Masters of complexity & change: What travel & tourism needs from the academy

Many travel & tour­ism edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions could be unin­ten­tion­ally restrict­ing stu­dents’ abil­ity to see the ‘big picture’. 

And some edu­cat­ors may be too tied to their pet per­spect­ives and untested the­or­ies to be doing their stu­dents any favours. 

Edu­cat­or and entre­pren­eur Lauren Uğur reck­ons the academy can bet­ter reflect real­ity while equip­ping stu­dents to face it.

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. [You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

There are likely very few “GT” read­ers who would argue against the pro­pos­i­tion that tour­ism is one of, if not the most dynam­ic and excit­ing indus­tries in the world. 

It is vast. It is var­ied. It is in con­stant flux. It is complex. 

It is this com­plex­ity, how­ever, that is sim­ul­tan­eously the beauty and the bane of an industry that stands on the cusp of a revolu­tion; for bet­ter or for worse. 

It is beau­ti­ful in its com­plex­ity in that it affords dynam­ism. It is packed full of oppor­tun­it­ies at every turn. It’s enga­ging and excit­ing. One struggles to be bored by it. 

Is there a bet­ter career pitch? 

How­ever, as with any­thing in life, there is a flip side to this. 

Travel & tour­is­m’s com­plex­ity, as much as it is excit­ing, is also overwhelming. 

And, as human nature dic­tates, our tend­ency is to strive to main­tain control. 

This con­trol is mani­fest in edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions where tour­is­m’s com­plex chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies are filtered down to their tech­nic­al­it­ies, siloed for “bet­ter” under­stand­ing, and par­ti­tioned into buzzword-laden spe­cial­ties (read degree programmes). 

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” Insights tagged with
“Edu­ca­tion and training”

This is a mind­set that the glob­al eco­nomy, envir­on­ment, and social situ­ation has long since outgrown. 

This “GT” Insight is not to be under­stood as a gen­er­ic cri­tique of edu­ca­tion prac­tices across the vast array of pro­grams ser­vi­cing the travel & tour­ism industry. 

Rather it is a per­son­al reflec­tion on how we think about and approach edu­ca­tion prac­tices for an industry that is unar­gu­ably diverse and dynamic. 

The object­ive of this piece is straight­for­ward. It seeks to invite con­struct­ive debate and crit­ic­al reflec­tions on what the respons­ib­il­ity of edu­cat­ors is and should be. 

Writ­ing this from the per­spect­ive of an ardent teach­er and coach, my firm belief is that the futures we want for our industry can only be premised on a fit­ting education. 

After all, it is edu­ca­tion, in all of its forms, that is the source of all innovation. 

What do students and the travel & tourism industry need?

There­fore, the ques­tions we need to ask in these excep­tion­ally try­ing times are: 

• What know­ledge, skills, and com­pet­en­cies do our future gen­er­a­tions need in order to have a fight­ing chance at prosperity? 
• What kind of edu­ca­tion will afford them these?

As a start, let’s look at the World Eco­nom­ic For­um’s The Future of Jobs Report 2020.

The top five skill groups iden­ti­fied by employ­ers as being of increas­ing import­ance are:

1. Crit­ic­al think­ing and analysis
2. Prob­lem-solv­ing
3. Self-man­age­ment
4. Work­ing with people
5. Tech­no­logy use and development

What we see is a clear dom­in­ance of skills that are cross-cut­ting in nature. 

For example, the abil­ity to ana­lyse and crit­ic­ally reflect on inform­a­tion inher­ently assumes that one has the know­ledge and skill to work with and imple­ment the found­a­tion­al man­age­ment aspects required to act on the out­comes of reflect­ive analysis. 

Like­wise, prob­lem-solv­ing inher­ently assumes a deep know­ledge of the prob­lem at hand, as well as the found­a­tion­al skills required to imple­ment iden­ti­fied solutions. 

Also see Andrew Chan’s “GT” Insight
“Data ana­lyt­ics, fin­an­cial acu­men are keys to a great career in tourism”

What we observe first and fore­most from the list above is that we need to pur­sue modes of edu­ca­tion and didact­ic prac­tices that empower thought and reflec­tion bey­ond the bor­ders of tra­di­tion­al man­age­ment paradigms. 

So what’s the point here? 

Well, it’s simple. The role of edu­ca­tion is two-fold: 

1. Firstly, and obvi­ously, travel & tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als must gain the fun­da­ment­al know­ledge required to imple­ment the out­comes of ana­lys­is and prob­lem solu­tion options in their oper­a­tion­al business. 
2. Secondly, and more import­antly, they must be equipped with the com­pet­ence to assess the com­plex­ity of the mul­tiple levels (loc­al, region­al, inter­na­tion­al etc.) and spheres (social, eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al, envir­on­ment­al) that exist with­in the tour­ism sys­tem. Without this, the­or­et­ic­al “solu­tions” will remain detached from com­plex reality. 

