Knowledge-based competences: - Knowing, from and strategic standpoint, the business conditions of tourism industries. - Understanding the nature of strategic decisions. - Evaluating strategical choices in a critical and well-reasoned manner, according to criteria oriented towards value creation. Skills: - Using at ease and understanding the major sources of business information, specially the tourism ones - Analyzing complex business problems both rigorously and critically, thus reaching personal and well-reasoned conclusions. - Communicate ideas in structured and appealing speeches and texts. Attitudes: - Developing creative attitudes towards problem-solving. - Developing and ethical and socially responsible attitude towards business. - Team-working.

The course covers the main concepts and analytic frameworks of strategic management. Students, after taking the course, should understand how good strategies contribute to value creation and competitive advantage. The course also studies the process of firm expansion, both in terms of new businesses and new markets. The programme is structured in three parts: Part one: Introduction Strategic management in tourist firms: objectives, strategies and value creation Corporate governance. Sustainability and the tourist firm Part two: Strategic Analysis Frameworks for industry analysis: an application to tourist industries Internal analysis: resources y capabilities. The case of the tourist firms Part three: competitive strategies Creating competitive advantages: the value levers Competitive strategies: cost and differentiation Part three: the corporate level of strategy: Strategies of vertical integration: the make/buy decision Diversification in tourist firms Internationalization of the tourist firm The evolutionary process of the tourist f firm Strategic Alliances.

The course comprises two major elements: - Theoretical lessons, aimed at presenting and explaining the main concepts of the course. - Practical sessions: They are based on the analysis and discussion of case studies, specially from the tourism industry. - Project in group: the students integrated in working groups, should prepare a written report about a company where the concepts of the course will be applied; as well as make a public defense of its conclusions.