Designing Luxury Experience
A NEW CONCENTRATION IN THE HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM PROGRAM
May 2, 2019
Luxury experiences are one of the hottest segments of the
tourism industry today, and experts predict that the luxury tourism shows the
greatest potential for growth of any segment in the travel industry. And now,
starting in the fall of 2019, students in RIT can prepare themselves for
careers in this niche specialty by choosing our new program concentration,
Designing Luxury Experiences.
"This concentration will provide students with advanced
understanding of high-end hospitality services,” said Dr. Besim Agušaj, Area
Head of the Hospitality and Tourism Management pro- gram at RIT Croatia. "The
concentration prepares students for successful careers as product managers,
brand managers or experiential services consultants.” This exciting new
concentration puts RIT Croatia on the cutting edge of hospitality and tourism
education.
The term luxury is going through some profound changes, from
its traditional roots associated with exclusivity and excess to today’s
emphasis on culture and authenticity. Luxury today is about art, artisanship,
quality, authenticity, achievement and heritage; in other words, cultivation of
the human spirit and society. Luxury travel, then, must, instead of having a
destructive effect on its social and biological environment,in reality, have a
nurturing, uplifting and stabilizing
effect on its surrounding communities.
This three-course sequence will culminate in an experiential
learning course which includes a trip to a global luxury destination, such as
Italy, Hungary, Croatia, Austria, United Arab Emirates (Dubai). Students will
dive into the socio-cultural complexities of attaining luxury travel
excellence, and explore cultural heritage as a backdrop for authenticity. It
will be an outstanding opportunity to see first-hand how successful
organizations operate.
At the same time, the Dubrovnik campus is a perfect fit for
exactly this kind of program. Dubrovnik, listed as UNESCO world heritage site,
is itself considered one of the most up-market destinations, with a growing
luxury tourism segment of its own. Because of its very limited natural
resources and fragility of the eco-systems, the entire region is trying to move
towards a different approach to tourism, competing in the global tourism market
with more subtle products rather than mass tourism offers.
Students at the Dubrovnik campus are surrounded by top class
hospitality organizations offering extraordinary services and products. The
presence of high-end hotel chains (Regent, Hilton, Aman Luxury Resorts etc.),
or Porto Montenegro, where a mega yacht marina has been built and is
hosting and serving some of the most
exclusive customers in the world, positions our program at the forefront
of hospitality schools, globally.
Also, half of all five-star hotels in Croatia are located in Dubrovnik Neretva County.
All these factors make the new program concentration, Designing Luxury
Experiences, an exciting new opportunity for our students.
Iskusi
