General Tourism and Hospitality Education and Research in Bangladesh

Abstract

The rapid expansion of tourism and hospitality sector demands more subject-oriented expertise. In order to address the situation, many countries of the world started offering different levels of educational programs. In Bangladesh, tourism education and research remain comparatively a new stream of learning opportunity. This paper instigates an exploratory study to report on the general tourism and hospitality education and research in Bangladesh. Using both primary and secondary methods, this research collects data and analyze following the content analysis technique. The findings reveal that the unique nature and interdisciplinary orientations require tourism education to accommodate both theoretical as well as practical learning modules. However, the practical part has been found largely absent in most of the tertiary level institutions. Finally, a number of issues have been identified for future research opportunities that entail the supply and demand side of tourism education and research in Bangladesh. More specifically, the findings highlighted the nature and status associated with tourism and hospitality jobs, scarcity of qualified academicians and institutes, faulty course curriculum, lack of accessibility to quality and updated materials, and failure of government to play its functional roles. This paper will be helpful for policymakers in tourism and hospitality sectors in Bangladesh.