The importance of examining philosophical relationships between tourism and hospitality curricula

Abstract

In an effort to understand the base differences between tourism and hospitality academic programmes, it is important to understand their philosophical relationships. Different types of philosophies will give rise to different orientations. The differential orientations often lead to conflicts. These conflicts are not usually understood in terms of basic philosophical differences, but are seen as a perceptual distinction. This translates to the real world in that many tourism and hospitality professionals have strong feelings about each other that lead to professional misunderstandings. These differences in philosophy also have important ramifications for curricula, course structure, or the instructional philosophies. The purpose of this article is to examine the philosophical relationships between tourism and hospitality academic programmes and their implications, especially for curricular design. This type of philosophical modelling will help obtain a better perspective on the design of courses that have a general thematic structure to improve the preparations programmes in tourism and hospitality.

Citation

Chen, K. and Groves, D. (1999), "The importance of examining philosophical relationships between tourism and hospitality curricula", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 37-42. https://doi.org/10.1108/09596119910250382