The Free University of Bozen/Bolzano was founded on 31 October 1997 as a multilingual (Italian, German and English) internationally oriented institution. It promotes the free exchange of ideas and scientific knowledge, linking itself to the European humanities tradition and laying the foundations for its society by promoting respect for democratic principles.
The University regards itself as a communication platform between the local area and Europe, and aims to manage and interpret the signals it receives to provide a clearer outlook for the future.
Tourism & Hospitality School
The School of Economics and Management, one of five faculties at the Free University of Bozen, Bolzano, is responsible for the delivery of Tourism, Sport and Event Management programmes. The School takes great pride in being a wonderful faculty offering lecturers, open door policies, and is committed to developing students who will be future leaders that can roll up their sleeves in order to solve complex, unstructured, real world problems. It is also:
- A member of leading national and international tourism networks such as the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education (ICHRIE), International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism (AIEST), Tourism Association South Tyrol (LTS), - A strategic ally of some 126 companies, industry associations, government agencies, banks etc. at the national level - A partner of some 100 companies, agencies, industry boards etc
Academic Excellence
The School is cited as one of the 5 best in the 2008 Council of Higher Education-ranking list published by the German weekly ‘Die Zeit’. The faculty also figures prominently in Italian ranking lists (‘La Repubblica’), constantly grouped among the top universities and achieving higher ranking than many famous private Italian universities.
Graduates are highly employable (95% are employed within 3 months after graduation and a high percentage does start employment even before graduating). The graduates of our School are highly sought after by the industry, however, a very high proportion of the graduates start their professional career in an international environment outside Italy.
Research & Industry Programmes
The teaching staff of the School includes 16 full and associate professors, 6 Researchers Delegate , 5 ‘RTD’ (researchers with fixed-term contract), 2 ‘assegnisti di ricerca’ as well as numerous contract professors. The administrative staff includes 16 collaborators in Bolzano and Brunico.
In addition to the TOMTE’s (Centre for Tourism Management and Tourism Economics) the professorial research initiatives, with highly international and inter-disciplinary approaches the School/ Programmes contribute to the sustainable development of regional tourism in South Tyrol. Examples included the research project with
- Alpshealth Comp on Health Tourism, Regional, Economic Impact, Feasibility and Sustainability, Future Outlook and
- Demochange on the Demographic Change on Tourism and on Destinations – a project that aims to have direct transfer of research outcome into policy measures and policy implementation
