Australian tourism education: the quest for status

Abstract

An appraisal of Australian tourism education is undertaken by pursuing its historical development and the key issues of teaching locations, generic skills and graduate attributes, educator competence, human resource planning and how to assess performance. It is argued that Australia, when considered as a case study in the global context of higher tourism education, occupies a distinctive and relatively successful niche. The distinctiveness derives from both its late entry into the field and the status-oriented context in which it has grown. The success is characterised by a strong research-education nexus and the consolidation rather than loss of the degree offerings over time.