Trends and Issues in Postgraduate Tourism Studies

Tourism

The pursuit of a postgraduate higher education in tourism studies, particularly for students
from developing nations, is largely achieved by studying in the countries of the developed
world. This has, therefore, created patterns of temporary migration to, and an international
marketplace for, higher education institutions in Europe, North America and Australasia
that have developed expertise in tourism studies. In this thread we are interested to
explore the implications of this phenomenon for the form, content and context of postgraduate
higher education in tourism. By the mid-1970s a small number of international postgraduate
students began arriving in the UK to study tourism. Thirty years later we estimate
that approximately 1000 postgraduate students are studying tourism in UK universities, the
majority of whom are from outside of the European Union. International students now
dominate postgraduate tourism studies at both levels and in all forms of postgraduate
study; taught qualifications up to Master’s level and research degrees leading to Master’s
and doctoral awards (Botterill & Platenkamp, 2004; Botterill, Haven, & Gale, 2002;
Lengkeek & Platenkamp, 2004).
This thread is in two parts. In the first part, we sketch out Dimensions and Profile and
in the second, we identify the major Trends and Issues in postgraduate tourism studies,
namely: growth and its consequences; status of the subject and the importance of tourism;
and internationalisation.

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Postgraduate Taught Master’s Awards
A consideration of the current dimensions and profile of postgraduate taught Master’s
awards in the subject should explore the origins of subject studies in tourism and reflect
the early disciplinary influences and the emergence of ‘sister’ subject areas such as leisure
and recreation and to a lesser extent hospitality. The development of tourism studies
occurred through the influences of a multidisciplinary set of social sciences. For example,
in the Netherlands at universities in Wageningen, Groningen, Amsterdam and Tilburg the
subject was particularly influenced by Geography, Economics, Sociology and in more
recent times, Cultural Anthropology. In the UK the study of tourism at postgraduate level
began in the late 1960s and early 1970s at different universities and in different academic
contexts. At the University of Edinburgh in the late 1960s tourism became a topic of interest
in Geography as a part of the growing interest in the leisure and recreational use of land
in the UK. This was further stimulated by academics and students at the University of Hull.
At the other end of the UK, De Kadt published his seminal work ‘Tourism: Passport to
Development’ from the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex and
opened the debates about tourism’s impacts on lesser-developed countries. At the
University of Birmingham’s Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, academics were
interested in the public policy implications for leisure and tourism of changes taking place
in the 1960s/early 1970s in UK national and local government structures, and at the
Polytechnic of Central London (now the University of Westminster) the sociological
analysis of leisure was extended to include tourism. Two of the earliest, dedicated postgraduate
courses in tourism were created in the early 1970s at the Universities of
Strathclyde and Surrey within departments concerned with hotel and catering management.
It is noteworthy that the emergence of tourism higher education at postgraduate level
began over 15 years before the establishment of the first named undergraduate degrees in
tourism in UK higher education institutions (HEIs) at Bournemouth, Northumbria and
South Glamorgan (Cardiff) Institute in 1986/1987. It was the subsequent growth in undergraduate
students of tourism, however, and the formation of academic departments to support
that provision that has enabled an increase in postgraduate provision.
The Western European tradition in leisure studies has largely followed a pattern across
the nation states of Europe. Initially the labouring class was the main focus for research,
from a political or cultural elitist point of view. The main aim in this research was to educate
the people for and about their leisure time and moral panics about antisocial behaviour
was a strong imperative. After the second world war, nation states embarked upon
modernist projects in leisure that were predicated on a belief in creating a better society.
This resulted in an increase in applied research and a serious interest in the planning
process of leisure time. Aligned with these ‘Welfarist’ notions about leisure an expansion
of higher education opened the academy to new subjects and enabled the introduction of
leisure and tourism studies into higher education in Western Europe. More recently there
has been a shift in emphasis away from issues of leisure as citizenship to embrace the questions
associated with leisure consumption.
In the US, postgraduate study of leisure and recreation and subsequently of tourism
emerged from a different mix of influences. The early 20th century concern for urban
‘rational’ recreation echoed the Western European tradition in leisure studies and combined
with the emergence of physical education led to the creation of university departments of
health, physical education and recreation (see, for example, Gitelson & Henkel, 1983 as
cited in Botterill & Brown, 1985). A number of landmarks occurred during the 1930s with
the development of a National Park management course at Colorado State College in 1934,
a recreation and municipal forestry programme at Michigan State College in 1935 and both

