Bachelor in Tourism & Hospitality Management

This is a bachelor's degree at FHWien der WKW, a university of applied sciences in Vienna. It runs over six semesters and 180 ECTS, and you graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Business (BA). The programme comes in two variants: full-time and dual. Both are taught mainly in German, with about 25 % of courses in English.

What you study

The first semesters build a business base: Business Administration, Integrated Marketing & Communication, Human Resources & Professional Development, Research Skills, Applied Project Management and Digitalization & Data Literacy. Tourism & Sustainability comes early, and later you take Tourism, Economy & Environment, Destination Management, Tourism Experience Design, Organizational Design & Process Management and a Digital Marketing Project. You finish with a bachelor exam and a bachelor thesis.

In the full-time variant you pick a specialisation from the second semester: Hotel Management, Event & Congress Design, Mobility or Food Entrepreneurship. The dual variant swaps the specialisation for longer practical phases with a partner business.

How the programme is organised

Classes run Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 18:30, with the occasional Saturday. In the full-time variant, the fourth semester is an internship of at least 700 hours, abroad or at home, and the fifth semester can be a semester abroad at a partner university. The dual variant alternates theory phases at the university of applied sciences with practice phases at the partner company; from the third semester you spend 2.5 days a week on campus and 2.5 days a week at the business, with about 20 hours of work per week.

Teaching leans on practice. Over 70 % of teaching staff work in the industry full-time. You do business field projects with companies, organise excursions yourself (multi-day trips in the first and second semesters), join TM on Tour company visits and hear from experts and graduates at TM Talk. The dual variant's partners range from five-star hotels and tour operators to travel agencies, congress companies and airlines.

Who it suits

People who want to shape tourism with sustainable and innovative approaches, and who like learning by doing rather than only from slides. You should be comfortable with German, since most teaching is in it, and ready to organise trips and projects yourself. The dual variant suits someone who wants to earn and gain work experience alongside study; the full-time variant suits someone who wants a specialisation and a longer internship, possibly abroad.

Admission, language and next steps

There are 68 places a year, 34 in the full-time and 34 in the dual variant. The programme starts at the beginning of the winter semester in September at wko campus wien, Währinger Gürtel 97, 1180 Vienna, by the U6 station Währinger Straße/Volksoper. Applications go directly to FHWien der WKW, not through a central portal; the institution's own pages list the admission requirements, the admissions procedure and the deadlines. The teaching language is German and English: the programme is partly taught in English, so check which parts. As a university of applied sciences, FHWien der WKW sets its own fees, shown on its programme costs page.

Tourism moves people and people move tourism. As experts, graduates shape the tourism of the future - sustainably and with innovative approaches. Competent, practice-oriented and international, this means a business education with a focus on tourism and a solid basis for a career in service management.

There is no central application portal in Austria: you apply to the institution, here FHWien der WKW. Universities of applied sciences set their own application periods and admission procedures, so read them on the programme page. Entrance examination, as the register states it: Admission procedure. Entry requirements and language tests are set by the institution, so start from the official programme page. Our guides cover tuition fees, the student residence permit and housing.