Parks, Recreation & Tourism
Parks, Recreation & Tourism
Enhancing life, improving health, & building connections
Since 1984, the Department of Parks, Recreation, & Tourism has been a national leader in recreation and leisure management, helping students turn their passion for the outdoors, travel, sports, and people into meaningful careers. Our programs prepare students to create healthier communities, protect natural spaces, and inspire experiences that add more years to our lives—and MORE LIFE to those years.
We offer undergraduate and graduate degree programs designed to prepare students for meaningful careers in research, conservation, sports, parks and wilderness management, marketing, tourism, and hospitality.
If you’re looking for a career filled with purpose, adventure, and the chance to help people live fuller, healthier lives, your journey starts here.
Find a Program that works for you
Undergraduate Program
The undergraduate degree offers 3 areas of emphasis:
Master's Program
Our master's program offers specialization in areas involving tourism, commercial recreation, natural resource management, or experiential education.
PhD Program
The PhD program consists of a major in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism, an area of concentration, and a research core that includes dissertation research.
A Path to Sports Marketing
Alex Aguirre ('25) turned his passion for sports into a career through the University of Utah’s Parks, Recreation and Tourism program. Hands-on classes and real-world internships helped prepare him for a competitive internship with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway — an opportunity that ultimately led to a full-time role in sports marketing.
U-Explore Partners with Medicine to Teach Clinical Judgment
The University of Utah’s U-EXPLORE program has partnered with the School of Medicine and Emergency Medicine Department to create an innovative outdoor learning experience that teaches future physicians how to make clinical decisions under uncertainty. By using backcountry avalanche terrain as a “living classroom,” medical students and residents practice navigating incomplete information, time pressure, risk, and group dynamics—challenges that closely mirror real-world medical care. The program combines experiential outdoor education with research on judgment, bias, and feedback to help trainees build stronger clinical reasoning, self-awareness, and decision-making skills.
Experience the great outdoors with U-EXPLORE
Classes are open to any U student. Intensive, short duration, 2-credit experiential learning classes with over 90 different sections of classes each year, delivered by professional and experienced instructor teams. If your tired of being stuck in the classroom, answer the call of adventure, see what makes Utah unlike anywhere else, and get credit while you do it..
Message from the Chair
"There was a time when 'I’d rather be….' bumper stickers were incredibly popular. With the exception of some sarcastic iterations, the stickers reflected some recreational activity that the person would rather be doing; …fishing, skiing, sailing, kayaking, reading, traveling, watching football…you get the idea. The implication of the stickers was that people were happiest when they were doing what they loved to do, and that was usually something recreation focused. In my time studying and teaching the social psychology of recreation behavior and its subsequent health outcomes, I’ve come to deeply understand that people work so that they can engage in their favorite activities. Our recreation is a better reflection of our true identities than anything else, and we have higher quality of life and are generally happier when we make time for recreation..."
Dart Schmalz, PhD
Professor and Dept. Chair
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Why Utah?
Located on the northeastern edge of Salt Lake City, our 1,500-acre campus reaches to the foothills of the majestic Wasatch Mountains. Over 25,000 students represent all 50 states and many foreign countries. More than 2,000 clinical, adjunct, research, and visiting faculty serve the student body.
Utah is the West at its best: four distinct seasons, ready access to all outdoor activities including superb skiing at eight world-famous resorts just minutes from campus. Utah is home to five national parks and countless national, regional, state, and local recreation areas. Salt Lake City, with a metropolitan population of 650,000, is the hub of the Intermountain West.
Our Vision
We envision a global community that values and celebrates parks, recreation, and tourism. To that end, we contribute to individual, community, and environmental health through education, research, and action informed by the preventive, developmental, and restorative properties of parks, recreation, and tourism.
Our Mission
We create, share, and apply knowledge about parks, recreation, and tourism to inspire students, inform policy, serve social needs, promote sustainability, and advocate for the health of people, communities, and the environment.
Our Values
- Student centeredness
- Student involvement
- Community connections
- Informed and engaged citizenship
- Excellence in and integration of scholarship, teaching, and service
- Outdoor, experiential, and traditional instruction
- Speculative as well as applied knowledge
- Ecological literacy
- Career development and professional advancement of our graduates
- Independent and lifelong learning