Tourism

undergraduate and graduate courses in recreation education at New York University in
1936. In the 1960s the study of tourism did have a small foothold under academic programmes
in travel at the Universities of Hawaii and Massachusetts. In Botterill and Brown’s
(1985) review of leisure studies in the USA there was little mention of the development of
a ‘tourism’ studies dimension. Tourism or travel, sometimes the preferred subject label, had
been taught since the late 1960s, usually as a stand alone or short series of optional modules,
but awards in the subject were few and far between. Pioneers in the subject became
influential figures beyond the borders of the USA through their publications. However, it
wasn’t until the early 1990s that many of the departments in which the teaching of tourism
occurred, and which were created in this health/natural resource/recreation nexus referred
to above, adopted the inclusion of tourism in their titles. (See, for example, Texas A&M
University’s Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism Sciences.)
Specific documentation about the development of postgraduate taught Master’s programmes
in tourism across the main providing countries is in short supply in the public
domain. It is likely that evidence exists in the numerous documents prepared by university
departments as a part of the various approval processes used in starting a new academic
programme but these are often regarded as university property and are not made available
publicly. In the following section we rely heavily on generalisations that come from our
own experiences of tourism postgraduate education in Western Europe and North America
to supplement a very sparse number of published studies.
Further to the early developments at Strathclyde and Surrey the UK demand for postgraduate
courses was stimulated in the late 1980s and early 1990s by the intervention of
state agencies concerned with high levels of graduate unemployment. Postgraduate
tourism study courses were perceived by government agencies as a route out of unemployment
for graduates. Funding support was generous and many UK students were drawn
to the study of tourism by the prospect of a subsidised postgraduate experience (this trend
continues in recent times but with the influence of EU structural funds). The shift from
domestic to overseas recruitment coincided with the withdrawal of UK government funding
for postgraduate study as graduate unemployment became less of a national issue. It
coincided with a fall in demand from ‘home’ students who began to accumulate significant
debts during their undergraduate studies. The prospect of more borrowing to fund further
study reduced the UK domestic demand for postgraduate study to a very small number of
(wealthy or frugal) self-funded full-time students and local, often employer-supported,
part-time students.
Postgraduate course provision in tourism really took off in the UK in the 1990s as a result
of the following conditions. The establishment of academic units or departments in the ‘new’
university sector operating free from central planning constraints, considerable investment
by those universities in the recruitment of academic staff to teach tourism and the development
of learning resources for the study of tourism all contributed to the infrastructure for an
argued ‘natural’ progression from undergraduate provision to include postgraduate courses
up to Master’s level. More recently, this progression has been further extended to include
research degrees at Master’s and Doctoral levels. For the reasons explained above, home student
demand for postgraduate courses was weakening, however, and universities sought a
new market place for their ‘products’. The importance given to tourism in many countries’
economic development plans was building across the developing world and UK universities

Tourism

found enthusiasm for the study of the phenomenon fuelled by individual career aspirations
of postgraduate students.
Determining the extent of postgraduate tourism higher education is difficult as the following
case of the UK illustrates. Airey (in press) estimates that in 1999 there were 48 postgraduate
programmes and 685 new student enrolments. In a study of the role of
sustainability in tourism postgraduate programmes, Flohr (2001) identifies 42 British universities
offering 81 postgraduate courses in tourism in the academic year 1999/2000. The
differences exposed here are compounded by the difficulties of collecting accurate statistics
about higher education tourism studies. The multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature
of the subject means that it sits uncomfortably with the subject classifications used by UK
central government higher education agencies and data extracted from these sources are
liable to under representation. On the other hand, studies that attempt to capture data at
source, i.e. programme level, are subject to reliability and validity inconsistency.
Since 1999 it can safely be assumed that student enrolments have grown but as we have
previously explained this growth predominantly comprises non-EU students. In this market,
the location of the university, particularly its proximity to major urban centres, the international
reputation of the department, and the university’s international recruitment effectiveness
become influential and the impact of these factors on the viability of programmes is
unknown. Anecdotal evidence suggests that several postgraduate programmes in tourism
identified by Flohr (2001) may have failed to recruit sufficient students because they could
not easily meet these factors and, consequentially, may have been terminated. As the number
of taught Master’s programmes in tourism has grown so has the range of award titles.
According to Flohr (2001) the most commonly used title is Tourism Management, accounting
for approximately 20% . She identifies a further 32 titles many of which combine the
words hospitality, tourism and leisure with management (20%), other awards incorporated the
word international (5%) and a smaller proportion linked tourism with a specialist discipline
or subject (e.g. Museums studies, Geography, Anthropology, Heritage). The titles convey several
characteristics of postgraduate taught course provision. First, they convey the academic
context or ‘home’ in which the programme is offered. Second, their diversity reflects the multidisciplinary
nature of postgraduate tourism studies and third, they evidence the competitiveness
of the market as universities attempt to carve out specialist ‘niche’ offerings.

