ABSTRACT
As I suggested in the previous chapter, there are two dimensions to the study of tourism. On the one hand, it can be thought of in terms of what might broadly be termed tourism education: that is, the study of tourism can be taken to be the development and provision of tourism programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, embracing themes such as the historical development of tourism as a subject of study, curriculum design and content, debates surrounding the vocational focus of tourism education, its relevance to the needs of the tourism sector, and the relationship between tourism education and government policy with respect to both higher education and tourism development. In fact, it is probably true to say that academic interest in the study of tourism has primarily been concerned with tourism education in general, and issues surrounding the tourism curriculum in particular. For example, as Tribe (2005) reports in his analysis of research into tourism education up to 2001, of 304 identified articles published within the tourism education theme, 261 (86 per cent) focused on curriculum-related issues. The most popular sub-theme, representing 23 per cent of published articles, was the nature of tourism education either in specific countries or as comparative studies, while the second-largest thematic group of papers was concerned with critical reviews of the curriculum. More generally, both books and specialized journals, such as the Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, also focus primarily on issues relating to teaching and learning in tourism.
