Designing Luxury Experiences: A progressive concentration in the Hospitality and Tourism Management program

July 8, 2020

Luxury experiences is 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. RIT Croatia recognized this opportunity by enabling students to prepare themselves for careers in this niche specialty by choosing our program concentration called Designing Luxury Experiences.

"This concentration will provide students with advanced understanding of high-end hospitality services," said Mr. Kevin Walker, MBA, Head of the Hospitality and Tourism Management program at RIT Croatia. "The concentration prepares students for successful careers as product managers, brand managers or experiential services consultants thus putting RIT Croatia on the cutting edge of hospitality and tourism education," concluded Mr. Walker.

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.