Ph.D. Education
The earliest documented indication of doctoral output related to tourism occurred in the
post-war period in North America. Jafari and Aaser (1988) refer to single doctoral submissions
within geography for the years 1951, 1953, 1954, 1957 and 1958 before recording significant
growth in 1971 (8 submissions) to 15 submissions in 1986. Three further
contributions from the literature help to shape an understanding of doctoral studies relating
to tourism. Mayer-Arendt (2000) confirms a 1951 start-point for submissions and
plots the growth of interest in tourism geography in North American doctoral and Master’s
theses up to 1998. The growth of doctoral awards in British and Irish universities between
1990 and 1999 is reported by Botterill et al. (2002) and their analysis is updated in the
following paragraphs. A contribution that extends the Anglophone emphasis in our analysis
to include China is that of Bao (2002). In the article the author records a start for doctoral
submissions in China, 1989, and a slow growth in submissions over the decade of the 1990s,
peaking at seven submissions in 1999. The author comments on the enthusiasm for doctoral
level studies in tourism geography among potential students and the constraints of the limited
supervision available in Chinese universities for the study of tourism. The author concludes
that this may encourage many students to study overseas.

Tourism

In sketching out the dimensions and profile of Ph.D. education in tourism in the UK and
Ireland, we have followed the lead of Botterill et al. (2002) in searching the online Index
to Theses,  for relevant abstracts of Ph.D.s completed between 2000 and
2003 (using the same, salient keywords: ‘holiday’, ‘holidaymaker’, ‘holidays’, ‘tourism’,
‘tourist’, ‘tourists’, ‘travel’, ‘visitor’ and ‘visitors’), which generated a further 90 hits to
add to their original tally of 149. In doing so, we have extended their quantitative analysis
of completions by institution into the present decade, and undertaken our own qualitative
(cursory) analysis of topics, fieldwork locations and methods. Of course, this only relates
to Ph.D.s awarded by universities in the UK and Ireland, and does not necessarily reflect
the situation elsewhere in the world. We should mention the additional caveat that a significant
proportion of Ph.D. students may fail for a variety of reasons to complete their
studies, hence much work of potential interest and import is rendered invisible in an analysis
such as this (including that which is awarded the ‘lesser’ qualification of M.Phil.).
The first thing to note is the continued growth in Ph.D. completions related to tourism
beyond the year 2000. Having increased from 4 in 1990 to 22 in 1999, the number of completions
reached an unprecedented high of 34 in 2002, although it remains too early to
ascertain whether this upward trend can be sustained in 2003 (the data for this particular
calendar year being incomplete at the time of going to press). On closer inspection, Figure 1
suggests a cyclical pattern to this growth with the number of completions peaking and then
falling back slightly, roughly coinciding with previous Research Assessment Exercises
(RAEs) in 1992, 1997 and 2001. We might, therefore, infer that the prioritising of research
by HEIs in the mid to late stages of each RAE cycle was responsible for a greater number
of completions than might otherwise be expected, although this could also be down to other
factors (e.g. the availability of trained supervisors).
Moving on, of the 239 completions recorded since 1990, almost a quarter (22.6%) were
approved by the universities of Strathclyde and Surrey, with the University of Exeter running
a distant third (5.9%), followed by a cluster of institutions with upwards of 5, but no
more than 8, completions (between 2.1 and 3.3% of the total). Beyond that lay some 55
other institutions with a handful of, and more often than not a single, completion(s) to their
name. The dominance of Strathclyde and Surrey is therefore confirmed, although it should
be noted that their share has fallen marginally since 2000 and their productivity is rivalled
by emergent HEIs in this field such as Sheffield Hallam University and the University of
Nottingham. The presence of research units specialising in tourism within a number of
these universities is noted (e.g. Exeter’s Tourism Research Group and Sheffield Hallam’s
Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change), and is a lesson for those other institutions with
aspirations to be in the ‘top ten’ (Table 1).

