MSC DEGREE ON MANAGEMENT OF SUSTAINABLE AND ECOLOGICAL TOURISM: FIRST YEAR OF THE ACADEMIC PROGRAMME

The Master on Management of Sustainable and Ecological Tourism (METS) was designed as a specialized postgraduate degree, whose aim is to create future graduates able to carry out a comprehensive ecotourism management. It is an official Master Programme, adapted to European Higher Education Area. In September 2016, and with the participation of students worldwide that contribute to the internationalization of the programme, the first edition of METS started, to cover an educational gap in a growing sector that every day has more adepts and requires expert professionals. During this academic year, the contents of METS have been developed by specialized teachers from UPM (Technical University of Madrid) in three fields of the sustainable and ecological tourism: Sportive Tourism, Rural Tourism and Tourism in Nature; so as subjects in the frame of Marketing, Quality and Social Responsibility. Through online tutorials, learning modules, videos, online debates, etc., students have received the necessary material to be properly trained and able to access to the labour market with extensive knowledge and guarantees of success. This article wants to show how the first year of the Masters degree has been developed, the problematic of undertaking a program in this category and the reception it has had from teachers and students, as well as from those companies related to sustainability (most of them, club members of Friends of the Masters), which have been involved to offer students internships, the scope of them and future prospect.