Re-purposing tourism: engaging our radical in tourism education

Abstract

TEFI 11 was hosted in June 2020 inviting delegates to reflect on the theme Repurposing tourism: Engaging our radical in tourism education. With seven decades of growth in international tourist arrivals leading up to COVID-19, scholars and practitioners have been tasked with confronting the inimical and urgent concerns regarding the economic, social, cultural, and environmental impacts generated by the industry (Boluk et al., 2019; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018). Specifically, the issues of overtourism, the climate crisis, the availability and quality of tourism work, the capacity of communities to accommodate tourism, and the ability of the natural environment to regenerate have mutually attracted media, public attention, and the scholarly literature (e.g., Carnicelli & Boluk, 2022, 2020; Lundmark et al., 2021). Such discussions highlight the unsustainable nature of the current industrial models of tourism necessitating reflection and action (Dredge, 2017; Sheldon et al., 2017). In addition to sustainability concerns, political activism in support of Black Lives Matter and the wider racialized voices matter movements, precipitating the death of George Floyd, necessitates we urgently challenge the operation of tourism which has been a vehicle for oppression towards minority and marginalized groups (Carnicelli & Boluk, 2020; Higgins-Desbiolles et al., 2019), supporting systemic racism. We must determine how we can change this. While the mainstream and scholarly literature has proposed the onset of COVID19 and subsequent halt in tourism presents us with the opportunity to revision and repurpose tourism (e.g., Everingham & Chassagne, 2020), re-envisioning a sector requires identifying our purpose and being radical in the way we teach and practice tourism. With this in mind and in support of the Tourism Education Futures Initiative’s (TEFI) ambition to move beyond business as usual and using value-oriented teaching as our vehicle (see Edelheim et al., forthcoming), our call for papers sought to radically challenge and debate the purpose of tourism and tourism education. This Special Issue is inspired by the TEFI11 virtual conference on the same theme, hosted by York St John University in June 2020. Given the