ABSTRACT
Students entering the uncertain world of the future and, in particular, the vulnerable tourism sector, need different skills, aptitudes and knowledge to succeed; and to achieve this goal, educational systems need radical change (Wallis & Steptoe, 2006). A fundamental re-tool and redesign is necessary. No incremental change, but rather change in the nature of what is taught and how it is taught. Skills and knowledge sets must be redefined, structures and assumptions need to be questioned, and the old ways of doing things must be replaced with a programme that actually enables our children to be prepared for a century of challenges. In tourism, employment in the coming decades must have a very different profile than it does today. In 2020 students will be applying for jobs that do not even exist today, and much of what we teach our students is obsolete by the time they graduate. These pressures and the increasing need for responsible stewardship of tourism destinations call out for a new paradigm of valuesbased tourism education. This chapter will describe the work of the Tourism Education Futures Initiative (TEFI) community. In particular, examples of how the TEFI values have been incorporated into tourism curricula will be described.
