force, and the use of CRM software to manage a sales force; lead and contact management tracking; forecasting sales leads and the importance of conversion rates; customer interaction and the web; and call centers and help desk management.
Students will learn how to use CRM technology to gain insight into customers and understand the critical value customers possess. On completing the course, they will understand the importance of using CRM software to create, track, and manage partnerships, contracts, and agreements; and in distribution management.

Sustainable Tourism

The rapid growth of tourism worldwide has created many challenges and opportunities for established and emerging tourism destinations. This course looks at how to conduct a tourism assessment to examine tourism potential, and how to measure the potential costs and benefits of a tourism development program.
The course also reviews how and why tourists make destination choices, and learn how to develop a strategic marketing system that emphasizes a product or destination’s distinctive appeal.

Team Management

This course introduces the various tools and techniques related to team management, with a special focus on the hospitality environment.
The material will cover topics such as : the management role, leadership skills, key skills of successful managers; assessing and adapting management styles; team dynamics; characteristics of an effective team; understanding team roles and identifying them within a team; managing team performance; coaching/counselling techniques and developing the team’s strengths.
There will be a high degree of discussions so that the collective knowledge of the student group can be shared and built upon.

Organizational Management

During this course, students will examine the management of the complex relationships within an organization and discuss concepts of organizational theory.
The focus of the course material is to provide an opportunity to learn about the available theory and state of the art management practices. During this course, students use management-appropriate research methods and tools to address a management challenge of their own choosing.
By the end of this course, students will be familiar with the process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling the efforts of organization members and resources to achieve stated organizational goals.

Specialized Courses

Accounting and Financial Management in the Luxury Industry

This course provides a general overview of how accounting and financial management contributes to the luxury organization. The course provides an overview of the financial aspects involved in making luxury business decisions such as forecasting, budgeting, optimizing, valuing, evaluating, and auditing results.

Marketing of Luxury Goods & Services

This course provides an overview of the entire luxury marketing management process in a global context. It explores the role marketing plays within luxury companies and focuses on the development and analysis of consistent marketing strategies. It describes how consumers are the focus of all marketing actions and how environmental changes influence marketing strategy development and implementation.

Luxury Communications and Media Planning

This course introduces students to the ways in which marketing communications are used within the global brand marketing strategy, with a specific focus on the luxury industry. It examines ways in which communication strategies establish a dialogue between providers of a luxury product and their respective publics or markets.

Human Factors in the Luxury Industry

This course focuses on organizational behaviour and systems, and human resource management for the luxury industry. It concentrates on the variables that affect behaviour at the individual level and then goes on to a thorough examination of the foundations of group dynamics.

Luxury Service Audit & Performance Indicators

This course will develop a framework for understanding the essential elements needed to audit “the service” that is provided in luxury brand boutiques and hotels. It emphasizes learning more about customers’ needs and behaviours within a hospitality setting in order to develop stronger and more efficient relationships with them. The final session examines how to effectively present and communicate the audits to a luxury company, which will then be presented publicly, in a professional, quantitative and qualitative manner.

Hospitality Operations Management

This course examines the role of food & beverage, front of the house and service-related operations in the hospitality & leisure industries. Current technologies, tools, systems and procedures that are at the forefront of hospitality and tourism operations management are presented.
Subject material will place emphasis on the ability to provide a practical understanding and exposure in the design, development, implementation, improvement and management for an actual hospitality enterprise.

Tourism Marketing & Sales

This course introduces the hospitality management student to the basic need and value of marketing and sales efforts among hotels, airlines, restaurants, travel agents, and others in the industry.
Discussion and study topics include marketing research and analysis, development and implementation of traditional and online marketing plans and strategies, advertising, promotions, public relations, and pricing structures.

Event Management

This course will expose students to real world event management situations and gain the knowledge needed to understand the five stages of event management (research, design, planning, coordination, and evaluation), understand how to manage time and human resources effectively, have insight into hiring vendors, caterers, sound and light technicians, entertainment, and other resources, learn how to conduct an event site inspection, be knowledgeable about risk-management procedures and tactics, learn about the requirements for necessary contracts, permits, and licenses, and how to meet these requirements and understand budgeting, pricing, and accounting as they relate to event design.

Hospitality Strategic Forecasting & Budgeting

This course covers core forecasting and budgeting concepts such as costing methods, budget process, capital budgeting, revenue forecasting, cost accounting, budget analysis and the balanced scorecard. The course shows also how specific tools are applied in budgeting and forecasting techniques, such as pivot tables and management of financial databases.
Students will make use of case methodology and exercises to create, execute and analyze different types of budgets; perform Cost-Volume-Profit and Break-even analysis, especially applied to the hospitality industry. The material also reviews optimization of financial decision-making through Strategic Planning and the Budgeting Process, Capital Investment Appraisal, Financing and Cost of Capital, Costing Techniques, Corporate Budget Process, Forecasting Methods, and Budget Controls.

Hospitality Quality Systems, Processes & Performance Indicators

This course introduces the varied tools and techniques used in the hospitality industry to develop, implement, improve and monitor Quality Systems and Processes. A special focus will be on topics such as the definition of quality of service, a review of the causes of service quality and what organizations can do to improve quality of service.
Students will be made aware of the importance of quality management and its main objective to achieve in efficient and effective conditions only products that meet all customer requirements while complying with the society requirements, with applied standards and specifications, to take into consideration all aspects regarding consumer and environment protection.

Program Structure

This MSc Luxury Hospitality and Event Management allows students to alternate business studies with professional experience:

From October to March: work-study rhythm

Students follow a 6-month semester of academic coursework alternated with internship (3 days in class and 2 days of internship per week). An exam session is planned at the end of this semester (in March).

From April to September: internship

Students complete a full-time professional internship of 5 or 6 months, in France or aborad. During this period, they must also write and defend a thesis in a field related to this program.