International Master on Wine Tourism Innovation

Overview

These universities are located in highly attractive touristic areas, recognised with the label of human heritage by UNESCO, and with a long tradition on wine, producing speciality wines, such as sparkling, fortified, aged red and sweet wines. The training programme is clearly multi-disciplinary and also multisectorial.

The European Master on Wine Tourism Innovation (WINTOUR) programme is aimed at preparing broadly trained and highly adaptable and qualified professionals in the tourism and wine industries in order to promote innovative wine tourism developments which will generate added value through the increased income and recognition of this sector.  The programme offered by Universitat Rovira i Virgili covers the absence of a new profession that requires multi-disciplinary and multi-sectorial knowledge and training, while increasing their understanding of wine making and tourism management. High-quality practical training in entrepreneurship and company management is provided by involving the students in internships in the non-academic sector.

The programme is structured in 120 ECTS divided in two years and 4 semesters. The first 3 semesters are taught each in one University (URV, UB and finally UP), and the last semester is devoted to the final internship which is developed in one of the associated partners' facilities, mostly from the non-academic sector. Thus, students have a common track of 90 ECTS, and a final professional Internship for the development of the Master Thesis of 30 ECTS, where students have to develop a project related to the skills acquired.

The teaching programme includes modules on Wine Tourism and Marketing, Wine Making (mostly focused on sparkling, aged, sweet and fortified wines), Wine heritage, and three different types of internships (on winemaking, marketing, and oenotourism), with the active participation of the non-academic partners in the student training.

Participating universities:

• Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV, Spain)

• Université de Bordeaux (UB, France)

• Universidade do Porto (UP, Portugal)

Graduates may be eligible for positions in the following areas:

• Private sector: creation of start-ups and business initiatives taking wine as a tourist attraction and tourism as a means for promoting wine and wine regions; management of the international activity of private firms from the wine industry in relation to their marketing strategy and development of wine tourism activities; specialised consultancy in the design and development of new strategies for increasing the competitiveness of the wine sector.
• Public administration: positions in public organisations responsible of the planning, management and promotion of wine tourism products at local, national and international level.
• Research and teaching: participation and leadership of multidiscipliary research teams in the fields of oenology and tourism, either in public or private research organisations.