Search results

COVID-19 impacted the tourism sector, and its ripple effect is equally evident in tourism academia at all levels. Since innovation in tourism pedagogy is considered an epicentre of quality education, this study proposes an integrated model to identify the degree of pedagogical innovation adapted by tourism educators. The model is an amalgamation of innovation indicators in teaching practices developed by Sigala (2021), a futurist model developed by Wassler and Fan (2021) and a model of innovation developed by Brooker and Joppe (2014).

The study is exploratory, and an online qualitative survey was used to collect data. Data were analysed using the Nvivo 12 software and three themes were drawn: Painters, Artists and Artisans.

The study found that the majority of the tourism educators are painters as they adopted minor changes in their pedagogy. They follow the conventional methods of teaching by incorporating ICT into their pedagogy. Whereas a smaller group of tourism educators introduced innovative tools to encourage and equip students with professional skills (artists/artisans).

The study suggests practical implications for tourism educators to embrace and innovate their pedagogy to become ‘artists/artisans’. The support of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and industry professionals are equally crucial for bringing innovation in tourism pedagogy and academia, in general, artisans.

Given that tourism education has scantly been discussed following the breakout of COVID-19 (Sigala, 2020), the study addresses that resurrection of tourism pedagogy through an integrated model.

Inquiry learning points is based on questions and requires students to work independently to solve problems. Instructors are facilitators of learning, not people who give right answers and instructions to learners. Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences Porvoo campus in Finland is a new concept for learning. The lecturers have changed from traditional ones to coaches aiming at new competences with new tools to enhance learning. Their own implementation of inquiry learning has been assessed by themselves with an ongoing self-assessment process as a part of the normal tasks of instructional teams. Self-assessment is a part of action research that aims to develop an organization and the work in it.

This chapter outlines an augmented reality project developed as part of a master’s course on eTourism within a curriculum. It discusses opportunities to foster community engagement with local tourism actors and experiential learning for international students. It also contributes to the literature on experiential education in this field. Moreover, the chapter discusses cross-cultural learning implications as international students were asked to study a local destination. Results show how the introduction of a practical project into the tourism curriculum proved to provide better learning of the application of eTourism, and a powerful pedagogical approach to raise global citizenship awareness.

This concluding contribution draws together key issues discussed in the various chapters of the book and connects them with future trends for tourism education. It places task in the changing world of higher education in general, and discusses changes in knowledge acquisition, ways of learning, knowledge content, and the role of educators in the future. This coverage leads to new learning technologies and their impact on the learning spaces of the future. Finally, the chapter discusses how projected tourism education programs can be designed to address society’s needs at this critical juncture in the history of the mankind. Creating responsible leaders for this global industry is perhaps the most important goal of future tourism education.

This chapter offers an experience-based report about the development of the first Scandinavian PhD program in tourism studies at Mid-Sweden University. This process is documented through a framework which, rather than having the coherence of a single clearly bounded discipline, focuses on tourism as a study area encompassing multiple disciplines. Tourism knowledge is derived through a synthesis of fact-oriented positivist methodologies and critical theory. The theoretical framework employed to develop the graduate program in tourism studies is presented by critically discussing its multidisciplinary base and briefly outlining future veins of further development.

This chapter presents an innovative learning opportunity for tourism students, International Tourism and Hospitality Academy at Sea, that has been in operation for the last 10 years. The program could render itself as a case study of Kolb’s experiential learning theory according to which knowledge is created by transforming experience. Its uniqueness and complexity lie in its diversity. This program has involved between 80 and 130 tourism students yearly from four to six institutions from different countries participating in new scholarly inputs by non-resident professors and instructors.

The purpose of this chapter is to present secondary data around how the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) are adopted in a global context whilst making comparisons with the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index from the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2019. The discussion is centred around young adults (Generation Z) and their potential role and importance. In essence, we are trying to examine if tourism sustainability educational practice adopted within countries appears to transition into industry practice. For this, we consider success both from the perspective of tourism sustainability and general economic competitiveness. The findings suggest significant gaps (or current failure) between PRME delivery and achieving tourism sustainability globally, but generally highlight economic success where PRME uptake is strong. Thus, it would appear that PRME is not yet transitioning into industry practice; therefore, more needs to be done or adapted to achieve greater tourism sustainability, and we emphasise the role of Generation Z within this.

Previous work has conceptually explored the value of the humanities for tourism education and has considered the pressures that likely serve as barriers to its greater inclusion in curricula. This chapter moves the debate from the conceptual level to the ground, reporting the results of a survey of tourism educators with regard to the role of the humanities in the programs in which they teach. The study explores the prevalence of the humanities as primary and supporting course content at the undergraduate and graduate levels, sheds light on barriers faculty members identify for incorporating more humanities content into their curricula, and offers examples of creative ways some educators are currently engaging with such content.

For the islands of the Caribbean, tourism is more than an industry to be managed. Significantly, it is a socioeconomic phenomenon that if managed effectively can address some of the challenges facing the region. Tourism higher education plays a critical role in preparing graduates to shape an improved Caribbean tourism society and in performing research. Over the years, its tourism education has been framed by “Western models” that have not taken sufficient account of the Caribbean reality. The focus of this chapter is to define Caribbean education and to propose a tourism higher education strategy for the implementation in part of this education.