The Role of ICT in Tourism Education: A Case Study of South African Secondary Schools

Tourism is a global major economic driver; developing and emerging countries are integrating it within the regular school curriculum, to foster social understanding and recognition of it, as well as to invite the youth to consider employment opportunities in the industry. The paper presents the case of South Africa, where Tourism has been introduced as a school subject in the 10-12 grades since 2000 and records huge uptake on the side of students and schools. The paper discusses how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) assists tourism teaching practices. The selected approach is through in-depth semi-structured interviews (n=24), which have unveiled that ICT by tourism teachers is recognized essential especially in poorly resourced schools for providing exposure to the tourism industry, however ICT integration is still limited. Major obstacles towards an extensive integration are: availability of technical resources, lack of training and confidence on the side of teachers, limited availability of labs space and time, as well as resistance on the side of learners to use their mobile phones, both for economic reasons (cost of data transfer), as well as for lack of skills.