Know­ledge only con­sti­tutes power if and when it is put into action; action that is con­text-spe­cif­ic and clear in its objective. 

In oth­er words, know­ledge alone is only poten­tial power. 

Restoring the power of knowledge

If we are to restore the vast power of know­ledge, we must bridge the gap between the skill of acquir­ing know­ledge and the skills related to organ­ising and apply­ing know­ledge to def­in­ite ends. 

Unfor­tu­nately, in this author’s humble opin­ion, the vast major­ity of tour­ism edu­ca­tion offer­ings fail to achieve this. 

As a pas­sion­ate edu­cat­or I ask these ques­tions of myself and my col­leagues alike: 

• Where will our gradu­ates go? 
• What kind of man­agers will they be? 
• What con­tri­bu­tion will they make to the emer­ging futures of our industry? 

My view is that edu­ca­tion is about devel­op­ing indi­vidu­al per­spect­ives on tough issues; build­ing know­ledge spaces that embrace diversity and encour­age open debate; and instilling com­fort with dif­fer­ent opin­ions and the cer­tainty of uncertainty. 

Fun­da­ment­ally, I would argue that edu­ca­tion is about range. 

Also see Ivana Dam­njan­ović’s “GT” Insight
“Travel, stor­ies, edu­ca­tion: The keys to happiness?”

Range refers to cre­at­ing edu­ca­tion envir­on­ments that equip learners to see the pro­ver­bi­al “big pic­ture”, and who are able to learn from oth­er dis­cip­lines, act­ively value diverse per­spect­ives, and con­sider that there are many ways to solve any problem. 

In essence, for an industry such as ours, the academy and edu­cat­ors will fail if we pay more atten­tion to pro­mot­ing our favoured the­or­et­ic­al solu­tions without first ensur­ing a thor­ough under­stand­ing of the ever-chan­ging prob­lems at hand. 

In line with this argu­ment, I would plead for tour­ism (man­age­ment) edu­ca­tion pro­grams to expand bey­ond their bounds of com­fort to embrace a mul­tidiscip­lin­ary and hol­ist­ic approach to under­stand­ing the eco­nom­ic, envir­on­ment­al, social, and phys­ic­al threats and oppor­tun­it­ies that tour­ism brings to space and place. 

To those already doing so, chapeau! [Well done!]

To ensure that travel & tour­ism thrives, we must instill in our future gen­er­a­tions the cap­ab­il­ity to mas­ter com­plex­ity and change. 

“To ensure that travel & tour­ism thrives, we must instill in our future gen­er­a­tions the cap­ab­il­ity to mas­ter com­plex­ity and change.” 

Cap­ab­il­ity in this instance refers not to spe­cial­ised know­ledge, but to the abil­ity to think reflect­ively and to ima­gine solu­tions for out­comes that have no exist­ing blueprint. 

Per­haps the fun­da­ment­al cap­ab­il­ity is ima­gin­a­tion; not fant­ast­ic uto­pi­an day­dream­ing, of course, but rather an ima­gin­a­tion that can com­bine empir­ic­al data and acquired know­ledge with new ideas and diverse per­spect­ives to innov­ate viable solu­tions and organ­ised plans of action in an ever-chan­ging environment. 

If we don’t address the lack of ima­gin­a­tion and cre­at­ive prob­lem solv­ing in travel & tour­ism edu­ca­tion, we run the risk of dis­mal failure. 

I per­son­ally see it as my fun­da­ment­al duty to the industry I love to ensure a well-defined bal­ance between deliv­er­ing the train­ing my stu­dents need to gain found­a­tion­al skills, while enabling them to become the pro­fes­sion­als we need who can work pro­act­ively with­in an envir­on­ment of com­plex­ity and change. 

In times of almost innu­mer­able new forms of access­ible learn­ing and know­ledge acquis­i­tion, the academy must think bey­ond the out­dated con­structs of “form­al” edu­ca­tion and rigid rubrics. 

As edu­cat­ors we need to walk the walk to be more dynam­ic and crit­ic­ally reflect­ive in our approaches, teach­ing strategies, and expec­ted outcomes. 

Let’s be hon­est: Edu­ca­tion that is dis­con­nec­ted from real­ity has little value. 

Fea­tured image (top of post): Mas­ters of com­plex­ity & change: What travel & tour­ism needs from the academy. Back­ground image by ger­alt (CC0) via Pixabay. Mor­tar board by Clk­er (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the author

Lauren Uğur is Pro­fess­or for Inter­na­tion­al Tour­ism Man­age­ment at the Heil­bronn Uni­ver­sity of Applied Sci­ences in Ger­many and co-founder of Know Your Tour­ist, an innov­a­tion and design agency. A self-described “pas­sion­ate edu­cat­or, con­sult­ant, and coach” and “lov­er of all things travel and tour­ism”, Lauren spe­cial­ises in innov­a­tion in tour­ism edu­ca­tion, des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment, and busi­ness development.