Of every course on this website, this is the one with the clearest line back to Nepal. Tourism is a pillar of the Nepalese economy, and the gap between what the country has and what it earns from it is largely a planning and management problem: seasonality, concentration on a handful of routes, weak destination marketing, and the tension between visitor numbers and the places people come to see.
An MSc International Tourism Planning and Management is a one year postgraduate degree that treats tourism as an economic and spatial system to be planned, not merely as a service industry to be staffed. That is a meaningful difference from a hospitality management course, and it is why this degree tends to produce people who go on to shape policy rather than only to operate businesses.
What you study
Twelve months full time in most universities, usually two taught semesters and a dissertation over the summer.
- Tourism planning, policy and governance
- Destination management and marketing
- Sustainable and responsible tourism, including carrying capacity and community impact
- Tourism economics and impact assessment
- Heritage, cultural and ecotourism
- Visitor experience and attraction management
- Research methods, followed by a dissertation or a consultancy project
If your ambition is Nepal, write your dissertation on Nepal. Supervisors are usually glad to take it, the data is available, and you finish with a piece of original work that is directly useful to you at home rather than a generic literature review.
Entry requirements from Nepal
Requirements vary between universities and can change from one intake to the next, so treat the figures below as the usual range rather than a promise. We check your documents against each university current criteria before we submit anything.
- Academic: a recognised bachelor degree, normally three or four years, at around 50 to 60 per cent or a UK 2.2 equivalent. Applicants a little below that are often routed through a pre-masters or a postgraduate diploma that tops up into the full masters. A bachelor in tourism, hospitality, management, geography or a social science is the natural background, but universities on this course are often open to other disciplines where the applicant can show relevant work experience.
- English: IELTS 6.5 overall with no band below 6.0 is the usual postgraduate requirement, although a number of universities will accept 6.0 overall for some courses. A number of our partner universities also accept PTE Academic, Duolingo or a Medium of Instruction letter from Tribhuvan, Pokhara or Kathmandu University. Our IELTS score comparison shows how the tests line up, and we list the routes that do not need IELTS.
- Study gap: gaps are accepted by most universities, commonly up to five years and in some cases up to ten, provided you can account for the time.
- Finance: for the student visa you must evidence your first year tuition plus living costs. Current maintenance rates are 1,529 pounds a month for London and 1,171 pounds a month elsewhere, held for nine months. See our page on UK university fees for international students.
Where the degree leads
- Destination management organisations and tourism boards
- Tourism policy and planning in government and local authorities
- Sustainable tourism and conservation NGOs
- Tour operators and travel companies, in product development and destination roles
- Hotel groups and resorts, on the strategy and development side
- Consultancy and impact assessment
- Progression to a PhD for those drawn to research
UK graduates on a student visa can normally apply for the Graduate Route after a masters, which gives two years to work without a sponsor. For this subject that time is well spent gaining operational experience with a UK operator or destination body before taking it home.
The honest positioning
Tourism is not the highest paying sector you could enter, in the UK or anywhere. Nobody should choose this degree expecting banking salaries. What it offers instead is a field where a Nepalese graduate has a genuine competitive advantage, because you understand a destination that the rest of the class will only have read about.
It also pairs well with aviation and airport management at undergraduate level, and with business or marketing backgrounds generally.
Talk to Real Dreams before you apply
Real Dreams has been placing Nepalese students in UK universities since 2003, and course choice is where most applications are won or lost. Bring us your +2 or bachelor transcripts and we will tell you honestly which universities are likely to take you for international tourism planning and management, which intake gives you the best chance, and what the first year really costs once tuition, deposit and maintenance funds are counted.
Counselling is free. Visit our offices in Kathmandu, Chitwan, Pokhara, Butwal or Bhairahawa, or our London office in the UK, and get in touch whenever you are ready. You can also start your application, read our guide to studying in the UK from Nepal, or browse the full course list.
