LESSONS LEARNT FROM A CASE STUDY OF ITH SALZBURG PAPER: KERSTIN FREUDENTHALER & ANJA HERGESELL PRESENTER: TINA TILLER ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: CHRISTIAN BAUMGARTNER & MARGIT LEUTHOLD Identifying Critical Issues in Designing Educational Tourism Programs for Sustainable Development

Introduction Education -> development Tourism -> development Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management (ITH) Salzburg:  Tourism education for students from developing countries  Financed by Austrian Development Agency (ADA) Basis of case study: evaluation of ITH by a team of external experts Methods: focus group with ITH staff, qualitative expert interviews, quantitative web-based alumni survey, case studies with alumni Goal: identifying critical aspects to be considered for future projects Tourism education for (sustainable) development

Tourism and Development Beneficial AND detrimental aspects of tourism Tendency: from unquestioned enthusiasm to understanding tourism as a potential catalyst for development which entails benefits and costs (Sharpley, 2009) Paradigm shift from economic neoliberalism to alternative development / sustainable development Definitions of development vary; understanding of development guided by changing ideologies and interests Sustainable tourism as a development tool? -> in practice often not critically questioned

Education and Development (1) UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948) -> basis for education‘s place in society Education as a means to contribute to development: today largely unquestioned Various strands in thinking (Cornwell, 2004):  Neoclassical view  Reformist view  Radical view

Education and Development (ctd.) Neoclassical view:  Education helps countries modernize; invest in people as in infrastructure to increase productive capacity of human capital; education reduces inequalities Reformists view:  Positive correlation between education and economic prosperity; less expensive and more relevant education; education must be linked to planning Radicals:  Equity cannot be attained by provision of new educational programs; one has to look at the structure of social and economic relationships within societies; application of western educational models increases dependency -> participation, empowerment, conscientisation All of them are critiqued for various reasons!

Critical Factors Identified (1) Goal setting  Conflicting stakeholder goals (ADA, ITH faculty/staff, students, political institutions in developing countries, students‘ employers, etc.) Target groups  Directly linked to goal setting; case of ITH: targeting „multipliers“; challenge: reaching the identified target groups Location  Choice of location interacts with other program design decisions; advantages of program location (Salzburg): tourism expertise on the spot (businesses/knowledge), better reputation, improving mutual cultural understanding; disadvantages: financial and time requirements limit number of participants, visa problems

Critical Factors Identified (ctd.) Degree  Determined by identified target groups; reason for diploma degree: requiring A-level would restrict number of participants; offering BA- program would increase brain drain Program contents  should reflect requirements of tourism industry in home countries; alumni generally consider program (very) important for their professional career but criticize limited applicability in development context; issues: gender equality + holistic integration of sustainability Monitoring  Evaluation of ITH program: isolated measure; ideally: monitoring & evaluation part of project planning -> established baseline criteria to compare longitudinal data

Overview of Critical Issues Issue / AreaRelevant Questions based on Case Study Goal settingHow can individual, tourism and developmental aims be pursued in combination? How can conflicting stakeholder goals be negotiated and managed? Target groupsWhich target groups should be addressed? How can they be reached? Which obstacles inhibit participation of designated target groups – how can they be overcome? LocationAdvantages/Disadvantes of offering the program at the students‘ home countries or donor countries at each stage of development? Which program options (e.g. distance learning) are available? DegreeWhich prerequisites should the applicants fulfill? Which degree is most appropriate in view of the identified aims? Program contents How can a values based education and professional skills training be combined? How can context specifics be incorporated? How can sustainablity be applied holistically? How should programs be designed to encourage capacity dissemination? MonitoringWhich criteria should be measured? How can a meaningful (continuous and practicable) monitoring and evaluation take place?

Discussion & Conclusion Case study illustrates some of the critical issues increasingly discussed Case study offers limited, case-specific insights -> analyses of further cases would be interesting Education certainly an important factor in contributing to development -> only a comprehensive and continuous monitoring and evaluation framework is able to provide specific data on critical issues and will allow cross-case comparability