On the one hand I am definitely enjoying the
conference. I’ve certainly learned a lot,
particularly about ecotourism efforts here in Africa. If nothing else I have plenty of examples now
which I can use in my teaching. I always
feel as if I don’t know enough about tourism here in Africa, and since I teach
here I consider that a bit of a personal weakness. But being here has exposed me to a lot of
different industry approaches and ideas I haven’t seen before in the U.S.
However, on the other end of the spectrum I have
been looking at the research discussed here and think it leaves a lot to be
desired. If all the academic researchers
were from Africa I would be a little more understanding, but most of them are
from the U.S. Now, I should note there is only one conference attendee
from the Hospitality and Tourism Management field. But he’s not
presenting. All the academic presenters
are from Parks and Recreation departments.
Apparently the expectations are quite different between HTM and PR research,
because nothing that I’ve seen thus far would ever get published in an HTM
journal. The research I’ve seen here has
been a lot of participant observations and interviews, which is practically
impossible to get published in top tier tourism journals. And many of these
presentations don’t even address data collection or methodology, they are
conceptual, or opinion pieces. So, from
where I stand the rigor seems to really be missing.
The other thing about the research is that many of
these “studies” fail to provide managerial implications. That is something we always emphasize with
empirical research. I guess after ten
years of doing research if I don’t hear, “I found ABC which means hotel
managers/ tour operators/ restaurants/ etc. should do XYZ” then I can’t quite
comprehend the point of the study.
Yesterday I listened to an Associate Professor give a presentation on
how nature is amazing and the chameleon’s
ability to adapt and hide from predators is a miracle. The entire time I was sitting there thinking,
“So what? How does this help my bottom line if I am the Director of Tourism for
a destination?” Then again, maybe I have
tunnel-vision. But I frequently find
myself listening to these presentations, and thinking that the speaker is
preaching to the converted. If the
speaker really wanted to be helpful he would give people suggestions on how to
help other properties become more ecofriendly and sustainable. Sadly this topic has never been broached.
As I mentioned, there is one other HTM professor and
he is from Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
I visited HKPU when I was in China in April. That is the most amazing program I have ever
seen. The resources and faculty they
have are top notch and the research they do can’t be duplicated. I would consider them the absolute benchmark
in Hospitality and Tourism programs worldwide.
The reason I mention this is because the HKPU professor is here as an
observer, not a presenter. This leads me
to believe that perhaps HKPU is going to add an Ecotourism track, or at the
very least, some Ecotourism classes to their curriculum. I know for a fact this professor doesn’t do
Ecotourism research and he is an administrator, which is why I suspect
this. HKPU tends to come up with good
ideas and then other programs follow its lead, so I wonder if other hospitality
programs may start offering Ecotourism courses soon. I think doing so would certainly be
beneficial, but at the same time more HTM academics will need to start doing
rigorous Ecotourism research. Perhaps
the tides will start turning in that direction.
But either way, it will need to be approached from a different direction
instead of attempting to preach to the converted.
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