Forty years of tourism education and research

After 40 years of growth, tourism education can be found in the higher education repertoire of countries across with world. Indications of its progress can be seen in the development of popular courses that attract large numbers of students as well as in a range of research outputs in some good academic journals. However, progress in the past few years, especially since the 2008 economic crisis, has been less certain. Notably the context of higher education has changed and this has brought some problems for tourism. Increasingly it needs to justify its position in the academy, especially in terms of student recruitment, student quality, research outputs and income, and societal impacts. For many centres of tourism study this represents a challenge. This is creating uncertainty for the future.