Hospitality and Tourism Education in China

Development, Issues, and Challenges

Jigang Bao, Songshan (Sam) Huang, Jigang Bao, Songshan (Sam) Huang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000535112
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

This book is the first to systematically introduce China's tourism education system and the various tourism education practices in China to the international audience and stakeholders. China has the world's largest tourism education system, which consists of over 1, 000 higher learning institutions with tourism-related programs and over half a million of tertiary-level students studying in these programs. Despite the industry scale, internationally, little is known about this tourism education system and how it operates. Knowledge and better understanding of China's tourism education system are important as tourism becomes one of the critical forces transforming economy, society and environment.

The book offers an historical evaluation of China tourism education development and elaborates on the current industry status and practices in different subject fields of China's tourism education, including tourism management, hospitality management, events and festival management in higher education, tourism vocational education, tour guides training and certification, master of tourism administration (MTA) education as a unique education model in China, PhD education in tourism, tourism curriculum, research and international collaboration in tourism education in China.

The book provides relevant knowledge to international tourism education providers, industry practitioners, human resource managers, government officials, and tourism academics, researchers, and students.

1Hospitality and tourism education in ChinaAn overview

Jigang Bao and Songshan (Sam) Huang

DOI: 10.4324/9781003004363-1

Introduction

The scale of the global tourism industry suffices to justify the importance of higher education in hospitality and tourism. According to World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC, n.d.), in 2019, the travel and tourism sector created 10.4% of the global GDP with 334 million jobs. Every 1 in 10 jobs were in the travel and tourism sector in 2019, and during 2014–2019, a quarter of the new jobs in the world were created in the travel and tourism sector (WTTC, n.d.). The last 40 or so years have witnessed a significant growth of the hospitality and tourism education globally (Airey, 2015; Airey, Tribe, Benckendorff, & Xiao, 2015), corresponding to the remarkable growth of the relevant industry sectors.

In the tourism field, academic attention has been paid to the development and issues of hospitality and tourism education worldwide. Three dedicated journals, namely Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education, Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism, and Journal of hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, have been in place for more than two decades to publish research in relation to hospitality and tourism education. According to Hsu, Xiao, and Chen (2017), these three journals, together with 10 other mainstream hospitality and tourism journals, published a total of 644 articles pertaining to various issues of hospitality and tourism education in the period 2005–2014. Overall, topics under research covered issues of teaching and learning, student development, curriculum and program, education environment, and faculty development. A number of edited volumes, including Airey and Tribe (2005), Benckendorff and Zehrer (2017), Dredge, Airey, and Gross (2015), Hsu (2005), Liu and Schänzel (2019), and Sheldon and Hsu (2015) added to intensive discussions and debates on the issues of hospitality and tourism education worldwide.

Internationally, hospitality and tourism education is believed to have appeared in some European countries in the 1960s while earlier tourism programs could be traced to the University of Rome dating from 1925 (Airey, 2019; Medlik, 1965). With the growth of tourism industry, tourism education experienced phenomenal growth as well, especially after the turn of the century (Airey et al., 2015).

At the global level, it is worthwhile to recapitulate some of the macro-issues discussed in the literature. First of all, hospitality and tourism education has been operating in a neoliberal institutional environment characterised by managerialism, performativity, market competition, quality assurance and accreditation, and increasing metrification (Ayikoru, Tribe, & Airey, 2009) and privatisation (Hobson, 2010). Second, although hospitality and tourism education started with the vocational needs from the industry sector, in the curriculum space, especially that in higher education, the literature is fraught with debates and arguments to balance a vocational pedagogy with a liberal arts pedagogy (c.f., Dredge, Benckendorff, Day, Gross, Walo, Weeks, & Whitelaw, 2012; Sheldon, Fesenmaier, & Tribe, 2011; Tribe, 2002). Along this stream, of particular note is the Tourism Education Futures Initiative (TEFI), which advocates five clusters of values in tourism education, including stewardship, ethics, knowledge, mutuality, and professionalism (Sheldon et al., 2011; Sheldon, Fesenmaier, Woeber, Cooper, & Antonioli, 2008). Third, internationalisation of tourism education is one of the megatrends (Hobson, 2010; Hsu, 2017). This is especially evident in the higher education system in Western developed countries. For instance, in Australia, universities offering programs in hospitality and tourism rely heavily on international students for the sustaining development and survival of these programs.