[ by Tourism at 3-16-2009 22:22 edited ]

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3-16-2009 22:23

Figure 1: Ph.D. completions related to tourism, 1990–2003

[ by Tourism at 3-16-2009 22:23 edited ]

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3-16-2009 22:24

Table 1: Ph.D. completions related to tourism, by institution, 1990–2003.

[ by Tourism at 3-16-2009 22:24 edited ]

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In the analysis of Ph.D.s completed since 2000, two topics stand out as the most popular
by some distance: tourist behaviour, motivation and demand per se, and tourism impacts
(predominantly negative and oriented towards the socio-cultural domain, host–guest interaction
being a recurrent theme). Smaller concentrations were detected around tourism policy
and planning, sustainable tourism and destination marketing/tourist imagery, whilst it is
interesting to note that ‘new’ tourisms such as culture and adventure tourism featured more
than once, yet ecotourism was conspicuous by its absence; likewise urban and rural (peripheral)
areas outnumbered coastal and other purpose-built destinations (e.g. ski resorts, which
did not figure at all). Certain segments, notably ‘youth’ and ‘gay’, and issues, such as sex
tourism and tourism’s crisis tendencies (which is likely to become a popular topic in this
post-9/11 era), also attracted attention. In many respects these priorities are unsurprising,
given their currency, although some of the discernable gaps in knowledge may constitute
cause for concern (e.g. the dearth of work on postmature resorts). In addition, the research
reported in these theses was more positive than normative in nature, although the notion of
‘making tourism better’ still pervades research at Level ‘D’1 in the subject area. Where the
location of fieldwork was reported, the United Kingdom featured in a third of all studies
(thus corroborating the findings of Botterill et al., 2002, who problematised the presumption
of a stock of knowledge relating to tourism in the UK being constructed by its universities
in reporting a marginally lower return of 29%), the remainder consolidating for the
main part around clusters in north-west Europe, the (Eastern) Mediterranean Basin and less
economically developed countries such as Brazil, Sri Lanka and Uganda. It is worth noting
that, away from these various ‘pleasure peripheries’, a number of theses were dedicated to
one or more points of the so-called ‘Chinese Triangle’ of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan,
this being in all likelihood a product of China’s emergence onto the global (tourism) stage,
and the significant number of research degree students in British and Irish universities of
Confucian origin (cf. the later discussion of tourism education in the ‘international classroom’).
Finally, with regards to data collection and analysis, several studies reported using
two or more methods (usually one quantitative and one qualitative, and sometimes comprising
a phased approach where the results of one informed the design of the other, though
in no predominant order). Most stuck to a single method, however, notably questionnaires
and interviews (thus confirming the enduring legacy of positivist and hermeneutic epistemologies).
That said, the frequency with which these two, somewhat orthodox, methods
were cited in the abstracts may conspire to draw attention away from the arguably more
interesting studies located at the extremes of the ‘methodological continuum’, ranging from
those employing mathematical modelling and econometrics on the one hand to auto-ethnographic
narrative on the other. Pressingly, several abstracts made no mention of method,
perhaps suggesting that the ‘facts speak for themselves’. Correspondingly, though some
may have engaged with epistemological debates in the Social Sciences, few made this
explicit in the abstract with only the odd reference to the post-paradigmatic epistemologies
of constructivism and critical realism (echoing Botterill et al., 2002).

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Three clear trends emerge from the above section on dimensions and profile: growth of postgraduate
studies; status of the subject and the importance of tourism; and internationalisation.

