What Can You Do With a Master's in Tourism, Hospitality, and Event Management? | GW School of Business

A master's in tourism, hospitality and event management prepares graduates for leadership roles across three of the world's fastest-growing sectors, including destination management, hotel investment and operations, event leadership, government, international development and academia. Graduates of the GW School of Business Master of Science in Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management (MSTHEM) hold titles like Executive Director, Managing Director, Tourism Program Manager and Professor at organizations ranging from Marriott International to the World Bank Group to the U.S. National Park Service.

The demand behind those careers is significant. Travel and tourism are projected to generate 91 million new jobs globally by 2035, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council, accounting for one in every three net new jobs created worldwide. The professionals who lead that growth need more than industry knowledge. They need business strategy, data literacy and networks that open doors.

So what does a career with this degree actually look like? The best answer comes from the people living it. We asked MSTHEM alumni spanning more than 25 years of graduating classes what they do, how they got where they are and what their degree made possible.

Lead a Destination

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Destination management organizations (DMOs) sit at the center of the visitor economy and MSTHEM graduates lead them. Courtney Mann Cacatian, MSTHEM '10, is the Executive Director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau, where she works with community leaders, hotel owners and her own team across visitor services, destination development, promotion and sales.

Cacatian credits the program with instilling a destination stewardship mindset nearly two decades before the wider industry embraced it. That perspective helped her organization earn national and international recognition for its community-centered pivot during the pandemic. It also shaped Discover Black Cville, an initiative to uplift Black-owned businesses in Charlottesville that earned her an MSTHEM alumni award.

Shape Hospitality Investment and Operations

For graduates drawn to the business of hotels, the degree leads to careers in hospitality real estate, asset management and brand building. Dave Goldstein, a 2006 graduate, is the Managing Director of Strategic Operations at Castle Peak Holdings, a vertically integrated company that invests in and builds experiential hospitality brands, including Trailborn, where he serves as its interim COO.

Goldstein points to the program's hotel feasibility and strategic planning coursework as the place where he fell in love with building frameworks for complex strategic problems and watching a vision go from concept to actionable business plan.

Run Events at the Highest Levels

Event management careers with this degree extend far beyond logistics. Renée Cash, MSTHEM '17, is the Lead Program Specialist and Team Lead Event Planner at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), where she leads executive conferences, leadership forums, international programs and ceremonial events that bring together government officials, financial leaders and industry partners from around the world. Her earlier career included coordinating events for senior military leaders, Cabinet officials and international delegations at the Department of Defense.

Serve Through Government and Public Lands

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Washington, D.C., is the seat of federal tourism policy and MSTHEM graduates build careers inside it. Donald Leadbetter, MSTHEM '11, has spent 15 years at the U.S. National Park Service headquarters, including a decade as the Agency's Tourism Program Manager. He helps colleagues incorporate visitation data, trends and forecasts into park planning and partnerships. He currently serves as the Acting Deputy Associate Director for Partnerships, coordinating philanthropic support for park conservation.

The connection between the program and public lands runs deep. Some of program founder Don Hawkins' earliest work focused on parks and protected areas and they have remained visible in case studies, practicums and study abroad courses ever since. For Leadbetter, applying his degree at the National Park Service was a natural fit and his career has since taken him from Washington, D.C., to countries like Romania, Greenland and Albania, providing technical assistance in park, tourism and conservation management to peers around the world.

Drive International Development

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Tourism is one of the world's most powerful tools for economic development and institutions like the World Bank Group hire specialists who understand it. Shaun Mann, MSTHEM '04, is a Tourism Development Specialist at the World Bank, where he helps governments conceive, plan and invest in sustainable tourism. Mann came to the program mid-career after 15 years as a safari operator and tourist board CEO in Uganda.

Teach, Research and Advance the Field

Some graduates go on to shape the field itself. SooCheong "Shawn" Jang, MSTHEM '99, is a professor at Purdue University's White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, where he directs the Center for Hospitality and Retail Industries Business Analytics. Shawn (Seungwon) Lee, MSTHEM '01, is an associate professor at George Mason University, a visiting professor at the Singapore Institute of Technology, the author of two books and series editor of the Wiley Event Management Series.

Both trace their trajectories to the program: Jang says it gave him the confidence to pursue advanced research and to examine tourism and hospitality problems from both managerial and societal perspectives.

The Washington, D.C., Advantage

Across every career path, one theme repeats: location matters. The MSTHEM is the only master's in tourism, hospitality and event management in Washington, D.C., placing students steps from Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, the World Bank, the U.S. Travel Association and the federal agencies that shape tourism policy.

Courtney Cacatian's first full-time role came through a CVB director who guest lectured in her marketing course. Dave Goldstein's professors created job opportunities from hotel internships to post-graduate roles. The network extends well beyond graduation. Cacatian built the Tourism for All program, now adopted by Destinations International, with fellow GW alumni she met through the network years after graduating, united by a shared vision for the future of the industry that she traces directly to their shared education.

The Skills That Surprise Graduates

Ask alumni which skills proved most valuable and the answers are strikingly consistent: not just technical training but ways of thinking. Cross-cultural communication comes up again and again. Donald Leadbetter uses it daily to work across disciplines at a large federal agency. Renée Cash calls cross-cultural leadership the biggest surprise of the program, one she draws on with every international delegation. SooCheong "Shawn" Jang counts it as essential to advising governments and organizations across markets.

The other recurring answer is the ability to connect data, strategy and stakeholders. Whether building hotel financial models, analyzing park visitation trends or measuring destination competitiveness, graduates describe a degree that taught them to turn analysis into decisions.

Where Will the Degree Take You?

From Charlottesville to Singapore, from national parks to the World Bank, MSTHEM graduates lead a sector that moves the world. The 30-credit, AACSB-accredited program is the only one in the United States certified by UN Tourism TedQual and can be completed full-time or part-time in 1.5 to 2.5 years.

Explore the MS in Tourism, Hospitality, and Event Management to see where nearly 2,000 alumni across six continents have taken this degree, and where it could take you.