Embedding sustainability education into hospitality, tourism, and events management curricula - a preliminary best practice model

Abstract

With over seventy percent of millennials preferring to spend disposable income on experiences rather than consumer goods, organizations operating in the tourism, hospitality, and events sectors are predicted to see increasing demand. Despite being recognized as a major contributor to economic activity, these sectors have been criticized for being a root cause of environmental degradation, acculturation, economic leakage, and migration. The recent collapse of international travel firms with far-reaching consequences for employees, suppliers, and destinations has highlighted the vulnerability of organizations to volatility in the business environment and calls for a reassessment of business and leadership models. Since the adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, sustainability initiatives are becoming more embedded into corporate strategies with an increasing focus on the triple bottom line. Following the creation of the Global Reporting Initiative Standards and sector-specific standards, there is a growing expectation that organizations demonstrate accountability for their sustainability initiatives. In Western societies, this reflects a shift away from the liberalist notion of the “Theory of the Firm” towards the sustainability paradigm. The purpose of this exploratory paper is to propose a preliminary framework for embedding innovative sustainability education in undergraduate degree programs. The paper first reviews UK-based guidelines for sustainability education at the university level. It then proposes a framework for the development of a corresponding curriculum audit tool that assesses how comprehensively sustainability education is embedded into undergraduate curricula. The University of Gloucestershire’s degree programs in International Hospitality and Tourism Management and Event Management are used as case studies to demonstrate how an audit tool design based on relevant principles can be used in practice for assessing and enhancing sustainability education. The paper recommends the further development of the tool into a best practice model integrating graduate attributes, key learning outcomes and skills, and an appropriate learning and teaching infrastructure. Transferability across subjects and transnationally is identified as an area for further research.