The Way Forward for Education and Training in Hospitality and Tourism

The study of hospitality and tourism are intertwined. Ultimately, the study of tourism is concerned with relationships between guest and hosts, and the study of hospitality engages with the receiving of strangers. The paper argues that this insight needs to be more widely accepted by both tourism and hospitality academic communities. Fundamental to both fields is the need to develop critical perspectives to better inform research as well as teaching and learning. Both hospitality and tourism have industrial applications producing programs chiefly concerned with management, and much research as well as teaching, is principally focused on the study for hospitality and tourism management. In addition, both also engage in studies of their respective fields. The study of focus invites critical thinking both of applied management practice but also of wider social science insights into the process involved in acts of hospitality and tourism. It is through this study of focus that the paper argues that both hospitality and tourism studies are principally concerned with relationships between hosts and guests at micro personal and domestic levels, and at macro locality, regional and national levels. Hence there is a need for both sets of academics to engage more actively the emerging literature concerned with hospitality and acts of hospitableness.