ABSTRACT
Rapid changes to the tourism industry and environment have made it necessary to think of the tourism curriculum in terms of the development of lifelong learning. This chapter proposes ‘learning organisations’ (Senge, 1990a, 1990b) as a pedagogical framework that cultivate students’ lifelong learning competence development to manage tourism challenges. The author draws on her teaching experiences to reflect on how learning organisations work as a pedagogical framework to facilitate lifelong learning competences in the classroom. In the class as a learning organisation, learners tacitly construct lifelong learning competences, such as the ability to inquire about significant concerns and issues, thinking and communicating, decision-making, problem-solving, oral or written presentations, and self-reflection. Following the phenomenological perspective, learning organisations as pedagogy become life-worlds with vivid variety that recognises the primacy of the learner’s subjectivity as implicated in the ‘being’ process. Learners are expected to become more fully themselves as well as to relate to tourism practices that extend beyond the economic or business aspects by reflecting on their dwelling processes of becoming professionals using a broader vision.
