Innovate or Deteriorate—Moving Tourism Education into the 21st Century

Abstract

This article comments on Chris Copper's assertion that education is living in the past and has not adapted to the needs of the twenty-first It is argued that Cooper is right in advocating the need for innovativeness in tourism education. The basis for tourism education has changed only a little in the 40 or so years since it first entered the higher education sector in countries such as the UK, USA and Australia especially since in the last decade alone, world events and their impact on the tourism sector has necessitated the incorporation of new concepts into the tourism sector. It is argued that at the core of innovation theory is the change agent and fortunately there is growing evidence of change agents in tourism education. Initiatives like the Tourism Education Futures Initiative are exciting. Furthermore, the literature is growing with accounts of innovative approaches to tourism education. Yet, despite these notable objectives, it is argued that there is much work still left to do to move tourism education into the twenty-first century.