UCF Hospitality Management Program Listed 5th in World

UCF's Rosen College of Hospitality Management was ranked this week as the No. 5 school for hospitality and tourism academics in the ShanghaiRankings listing of 500 of the world's top universities. The annual list is released by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, which recognizes schools for their academic researchers.

Rosen's jump from its previous No. 11 ranking was attributed to more than 130 published research articles submitted by faculty during the past year and international collaborations with other institutions. Among the works published was a study on "Tourism's Potential to Benefit Ecuador's Poor," which won the prestigious 2018 Thea Sinclair Award, named for a leading researcher in tourism economics.

"We are extremely proud of our 2019 ShanghaiRanking, finding ourselves among the top five programs in the world," says Dean Youcheng Wang. "We have been working diligently with our faculty to expand the breadth and level of their research by taking on projects that impact the hospitality and tourism industries day-to-day operations, not simply theoretic practices."

Wang says these projects demonstrate the college's competitive capabilities to not only educate future industry leaders but contribute meaningful data to the industry.

"This significant increase in the rankings demonstrates that our 15-year-old college is among the best on a global stage," he says.

Rosen College, which has the largest higher education hospitality program in the United States, has five undergraduate bachelor's degrees, a master's degree in hospitality management, and the only doctoral program of its kind in hospitality management in the nation. The Chronicle of Higher Education says that the ShanghaiRanking is considered the most influential ranking among world-renowned universities.