Tourism Education Futures, 2010–2030: Building the Capacity to Lead

Abstract

This paper reports on an initiative to examine the future of tourism education into the years 2010–2030. A group of 45 senior tourism educators and industry experts came together for a summit at Modul University, Vienna, Austria to discuss how tourism education needs to adapt to significant societal and industry changes. The theme of the summit was how to build the capacity for tourism students to lead the industry into the future as it faces increasing pressures for responsibility and stewardship. This paper discusses the pre-summit and summit processes and their outcomes, and explains future plans for this Tourism Education Futures Initiative (TEFI). Among other outcomes was a listing of values that could create the foundation for future tourism education programs, and also five categories of skills that participants felt would be important for students of the future to master. These are destination stewardship skills, political skills, ethical skills, enhanced human resource skills, and dynamic business skills.