ABSTRACT
Scholars concerned with epistemological enquiry and advancements of knowledge production in tourism (Coles et al., 2006; Tribe, 2006; Belhassen & Caton, 2009; Darbellay & Stock, 2012) differentiate between the phenomenological world of tourism, the world of knowledge production (i.e. the intellectual endeavours to comprehend tourism), and the world of tourism education or tourism as a subject matter. Belhassen and Caton (2009) conceptualize tourism education as an application of scholarship that represents particular dimensions of tourism knowledge progression. While acknowledging the usability of such a division, the metaphorical three worlds proposal offers a limited theoretical framework. Tourism education as a research object comprehends two other worlds: (1) its own phenomenological world, i.e. activities and relationships that take place in the real world (e.g. the social relations established among scholars and students, the ideological positions of those with managerial responsibilities, or the large and complex web of stakeholders of the institution where tourism education takes place); and (2) the epistemological world of tourism education as a field of intellectual production, this knowledge being different from the scholarly knowledge produced by studying the phenomenon of ‘tourism’, i.e. the tourism industry, tourists’ behaviour, etc. (e.g. research articles that aim to understand how virtual learning environments impact students’ learning abilities). The importance and specific identity of the epistemology of tourism education becomes apparent when looking at journals such as the Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education or at academic conferences and networks such as the Tourism Education Futures Initiative and
the Association for Tourism in Higher Education. These media and networks are arenas of knowledge production where academic ‘conversations’ (Belhassen & Caton, 2009) about tourism education’s ‘plural knowledgabilities’ (Hollinshead, 2013) take place. This Handbook is an example of such a world. It can also be argued that tourism education knowledge production finds its applicability both in the phenomenological world of tourism, for example through graduates applying their knowledge in their daily work, and in that of education, for example when researchers apply innovative methodological tools or design new courses. Tourism education is therefore a highly complex relational scientific object, similar to other postdisciplinary scientific objects with specific distinct qualities that cannot be comprehended by one or a few traditional disciplines (Darbellay & Stock, 2012).
