Teaching Tourism: Innovative, Values-based Learning Experiences for Transformative Practices

Tourism as an activity is increasingly being criticised for its exploitative and extractive industrial approaches to business. Yet, it has the power to transform and to regenerate societies, cultures and the environment. The desire to explore the world around us is deeply embedded in many people’s psyche, but it comes at a cost to the environment and often to the residents of the visited communities. Much of tourism education has been closely linked to preparing students for future professional practice, but the challenges and opportunities linked to its consumption require that its future leaders must exhibit very different values and understandings to tackle ever more complex and wicked problems from which tourism cannot dissociate itself.

This teaching guide brings together a compilation of values-based learning experiences that can be adapted to suit the needs and disposition of individual instructors. It aims not only to engage students in the subject matter but also deepen their understanding of its complexity and interconnectivity and help them become global citizens that lead lives of consequence.

Academics and practitioners in higher education institutions around the world in many different disciplines will find the thought-provoking conversation starters and activities of help in encouraging students to take a multi- or post-disciplinary approach to explore tourism from a values perspective. Consultants and academics engaging community stakeholders in capacity building will value its practical, accessible information.

Edited by Johan Edelheim, PhD, Professor, Graduate School of International Media, Communication and Tourism Studies, Hokkaido University, Japan, Marion Joppe, PhD, Professor and Joan Flaherty, MA, MSc, Associate Professor Emerita, School of Hospitality, Food and Tourism Management, University of Guelph, Canada