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The extant literature, without exception, points to the steady growth of postgraduate tourism
studies in Anglophone regions of the developed world in the latter three decades of the 20th
century. For example, using the reported data of Airey (2005) and Flohr (2001) we calculate
that in the UK in 2005 the volume of taught Master’s students can be estimated at 850.
Additionally using a 4-year average of annual Ph.D. awards (26) and assuming a study
period of 4 years and a 70% completion rate then it is possible to estimate that there are also
approximately 135 concurrent doctoral candidates. Together these two cohorts of postgraduates
amount to close on 1000 students of tourism studies in the UK alone.
The pace of growth raises many questions for the tourism subject academy not least the
challenge of maintaining the quality and standards of the awards. Academic staff unfamiliar
with Master’s level work may find it difficult to ‘pitch’ their teaching, learning and
assessment approaches at the correct level. In most departments, teaching at the postgraduate
level has been achieved by staff who are themselves involved in professional development,
often in the form of a doctoral research programme. The UK tourism academy has
been through distinct phases of development with a gradual increase in individuals’ qualifications
at Master’s and doctoral levels (Stuart-Hoyle, 2003). Consequentially the
demand for postgraduate study threatened, on occasions, to outstrip the supply of qualified
staff and this may have had a detrimental impact upon standards particularly as deregulation
of the UK higher education sector in the late 1980s sought to release institutions from
central control and encouraged greater entrepreneurial activity. A shortage of experienced
postgraduate examiners in the subject has also stretched the capacity of the tourism academy
to respond to the growth in provision.
Responsibility for quality assurance for postgraduate taught awards in the UK rests primarily,
and almost exclusively, at institutional level. Quality Assurance Agency (QAA)
benchmark statements developed at the undergraduate level have not been extended to
incorporate postgraduate awards. Equivalence of standards of award across the sector are
highly dependent, therefore, on a self-critical ethos within the tourism academy. To date
there have been few attempts to co-ordinate professional development in postgraduate
level education in the subject. Organisations such as the Higher Education Academy
Subject Network for Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism have tended, thus far, to focus
upon undergraduate learning, teaching and assessment and the UK subject association
(ATHE) is insufficiently resourced to tackle this matter.
The position in research degrees has some parallels. Experience of supervision of doctoral
studies is slow to accumulate given the average period of four years of study.
International student demand for Ph.D. study is strong but is mediated by the ‘high’ costs
(currently around £25,000 in fees alone) and for home students, demand is weaker and further
constrained by the paucity of scholarship funding. Nevertheless current demands are
placing strains on institutions’ capacities to provide experienced supervision. Quality assurance
for doctoral degrees is also located at the level of the awarding institution, although in
the UK there is an increasing emphasis on asserting national standards around research
degree programmes. This is largely due to increasing accountability placed upon the use of
public funding to support some categories of research student. This has led the QAA, the
body contracted by the four higher education funding councils of the UK to oversee quality
in universities, to develop a code of practice for postgraduate research programmes
against which institutions will be audited. The code covers all aspects of research degree
work: the research environment; selection, admission and induction of students; supervision;
progress and review arrangements; development of research and other skills; assessment
and feedback; student representation, complaints and appeals. Although inspired by
the audit culture surrounding public funding, the code will apply to all research degree work
in UK higher education and all doctoral students of tourism will, therefore, be affected.
There would, therefore, appear to be stronger safeguards for standards of postgraduate
research awards than for taught awards, however there are some questions about the relevance
of the code for ‘typical’ postgraduate research students of tourism. For example, a
recent intervention in research programmes, and part of the QAA code, is to place an
increased emphasis on generic research training and skill development, although such training
is variable and largely dependent on institutional delivery. There is some concern that a
centrally driven code of practice is predicated upon a particular ‘model’ of postgraduate student;
typified as a young, recent graduate of a UK university of high academic standing in
receipt of UK Research Council funding. Few postgraduate research students of tourism fit
with this model (see, for example, Baum 1998 on mature doctoral candidates in hospitality
studies). Consequentially, centrally inspired research training programmes may be inappropriate
for the international, mature and professionally experienced candidates that dominate
doctoral studies of tourism. Opportunities to facilitate more relevant, inter-institutional collaboration
in tourism studies research training have been very limited to date.
At a time when increased attention is being given to the quality of research degree provision
in UK universities, the doctoral level qualification is being opened to new routes and
awards. The Ph.D. by publication route has become standard in most universities’ award
listings, remote learning or distance modes for Ph.D.’s by research are becoming more
popular, and the numbers of subject specific ‘new’ or ‘professional’ doctorate awards are
increasing. The impact of these new routes to a doctoral award relating to tourism studies
has still to be assessed.