Sustainability Issues and Higher Education in Hospitality and Tourism: Stakeholders’ Perspectives

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to explore stakeholders’ perceptions on sustainability issues in the hospitality and tourism (H&T) sector, examine which sustainability issues should be suitably learned in the classroom, and which teaching activities must be introduced to enhance the learning of sustainability issues on the basis of the triple bottom line (TBL) concept. A self-administered survey was created and sent to H&T industry practitioners and educators and students in the H&T higher education program in Hong Kong. Results showed that the tourism sector was more desired than the hospitality sector on the sustainability issues of training and education and sustainable building. Moreover, stakeholders (industry practitioners over students) perceived that these sustainability issues (e.g., energy conservation) should be learned in the classroom. Lastly, stakeholders preferred the teaching activities of internship, experimental learning, and field trips to enhance the learning sustainability topics. This paper further discussed the curriculum development and educational implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability issues
• hospitality and tourism (H&T)
• triple bottom line (TBL)
• higher education
• teaching activities
• stakeholders

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10963758.2022.2123339.

Additional information

Funding

The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant [number BHM-2019-159(J)] from the College of Professional and Continuing Education, an affiliate of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.