Since the turn of the century, China has emerged as one of the most important tourist-origin and destination countries. In 2019, China contributed USD 255 billion or one-fifth of international tourism spending as the top tourism spending country in the world. At the same time, China was ranked No. 4 worldwide receiving 66 million tourist arrivals in 2019 (UNWTO, 2021). With the demand of labour and talents from the rapid industry development, tourism education in China has experienced substantial development. In 2016, there were 1,690 higher education institutions and 924 vocational schools offering hospitality and tourism programs in China. These institutions and schools enrolled about 440,405 tertiary-level students and 232,029 vocational school students, respectively. Such a scale of hospitality and tourism education makes China a large hospitality and tourism education provider in the world.

Despite the scale of China’s tourism industry and its tourism education system, studies of hospitality and tourism education in China in the English academic literature (e.g., Gu, Kavanaugh, & Cong, 2007; Gu & Hobson, 2008; Lam & Xiao, 2000; Li & Li, 2013; Wen, Li, & Kwon, 2019; Xiao, 2000; Yin & Meng, 2018; Zhang & Fan, 2005; Zhang, Lam, & Bauer, 2001; Zins & Jang, 2019) seem to have only presented a fragmented and incomplete understanding of China’s rather unique and complicated hospitality and tourism education system. As China has its own social and political institutions which define the education system, the hospitality and tourism education system in China demonstrates distinctive features and historical development tracks. There is thus a need to examine China’s hospitality and tourism education as a whole in a systemic and holistic way. Such an examination is believed to contribute to the international tourism education scholarship. On one hand, China is still a significant international student market for international tourism education. Understanding the hospitality and tourism education provisions inside China can give international education providers better contextual knowledge to understand Chinese students’ learning needs and cultural idiosyncrasies against China’s education background. On the other hand, it is likely China’s hospitality and tourism education will become more internationalised and international education providers will need to seek more innovative collaboration models with their Chinese counterparts. A systemic examination and understanding of China’s hospitality and tourism education can prepare all stakeholders to make better informed strategic moves in the future, given the uncertainties created by the current COVID-19 pandemic.

As such, the current book is intended to give a more holistic and systemic examination of China’s hospitality education system. Chapters in this volume present facts about the hospitality and tourism educations in China and provide discussions on the problems and issues facing different subsectors in this education system.

This chapter serves as the introductory chapter for the whole book. In this chapter, we provide an overview of China’s hospitality and tourism education. The next section reviews the historical development the hospitality and tourism education in China. We then discuss the current state of China’s hospitality and tourism education followed by discussions of some development problems and issues before we conclude this chapter.

Historical development of China's hospitality and tourism education

Substantial development to a modern tourism industry in China started in 1978, when China was in a start-up stage for its reform and opening up. By the time, a pressing problem in China’s national economy is the shortage of foreign exchange. Tourism is regarded as a means that can bring the much needed foreign exchange in the country’s economic development (Xiao, 2006). To meet the need of earning foreign exchange in the nation’s economic development, inbound tourism was prioritised in the early stage of tourism development. With the industry development came the need of personnel and service staff in the industry; thus China’s hospitality and tourism education started to grow corresponding to the practical industry needs for qualified labour and workers. In 1979, Shanghai Tourism College was established, marking the beginning of China’s higher education in hospitality and tourism (Lam & Xiao, 2000). Since then, a few milestones were realised in the development of China’s tourism education. In 1990, the first master’s degree program in tourism economics was established in Zhejiang University. In 2000, The School of Management of Sun Yat-sen University started the first PhD program in tourism management, marking the beginning of China’s doctoral education in tourism. In 2010, the Academic Degree Committee of the State Council approved the set-up of Master of Tourism Management (MTA) programs in China’s university system (Bao, Zhu, & Xin, 201...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Preface
• 1 Hospitality and tourism education in China: an overview
• 2 Tourism management undergraduate programs
• 3 China’s higher education in hospitality management
• 4 Event management education in China
• 5 Tourism vocational education
• 6 Tour guiding education, training and administration
• 7 Master of tourism administration education
• 8 Tourism PhD programs in China
• 9 Curriculum settings and comparisons
• 10 International collaboration in tourism higher education
• 11 Tourism research in China
• 12 Critical issues, challenges, and future prospects
• Index