Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) will offer a bachelor’s programme in tourism studies for students from eastern India and students of International Institute of Hotel Management Kolkata (IIHM) at its Sector V campus.
Regional director, Ignou, Suresh Kumar Tripathy said the three-year bachelor in tourism studies course will give students a national degree, which will help them seek better career opportunities.

Ignou has 75 active-learner centres in the city with around 43,000 students pursuing various programmes in the Calcutta region. Apart from Calcutta, Ignou has two regional centres in Bengal — at Siliguri and Raghunathganj.  

“We plan to start three more courses — certificate in tourism studies, diploma in tourism studies and master in tourism management — at the IIHM centre in future. The proposal has to come to us from the institute and then we will send it to our headquarters in New Delhi for approval,” said Tripathy.

Chief mentor of IIHM Suborno Bose said the course, which covers tourism, travel and hospitality, will lay special emphasis on business communication, operations and marketing management, finance and accounting and human resource. “We have tied up with Ignou as it is an internationally recognised university and a degree from their stable will help our students get dual recognition.”

Elaborating on the new course, Tripathy said 1,000 students had already enrolled for the course, which would run concurrently with the diploma programme for IIHM students. “Along with diploma from IIHM, they will also get their bachelor’s degree from Ignou after completion of the course. We plan to add more students from the catchment area who may not be pursuing any course at IIHM,” he said.